The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Japan’s wartime past still a volatile issue as prime minister visits Obama

April 27, 2015 at 8:53 p.m. EDT
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Obama at the Lincoln Memorial. On the discussion agenda are a variety of economic, security and global issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and climate change. (Pete Marovich / Pool/EPA)

Seventy years after the end of World War II, President Obama will welcome Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House on Tuesday for a state visit to highlight new partnerships on defense and economics with the United States’ most durable ally in Asia.

But the success of the visit for the Obama administration could turn on how Abe handles another, more incendiary, geopolitical ­issue — his country’s imperial wartime past.

Abe's ambivalent signals about Japan's wartime behavior, along with his push to reassert the nation's role in the security of the region after more than half a century of pacifism, have alarmed its neighbors, including China, but especially South Korea, another crucial U.S. ally.

Since Abe reassumed power in 2012, relations between Tokyo and Seoul have been mired in distrust and bitter recriminations, forcing Obama into the uncomfortable role of mediator. Last year, on the sidelines of an international security summit at the Hague, Obama took time to broker an unusual trilateral meeting with Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye in a bid to warm their ice-cold relationship.

The implications are broad as the Obama administration seeks to refocus and intensify its ­foreign policy efforts in Asia, a strategy aimed at deepening ­regional alliances to confront China’s growing military and economic clout.

Beijing, recognizing the discord, has sought to exploit the mistrust and sow doubts about U.S. standing, foreign policy analysts said.

Obama’s personal engagement helped open minimal lines of communication between Japan and South Korea, but tensions are high as Washington rolls out the red carpet for Abe, who will become the first Japanese prime minister to address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.

Ahead of the visit, South Korean diplomats have lobbied administration officials, Congress and the news media, making clear their expectations that Abe apologize for Japan’s wartime operation of “comfort stations” that forced up to 200,000 women into sexual slavery. Many conservatives in Japan contend that the women were prostitutes, and some say other countries, including Korea and the United States, did similar things during the war.

During remarks to students Monday at Harvard University, Abe said: “My heart aches when I think about the people who were victimized by human trafficking and who were subject to immeasurable pain and suffering, beyond description. On this score, my feeling is no different from my predecessor prime ministers.”

Abe emphasized that he has repeatedly affirmed a 1993 statement by former Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono that the military had forced women into brothels during the war, contradicting previous statements from the government.

But that is unlikely to satisfy the South Koreans, who have doubted Abe’s sincerity. Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, served as prime minister more than half a century ago on a nationalistic platform aimed at restoring Japan’s military, which had been downgraded by the United States and the war.

Japanese school textbooks have misrepresented some of the atrocities, and Abe in 2013 visited the Yasukuni shrine, which honors the nation's war dead, angering Seoul and Beijing. (He passed up chances to visit the shrine last year, paving the way for two meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.)

Citing Abe’s “historical revisionism,” a senior South Korean diplomat told The Washington Post last week: “We expect to hear Prime Minister Abe say something that would go in the direction of outlining this ­concern.”

“Our bar is not high,” the diplomat added, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. He said Seoul expects Abe to endorse previous statements of contrition from Kono and two former Japanese prime ministers “in a clear and unambiguous way.”

White House aides are wary of the potential for the issue to overshadow the concrete accomplishments of the trip, which include the formal release in New York on Monday of revised bilateral defense guidelines that would give the Japanese Self-Defense Forces power to act when U.S. forces are threatened by a third country.

The administration also hopes to make progress with Japan on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade and regulatory pact that Obama has called one of his top priorities.

Obama aides declined to say whether they had specifically asked Abe to apologize during his visit. Abe and Obama visited the Lincoln Memorial on Monday afternoon, but they did not ­address reporters.

“We always stress that it’s important to address history questions in an honest, constructive and forthright manner that promotes healing, but also in a way that reaches a final resolution,” said Evan Medeiros, Asia director at the National Security Council. “So we’re very supportive of diplomatic efforts between Japan and [South Korea] to improve their relationship.”

Korean American organizations have pressured lawmakers on Capitol Hill to demand that Abe apologize. Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-Calif.) sent a bipartisan letter signed by 25 House members to Japanese Ambassador ­Kenichiro Sasae calling on Abe to "lay the foundation for healing and humble reconciliation by addressing the historical issues." An activist group brought Yong Soo Lee, 86, who was a teenager forced to work in the comfort stations, to Washington last week to tell her story.

Abe aides said the prime minister, who has been practicing his congressional speech in English, will deliver an upbeat message to Congress, lauding 70 years of liberal democracy and economic transformation, and close cooperation with the United States.

On the nation's wartime history, the speech is expected to be modeled on an address he gave to the Australian Parliament last year, in which Abe expressed remorse for Japan's aggression — singling out two chapters that were particularly deadly for Australian troops — but did not apologize.

Abe is likely to follow that template in Washington, possibly mentioning the American prisoners of war who died in the Bataan Death March.

"It will be a deep reflection of the wartime past and an appreciation for the help and support that the United States extended to Japan, and a pledge for the future," said an Abe adviser, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "This is a golden opportunity for Abe to show how balanced he is, that he's not an extremist and not challenging the world order but is here to safeguard the existing order."

Obama administration officials said privately that they expect Abe to address the thornier issues of the Korean “comfort women” at a joint news conference at the White House after his bilateral meeting with Obama on Tuesday.

But whether he will go far enough to satisfy Seoul remains unclear. The two countries have had several rounds of discussions aimed at resurrecting a fund to provide reparations to the comfort women and their families; a previous plan was rejected by Seoul after Tokyo refused to accept full responsibility and use public money.

Park is scheduled to visit the White House in June, and Xi will arrive in September on his first state visit to Washington.

"Some people get emotional," Sasae, the Japanese ambassador, said at a briefing last week at the National Press Building. "But I don't think this is a security question, to be honest . . . I don't see all those issues about so-called history will be major issues to address or even stumbling blocks moving ahead."

He added: “To be honest, this is not something we need to focus on as part of the major agenda between Washington and Tokyo.”

Steven Mufson contributed to this report. Fifield reported from Tokyo.