Remember Pearl Harbor--but Only Up to a Point : Will 50th anniversary of surprise attack sour U.S.-Japanese relations?

It should be a time for recollection, not recrimination. It should be a moment in which history pauses, reflects back on itself and then moves on. The bombing of Pearl Harbor set into motion a period in which U.S.-Japanese relations plummeted to their historic worst. It would be most regrettable now if the occasion of the anniversary of that attack, 50 years ago to the day, touched off a ground swell of latent bitterness and somehow turned these two successful postwar allies against one another--making them, in effect, prisoners of the past.

That kind of reversion can, and very well could, take place when people permit the past to suffocate the present. But it won’t happen if Americans and Japanese alike learn to move beyond their past differences and remember Pearl Harbor’s most significant lesson: that after this historic nadir, relations between Tokyo and Washington improved dramatically and evolved over the years into one of the most significant and stabilizing alliances in history.

THE GROWING TENSION: In a sense, the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor couldn’t have come at a worse time. For several years now the American public has shown increasing signs of irritation with Japan. Almost every new opinion poll seems to put Japan very high on the list of American anger points.

In part, to be sure, Japan’s own actions contribute to the ill will. Tokyo can be a grindingly stubborn negotiator and a difficult ally. The mammoth, seemingly structural trade imbalance with Tokyo grates on the United States, fueling resentment that Tokyo doesn’t play fair and that the Japanese are taking advantage of easygoing America. Rarely, however, does America face up to its own failures of economic competitiveness. It seems to do little good to try to remind people that American consumers are not obligated by law to buy Japanese cars but do so of their own free will. It seems to have scant effect to remind people that it is not Japan’s fault that America sometimes seems to be losing its competitive edge, lacks a sensible, long-range industrial policy or needs to do more about its troubled public education systems. Everything is still all Tokyo’s fault.

THE TRUTH ABOUT JAPAN: The fact of the matter is that, more often than not, Japan is guilty of nothing more heinous than being successful. Just a few decades ago this nation of islands was little more than an economically troubled society, struggling to recover from a disastrous war. Today it is one of the world’s resplendent economic superpowers, with brilliant technologies, aggressive marketing, an exceptionally productive work force and a powerful educational system.

But while America needs to give Japan its due and stop blaming Tokyo for its own, often self-inflicted problems, Japan too needs to continue the difficult but necessary effort to come to terms with its own history. It needs to face the reality of its past aggressive military policy. It needs to teach that history in its public schools, not avoid the subject. But it is right, on the whole, to want to put the past behind it and to move forward and play a constructive role in the world.

All wars perpetrate great injustices. War itself, it can be argued, is a great injustice, even when a great moral question needs to be decided. This past week President Bush said America needs to make no apologies for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Japanese Diet refused to apologize for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. By week’s end the atmosphere between Tokyo and Washington was filled with tension. It is sad indeed that animosities over an event five decades ago should be allowed to poison the present.

The Japanese are great and important allies. Their enormous achievements entitle them to America’s respect. When we have differences with them, as we have and always will, we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to raise our complaints in a businesslike and constructive fashion. Japan-bashing by Americans will contribute nothing; neither will America-bashing in Japan.

A famous philosopher once said that those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it. To which one might add that those who wallow in the past are condemned never to escape it.

Trade Imbalance

U.S. merchandise trade deficit with Japan, in billions: 3rd qtr. ‘90: $39.2 4th qtr. ‘90: $46.4 1st qtr. ‘91: $40.8 2nd qtr. ‘91: $36.0 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce