“This record stands as a model for nations everywhere”.
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Pyongyang criticised Abe for “running the whole gamut of gimmick to bury the unprecedented hair-raising crimes into the oblivion of history”.
“Seventy years have passed since the end of the war, and our country today enjoys peace and prosperity, thanks to the ceaseless efforts made by the people of Japan toward recovery from the devastation of the war and toward development, always backed by their earnest desire for the continuation of peace”, he continued during in Tokyo. “It fails to firm up if not serving to further undercut the credibility the Abe government needs to put Japan’s interaction with its neighbors back on track”. “It, instead, should choose to ease military tensions and rebuild trust between the two Koreas”.
Another U.S. official downplayed the lack of Abe’s own apology in his recent statement calling on people concerned to highlight forward-looking sides of the statement and try to improve strained ties between Japan and China as well as Japan and South Korea based on the statement.
The president said Abe’s much-anticipated statement on Friday had left “much to be desired” though she refrained from any specific critique. As for the Russo-Japanese war, the belligerent countries were Russian Federation and Japan, but the war was fought in China. “The Republic of China government believes in the Japanese government’s willingness to reflect on its mistakes, but as a friend, we hope Japan will do more and do better in this regard”, Massachusetts said.
But that doesn’t mean that Abe’s reflections on the legacy of World War II can’t spur constructive debate on how changes in East Asia require all actors in the region – Japan, the United States, China and South Korea – to find a way of addressing challenges together.
“It is not surprising that second- and third-generation (Japanese) don’t feel obliged to apologise”, he added, pointing to the country’s post-war pacifism and multi-billion-dollar foreign aid programmes.
Japan colonised parts of China in the thirties and the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
“I am very angry because Japan does not want to close this chapter”.
Toshihiro Nikai’s comment comes after Japanese media reported this week that Abe was considering a visit to China on or around September 3, when Beijing commemorates the end of World War Two.
Abe on Friday said Japan should “never forget that there were women behind the battlefields whose honor and dignity were severely injured”.
In the statement, he also made an apparent reference to foreign wartime prostitutes for the Japanese army, though he avoided the question of whether the so-called “comfort women” were forced into the work, a hotly disputed issue with South Korea.
“Since November previous year when Xi Jinping and Abe met for the summit, although there is continuing geostrategic rivalry between China and Japan, both leaders try to stabilize the situation for their domestic political and economic reasons”, he told a seminar on Japan-South Korea relations after Abe’s statement, held at the Heritage Foundation.
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“History is harsh”, he said.
