Japanese leader expected to keep a low profile in U.S.

Don’t expect this Japanese prime minister to strike a hip-swiveling pose in a pair of Elvis’ sunglasses, or sing “Love Me Tender” to the president.

Shinzo Abe arrives in Washington today for a visit with President Bush that will take place almost exclusively behind the curtains. Unlike his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who loved the big stage in Washington, not to mention the Jungle Room at Graceland, Abe’s agenda will be mostly private.

Any possibility of high-profile appearances disappeared with Abe’s comments last month denying that the Japanese military forced women into sexual slavery during World War II. The ensuing international storm knocked Abe’s government off stride and raised the specter of his first visit to Washington as prime minister being clouded by demonstrations and awkward questions.

At least one protest is planned: a silent march this afternoon across from the White House, organized by Amnesty International.

Abe’s agenda for the two-day trip has been crafted to keep the public at bay. He will visit wounded soldiers at Bethesda Naval Hospital and lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery.

The only scheduled exposure to reporters is a 20-minute session alongside Bush after Friday morning talks at Camp David.

In interviews before leaving Japan, Abe issued carefully worded, curt apologies to the so-called comfort women of World War II for their suffering, still without conceding the military’s role in forcing them into prostitution. His aides drew attention to the statements as evidence that Abe stands by a previous government apology and insisted the issue should now be considered closed.

But Abe’s record before becoming prime minister, and the continued denials of military involvement by senior politicians from his party, show that the highest levels of the Japanese government regard that standing official apology as morally and factually hollow.

“There is no evidence [of military coercion],” said Hisahiko Okazaki, a former ambassador who once served in Japan’s Washington embassy and is an informal foreign policy advisor to Abe. “You can’t sacrifice intellectual honesty for appeasement. If Abe is asked [about the military’s role] when he is in Washington, he has to deny it. Will it work with American public opinion? I don’t think so. But he has to be intellectually honest.”

His ambiguous stance on the issue hasn’t seemed to hurt Abe at home, where his party’s recent performance in regional elections suggests that tumbling support has bottomed out.

The main complication has been the curve the issue has thrown into the summit with Bush, which comes at a sensitive time in relations with Washington. Both sides publicly deny strains, but the administration’s deal with North Korea to dismantle a key nuclear facility while postponing a solution to related problems, including the fate of Japanese civilians kidnapped by North Korean agents, has unnerved the hard-line Japanese government.

Abe, whose political career was fueled by his support for an accounting of the missing civilians, has said Japan must see progress on the issue before signing off on the financial aid package that is to be North Korea’s reward for decommissioning the nuclear plant.

Japanese media reported that Vice President Dick Cheney, during a recent visit to Tokyo, pressed Abe about what would constitute progress by the regime in Pyongyang. Abe’s position has been that he will know progress when he sees it.

The differences appear to be of degree rather than direction, both sides say. And no one is suggesting that the Japanese-U.S. security alliance is in trouble. Both countries are increasing the ability of their military forces to work together and are enthusiastically committed to developing a joint antimissile system.

U.S. officials said the lack of public appearances this week is intentional, designed to let Abe and Bush try to build a relationship as close as the one the president enjoyed with Koizumi.

“They really want the opportunity not to be constrained, if you will, by a very large state event to get to know each other much better,” said Dennis Wilder, a National Security Council director for Asian Affairs.

Yet they are not strangers. Abe accompanied Koizumi on visits to both Camp David and the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. As the heir-apparent during the latter part of the Koizumi era, Abe made several trips to the U.S. to make connections with administration figures and conservative groups, many of whom shared his hard-line distrust of North Korea.

But Abe faces a different Washington than the one he cultivated before becoming prime minister. For one thing, he has few, if any, personal contacts among the Democrats who now control Congress.

Similarly, the Bush administration sees a new dynamic developing in East Asia. Abe just hosted a three-day summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, a visit that signaled an improvement in relations that foundered under Koizumi.

But Wen’s trip also demonstrated to Washington the seductive nature of China’s public diplomacy. Cheney never mingled with the Japanese public during his brief trip to Japan.

By comparison, the Chinese premier basked in media attention. He seemed to always be smiling, joining Japanese citizens during their morning exercises in a Tokyo park. Plunking himself happily behind the wheel of a tractor. Tossing baseballs with a college team in Kyoto.

Happy to be on stage.

bruce.wallace@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maura Reynolds in Washington contributed to this report.