ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the Japan's situation from the early 1990s, which marked the end of the Cold War and the end of the Showa Era and explores why and how the issue of how to remember and acknowledge the wartime past, which called as the 'historical memory' issue, remains so unresolved in Japan. It explores the visit of Emperor Akihito to China in 1992, an extremely important event for reconciliation with China. The chapter discusses the issue of the comfort women on which the Japanese government took decisive action in the Kono Statement of 1993 and which led to the establishment of the Asian Women's Fund (AWF) in 1995, but there remains no reconciliation with Korea. It also explores the Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and efforts and ideas that have emerged since then to resolve the issue of mourning the war dead and to reconcile with the pain that Japan caused to Asian countries.
