Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Tokyo on August 14, 2015.
 

After Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II on Aug. 14, many in the international community expressed disappointment over the prime minister’s failure to adequately address the country’s wartime atrocities.

Two hours after Abe’s address, it was criticized by former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who had previously earned praise for his solemn reflections on Japan’s past aggression and colonial rule on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war’s end.
 

Murayama said the rhetoric of Abe’s statement was pointless and had no focus. He said Abe neglected to offer a frank and direct apology for Japan’s war crimes. Inside and outside of Japan, there is a common feeling that the statement lacked sincerity .

Katsuya Okada, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, said that although Abe used such expressions as “aggression,” “colonial rule,” “reflection” and “apology,” he spoke in vague, general terms without explicitly identifying Japan as the subject.

Okada’s sentiments were echoed by Tadatomo Yoshida, head of Japan’s Social Democratic Party, who said that Abe’s “apologetic” expressions amount to backpedaling from the “Murayama Statement.”
In South Korea, mainstream media were likewise outraged by Abe’s speech. Yonhap News Agency expressed its anger over the prime minister’s remarks that “Japan has repeatedly expressed the feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for its actions during the war,” criticizing Abe for not apologizing with his own words.

“The Abe's statement is self-contradictory,” said Jiang Ruiping, vice-president of China Foreign Affairs University.
 

On one hand, Abe promised that he would uphold the stance of previous cabinets, which accepted responsibility for aggression and made due apologies. On the other hand, the prime minister also said “future generations must not be expected to keep apologizing.”
 

Although Abe acknowledged in his speech that Japan brought immeasurable losses and pain to innocent people, he did not explicitly admit that Japanese militarists waged aggressive wars and made no direct apology to people of victimized countries, including the Chinese people, Jiang said. “The apology in the Abe's statement is rather unclear and not thorough.”
 

Abe hesitated for a long time before committing to making a statement, said Li Wei, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Similarly, it also took a long time for the Cabinet to vote on the decision to deliver the statement. It can thus be seen that Abe’s  statement is a result of pressure from international public opinion as well as weighing and balancing of various interests and factors, Li said.

Abe’s entire statement is a hypocritical word game, said Wang Shan, a research fellow from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, adding that this is the style Abe has been following since returning to power two years ago.

Wang pointed out that many remarks in Abe’s statement are consistent with historical views held by Japanese conservatives. For instance, Abe claimed that “the Russo-Japanese War inspired numerous Asian and African people under colonial rule.”
 

“This is quite ridiculous,” Wang said. The Russo-Japanese War was an imperialist war staged by Japan and Czarist Russia to scramble for China’s northeast and its neighbor North Korea, he said, arguing that it had nothing to do with national emancipation.
 

From the perspective of Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at CASS, the Abe’s statement is more like a public relations ploy of the Japanese government.
 

In his statement, Abe extended his thanks to other countries for accepting Japan’s return to the international community and especially to the Chinese people for tolerantly fostering 3,000 Japanese orphans. He promised that Japan will seek to resolve international disputes by peaceful and diplomatic means, and never challenge the international order.
 

However, the day after the speech, the prime minister, in the name of the president of the Liberal Democratic Party, sent a cash offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class A war criminals, and reiterated that his gratitude for the dead and feelings about the Yasukuni Shrine remain unchanged.
 

The same day, at a national memorial ceremony for the war dead, Abe made a simple remark that “Japan will never replay the tragedy of war” without mentioning the country’s responsibility for inflicting losses on Asian countries in the war.
 

“Abe’s contradictory words and deeds within only two days are a testament to his wrong historical view,” Wang said. Historical issues form the political base of the China-Japan relationship. If they are left unsettled, it is hard to ensure healthy and steady development of the ties between China and Japan, Wang added. 

 

 

 

Mao Li is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.