Japan Press Weekly

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2015 April 22 - 28 [POLITICS]

Shii: Abe’s speech in Indonesia again shows his unwillingness to express remorse over past war

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on April 23 at a press conference criticized Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for not expressing remorse over Japan’s past war of aggression in his speech at the Asia Africa Summit.

Shii said that the summit took place in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference which advocated independence from colonial rule and each nation’s right of self-determination. He added that the international community paid close attention to what Abe would say at such a memorable event about Japan’s aggressive acts against Asian countries during WWII.

Although Abe used the phrase “remorse over the past war” once in his speech, Shii went on to say, the prime minister referred not to his own feeling, but to the fact that Japan displayed its remorse at the 1955 Bandung Conference.

Regarding Abe’s interpretation of Japan’s modern history, the JCP chair mentioned Abe’s plan to issue a statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of the war’s end. Shii quoted Abe as saying in a BS news program that the new statement will be unnecessary if it is not very different from the one that former Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi issued on the 50th anniversary. Shii argued that what is actually unnecessary is a statement that ignores key points made in the Murayama Statement which acknowledges Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression” caused grave damage to people in Asia and expresses a “feeling of deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” to them.

In addition, Shii noted that the prime minister recently sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, which praises the past war as a just war, and that ministers of his cabinet visited there on the occasion of its spring festival. Shii said that these acts may give the international community the message that Japan has no intention to reflect seriously on its wartime past.