hankyoreh

at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Tokyo

The statement made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Aug. 14, one day before the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II and Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial occupation - can be seen as a tenuous compromise between Abe’s personal convictions, which are slanted toward historical revisionism, and diplomatic reality, which forces him to take into account relations with neighboring countries.

During an interview with Japanese newspaper the Sankei Shimbun in Aug. 2012 - when Abe was making a bid to lead Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party during his second rise to power – he said that all three of Japan’s historical statements should be revised.

These statements included the Kono Statement (1993), which acknowledged the compulsory nature of the recruitment of the comfort women, and the Murayama Statement (1995), which expressed contrition and remorse for Japan’s wars of aggression and colonial rule.

Abe made another controversial statement when he told the budget committee of the Japanese Diet’s upper house in Apr. 2013 that “there is no set definition of aggression.”

In the end, Abe paid a sudden visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Dec. 2013, upsetting not only neighbors such as South Korea and China but also being criticized by the US for making a “disappointing” move.

Subsequently, even while promising to uphold the statements of past Japanese governments, Abe has seemed reluctant to directly voice the key expressions of the Murayama Statement – “colonial rule and aggression.”

However, the statement Abe released on Friday does include all four of the key phrases from the Murayama Statement that South Korea, China, and other countries have been calling for – “aggression,” “colonial rule,” “remorse,” and “apology.” In the statement, Abe also apologized for various harm inflicted on Asian countries including Korea and Japan through actions taken by Japan after the Manchurian Incident in 1931.

In addition, Abe explicitly acknowledged the truth by saying that “seventy years ago, Japan was defeated,” in lieu of the euphemistic expression “end of the war,” which is commonly used by the Japanese.

But in regard to how it represents Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula, the statement must be seen as a significant retreat from the historical perspective of former Japanese governments, beginning with the Murayama Statement in 1995 and reaching its peak with the Kan Statement in 2010.

First of all, the Murayama Statement, which was released on the 50th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, made clear that Japan had “caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people” of a number of Asian countries “through its colonial rule and aggression.”

A declaration of the partnership between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in 1998 specified that South Korea was the country to which Japan was apologizing.

The Kan Statement in 2010 clearly mentioned the fact that “the Korean people of that time was deprived of their country and culture, and their ethnic pride was deeply scarred by the colonial rule which was imposed against their will.”

While these statements did not reach the point of denouncing Japan’s colonial occupation as illegal, they did make clear that it took place against the wishes of the Korean people.

But the Abe Statement only states that Japan “shall abandon colonial rule forever and respect the right of self-determination of all peoples throughout the world.” Furthermore, it does not make a single mention of the various measures that Japan took during its colonial rule of Korea – including propagandistic education and mandatory name changes – or the issue of compulsory mobilization, a major diplomatic issue facing South Korea and Japan at present.

Civic groups in Japan have unleashed a torrent of disapproval.

Immediately after the statement was read, it was criticized by a group organized to uphold and expand the Murayama Statement. “The government cunningly found a way to include the four key expressions from the Murayama Statement, but it backpedaled by not clearly stating that the past war was a war of aggression,” the group said.

“The things said in this statement are completely different from the security laws currently being reviewed in the Diet. I don’t think that Abe meant what he said. It makes me so angry,” said Hirotami Yamada, secretary general of an association of victims of the nuclear attack on Nagasaki.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

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