Akihito’s Visit to China Won’t Focus on the Past

Emperor Akihito made it clear Thursday that his unprecedented six-day trip to China beginning next week will emphasize the present, not the past.

In a rare meeting with reporters before going to Beijing next Friday, he referred only obliquely to Japanese aggression against China in 1894-95 and again between 1931 and 1945, during which more than 12 million Chinese were killed, as “a period of unfortunate history” in a record of peaceful exchanges spanning 2,000 years,

“After the war . . . Japan resolved to live as a nation of peace. . . . I hope this visit will provide an opportunity to increase understanding of Japan as it is now--a nation aspiring for world peace and . . . striving to contribute to the international community,” he declared.

“While grasping the past, I earnestly hope that our countries can move beyond it to nurture enduring and friendly relations,” he added.

The emperor’s statements, made in reply to questions submitted in advance by selected Japanese and foreign reporters, underscored what Japanese government officials already had said: that Akihito and Empress Michiko are “not going to China to apologize” for past aggression.

Akihito’s remarks were a virtual repetition of the first expression of imperial contrition made to China in 1978. That was offered by his father, the late Emperor Hirohito (Showa), to Deng Xiaoping when Deng visited Tokyo as vice premier.

“During one period in the long history of our countries, there were unfortunate events. While treating those (events) as the past, I hope for the development of long, friendly relations of our countries,” Hirohito said then.

Deng, now China’s supreme leader, extended the first of nine invitations Beijing has given Japan’s imperial couple. Akihito, as crown prince, sat in on that meeting, the first between a Chinese leader and a Japanese emperor.

Asked about opposition to his visit from some members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who feared that he might be forced to apologize, Akihito remarked, “Freedom of speech is one of the principles of a democratic society.”

Although memories of Japanese aggression run deep in China, Beijing has made it clear that it will not demand an apology.