ABSTRACT
When Abe Shinzô became prime minister of Japan for the second time in late December 2012, the international press paid close attention to his views on Japan’s history during the 20th century. Concern was expressed not only in Chinese, Korean and German newspapers and journals,1 which are generally highly sensitive to exculpatory views of Japan’s wartime history, but also in the international media over Abe’s attempts to “revise” the accepted view that the Asia-Pacific War (1931-45)2 was a war of aggression (shinryaku sensô) on the part of Japan. In an editorial titled “Back to the Future,” the UK Economist warned that Abe’s “scarily right-wing cabinet bodes ill for the region” (The Economist, January 5, 2013). The New York Times criticized Abe’s renewed “attempt to deny Japan’s history” as a “shameful impulse,” which could “inflame tensions with South Korea and make cooperation [with Japan’s neighbors] harder … Any attempt to deny the [war] crimes and dilute the apologies [for the war and Japanese war crimes] will outrage South Korea, as well as China and the Philippines, which suffered under Japan’s brutal wartime rule” (The New York Times, January 2, 2013). A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation had already warned before the elections that “Abe’s revisionist historical statements on Japan’s wartime actions are indeed troubling and would needlessly exacerbate regional tensions” (Klingner 2012, 6). The author advised that it would be helpful to “privately counsel Abe not to push his revisionist history agenda. Retracting previous Japanese government statements on Japanese wartime actions, as Abe has recommended, would needlessly inflame long-simmering regional animosity. Instead, Japan should revise its statements of atonement and apology in ways that will satisfy Korean sensitivities” (ibid., 8). Do these Western media statements constitute Japan-bashing? Hardly. As this chap-
ter will show, the international outrage over Abe’s views of Japan’s wartime history masks a wide gulf between the views of the political elite and the historical awareness of the Japanese population as a whole. Most Japanese do not share Abe’s obsession with presenting Japan’s wartime history in a more favorable light (cf. Saaler 2005, chapter 3; Yoshida 2011, chapter 5, section 1); on the contrary, they wish to continue the discussion on war responsibility3 and want to avoid a further deterioration in relations with Korea, China and other countries. By promoting a more favorable (in their view) interpretation of the war, the historical revisionists surrounding Abe have started a “war over memories” (Richter 2008, 52) and polarized the nation. During his election campaign in December 2012, Abe used tactics such as encouraging online
“followers” to attack those who did not share his views and “silencing opponents” through Internet bullying (Morris-Suzuki 2013). In his most recent move, Abe has suggested that the Murayama Statement
(Murayama danwa)—a major public apology for the war and a symbol of Japan’s successful reconciliation policies during the 1990s (cf. Berger 2012)—be replaced with a new and “forward-looking statement” (interview with Abe in Sankei Shimbun, December 30, 2012). In August 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Prime Minister Murayama stated:
During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology.4
