TOKYO — Emperor Akihito expressed rare “deep remorse” over his country’s wartime actions in an address Saturday marking the 70th anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender. It came a day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said future generations shouldn’t have to keep apologizing for a war so long ago.
Saturday’s ceremony started with a moment of silence at noon to mark the radio announcement by Emperor Hirohito, Akihito’s father, of Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.
“Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse over the last war, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated,” Akihito said in his speech. Japanese media said it was the first time he had used the words “deep remorse” in reference to the war in his annual war-end anniversary speech.
A day earlier, Abe said it’s time for the apologies to end.
“Seventy years have passed after the end of the war. We should not leave our future generations, who have nothing to do with the war, caught up in a situation where you need to keep apologizing,” Abe said at the news conference.
On Saturday, Abe stayed away from a contentious Yasukuni shrine that honors war criminals among other war dead. He instead prayed and laid flowers at a nearby national cemetery for unnamed fallen soldiers ahead of the annual ceremony at Tokyo’s Budokan hall.
Akihito emphasized that Japan’s peace and prosperity stand on “the people’s tireless endeavors and their earnest desire for peace,” and renewed his war-renouncing pledge.
Even though they are subtle and still rather neutral, remarks by the emperor on Japan’s wartime past in recent years have caught attention, often portrayed in the media to contrast Abe’s nationalist and hawkish image, especially as he pushes to give Japan’s military an expanded role and change Japan’s pacifist constitution.
Abe, who also spoke at the memorial service, avoided any reference to the damage caused by Japan’s aggression for the third year in a row since he took office in December 2012.
Instead, as if talking to the spirits of the war dead, Abe thanked them for the sacrifice on which he said Japan’s peace and prosperity are built.
Abe did promise, however, to “face the past” and “never to repeat the calamity of the war.”
On Friday, Abe issued a closely monitored statement, acknowledging damage and suffering on innocent people but falling short of apologizing in his own words to the victims of Japan’s aggression.
His statement had been widely anticipated because of his past remarks on historical issues that suggested a revisionist stance. He has repeatedly said there is no clear definition of aggression, and has denied that Japan’s wartime government coerced foreign women to become military prostitutes, citing lack of documentary evidence.
Abe’s choice of words Friday was apparently aimed at calming critics in Japan because the closely observed text included four phrases used in earlier war apology statements: “heartfelt apology” and “deep remorse,” “colonial rule” and “aggression.”
With his support rate plummeting to below 40 percent for the first time since he returned as prime minister in December 2012, a Jiji Press poll has found, Abe was apparently trying to avoid rattling the administration with further political and diplomatic rows.
“We must never again repeat the devastation of war. Incident, aggression, war — we shall never again resort to any form of threat or use of the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” the statement said.
“We shall abandon colonial rule forever and respect the right of self-determination of all peoples throughout the world.”
He also said, “Upon the innocent people did our country inflict immeasurable damage and suffering… . I myself find speechless and my heart rent with the utmost grief. How much emotional struggle must have existed and what great efforts must have been necessary for the Chinese people who underwent all the sufferings of the war and for the former POWs who experienced unbearable sufferings caused by the Japanese military in order for them to be so tolerant nevertheless?”
Abe appeared to be aiming to overturn — or at least dilute — his reputation as a potentially dangerous leader who might challenge the postwar order.
“We will engrave in our hearts the past, when Japan ended up becoming a challenger to the international order,” he said.
Friday’s statement drew mixed reactions from overseas — including criticism from China and South Korea, and praise from the United States. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the statement “left a lot to be desired,” and China called it evasive.
A poll in August found Abe’s approval rate fall 0.4 percentage points from the previous month to 39.7 percent, while his disapproval rating rose 1.4 points to 40.9 percent.
During a news conference that coincided with the release of the statement, Abe expressed a wish to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“If there’s a chance, I want to take advantage of it,” he said. “My door is always open for dialogue,” he added.
Abe initially indicated he was disinclined to repeat the four phrases voiced by past Prime Ministers Tomiichi Murayama and Junichiro Koizumi in statements issued on the 50th and 60th anniversaries respectively. Many right-leaning politicians are reluctant to describe Japan’s advance into China in the 1930s and ’40s as “aggression.”
They maintain there was no clear definition of “aggression” under international law at that time, and that Japan should not be singled out for condemnation since many Western powers had earlier invaded and colonized nations without drawing the same level of criticism. On Jan. 25, weeks after his party won a landslide victory in a Lower House election, Abe told NHK that he did not want to issue a statement that would spark “microscopic debates” over which phrases should and should not be included.
He also maintained that the statement, issued on the eve of Saturday’s anniversary of the end of the war, should be “future-oriented.”
Those remarks were widely seen as meaning Abe was reluctant to repeat the words of Murayama and Koizumi — and it caused a stir both at home and abroad.
In April last year, Abe told a Diet session that what is described as aggression “can be viewed differently” depending on which side the observer is on. Criticism followed, and Abe later said he upholds the Murayama statement “as a whole.”
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