PLATFORM : Give Japan the Opportunity to Do the Right Thing

The State Department has said Pearl Harbor’s 50th anniversary commemoration is “a solemn national occasion” to which foreign governments will not be invited. How can we not invite Japan? Today, our former enemy is our most important Pacific ally.

Apparently, the State Department is concerned about how the 13,000-member Pearl Harbor Survivors Assn. would react to Japan’s presence at Pearl Harbor. According to one survivor, “the majority of our people feel that the Japanese have never yet said they were sorry for Pearl Harbor.”

Is the association’s sentiment right? You bet it is! The Japanese government has had a hard time coming to terms with Japan’s aggressive behavior in Korea, China, and Southeast Asia half a century ago, as well as with its 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

With great effort, Japan managed apologies of sorts to the governments of China, Korea and several Southeast Asian nations. But they finally did apologize. It would seem appropriate for Japan--in advance of the 50th anniversary commemoration--to say its surprise attack against the United States was wrong.

Japan’s official effort to move beyond World War II has not yet matched Germany’s. In Germany, the people and the government have made clear their regret for actions taken by Germans 50 years ago.

Today’s generation of Japanese and Americans respect each other. They did not start or fight the war. Japanese, as a people, should no more be considered enemies than Germans, Italians, Spanish, Southerners, Mexicans, British or any other people the United States once fought. That the Japanese may still be treated otherwise has less to do with race than with Japanese government behavior.

The finest gesture of all would be for a leading Japanese representative to join his American counterpart for a brief ceremony on the decks of the battleship Missouri, which will be in Pearl Harbor Dec. 7.

Japan and America, together on the very deck where World War II ended, at anchor in Pearl Harbor where it started, would truly symbolize the beginning of a new era. Such a gesture would pave the way for a relationship of equals.

The State Department is wrong to avoid helping the Japanese government do what is right: Apologize, and then come to Pearl Harbor.