Monday, August 16, 2010
This is more than a symbolic act. It runs contrary to a 60 year effort by the LDP and the US to remilitarize Japan. Kan's apology will prove impossible to reverse, and presents the prospect of closer cooperation between Japan, China, North Korea and South Korea. Hence, the ability of the US to manipulate tensions between them will be accordingly reduced. Not eliminated, but reduced. Kan may well be remembered for closing a lengthy chapter in the US/Japan relationship that was formally acknowledged on June 19, 1960. Future historians may also associate Kan's act with the fraying of the economic bonds between the two countries.Japan's new liberal prime minister shunned a visit to a shrine that has outraged Asian neighbors for honoring war criminals, breaking from past governments' tradition and instead apologizing Sunday for the suffering World War II caused.
Members of the now-opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan nearly continuously since the end of the war, made a point by carrying out their own trip to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The Shinto shrine — a spectacular building with sweeping roofs and a museum in its grounds that glorifies kamikaze pilots — has set off controversy by honoring the 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister who was executed in 1948.
Among those who visited Yasukuni was LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. About 40 legislators went to the shrine, but none from Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet, according to Japanese media reports.
Kan leads the Democratic Party, which took power last year after winning elections on promises of greater transparency and grass-roots democracy. It is the first time since the end of World War II that the entire Japanese Cabinet has avoided visiting Yasukuni on Aug. 15, the day Japan surrendered in the war.
We caused great damage and suffering to many nations during the war, especially to the people of Asia, Kan told a crowd of about 6,000 at an annual memorial service for the war dead at Budokan hall in Tokyo.
We feel a deep regret, and we offer our sincere feelings of condolence to those who suffered and their families, he said. We renew our promise to never wage war, and we promise to do our utmost to achieve eternal world peace and to never repeat again the mistake of war.
Labels: American Empire, China, Japan, Korea
