Abe should give sincere apology to all

Pearl Harbor is located on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. [Photo/Xinhua]

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reported as planning a visit to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii during his trip to the United States in early May. If he does, he will be the first Japanese prime minister to do so.

Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, heralding the US' entry into World War II. But the attack on Pearl Harbor was not, as some Japanese believe, the beginning of the war which was already substantively global. Before the attack, Japan had already invaded China, and the war in Europe had been going on for years.

Japan's media said Abe is likely to take an anti-war oath and pay his respects to the dead in Hawaii. Abe may also go to San Francisco, where both the Treaty of Peace with Japan and the Japan-US Security Treaty were signed in September 1951.

The purpose of Abe's upcoming US visit is readily discernible. Japan is still trying to atone for its past actions toward its chief ally.

Japan's Asian neighbors have more war dead and survivors that Abe should also pay respect to. But his administration's denial of the country's atrocities during that period in history has repeatedly poisoned relations with China and South Korea.

In October, Abe directed his government to "step up a strategic campaign of international opinion so that Japan can receive a fair appraisal based on matters of objective fact".

Japan's foreign ministry has asked the New York-based McGraw-Hill Education to correct the "grave errors" in a history textbook that referred to the women forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to serve in military brothels as "sex slaves", while Japan euphemistically calls them "comfort women".

McGraw-Hill has refused to follow Japan's official position, supporting its authors' scholarship. The issue has been commonly seen as a good example how badly Japan distorts history despite wide opposition.

The Japanese government has approved the Tokyo-based publisher Suken Shuppan deleting references to "comfort women" and to foreign workers forcibly brought to Japan in its high school social studies books, to be used in April.

Its previous political science and economics textbooks said discussions have been held on offering compensation for "forcibly moving" foreigners to work in Japan and for "military comfort women" during the war. The revised version plays down the issue, saying some South Korean "individuals victimized by Japan during the war" have filed lawsuits in Japanese courts seeking an apology and damages.

Right wingers in Japan say neither the state nor the military was involved in any coercion.

The Abe administration also questions the number of victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, claiming that it is "difficult to determine the concrete number". China says 300,000 people were killed when Japanese troops swept through Nanjing in a six week orgy of rape and slaughter.

Japan's revisionists claim that the massacre was fabricated by the Tokyo Trial and the Chinese government and has been facilitated by "unJapanese" Japanese progressives.

Abe will soon travel across the Pacific to show Japan's repentance to its ally, but he still chooses to whitewash the atrocities his country committed on its Asian neighbors.

If he really cares about his country, Abe should make an apology to all for its past actions, make it sincere and show that sincerity through his words and deeds.

The author Cai Hong is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief. caihong@chinadaily.com.cn