A Most Delicate Trip

Japan’s Emperor Akihito is scheduled to begin a visit to China today, the first such in the 2,000-year history of the monarchy. The journey aims at improving relations between two neighbors, but the atmospherics surrounding it threaten to produce an opposite effect. The problem--a persistent one--is, from China’s perspective, Japan’s refusal to face up to the brutal war it waged and the atrocities it inflicted on the Chinese from 1937 to 1945.

China has never been satisfied with the vague expressions of regret for Japanese aggression that have been offered by Tokyo over the two decades since diplomatic relations were resumed. Not many people expect the emperor to depart from Japan’s pattern of previous comments, though Tokyo recently did make a gesture to Seoul in an effort to begin the long and painful process of reconciliation with South Korea. However, Akihito is, constitutionally, above politics, and so an argument could be made that in saying nothing about what could be construed as a political issue he is only upholding his responsibilities. The emperor is, nonetheless, the symbol of the Japanese state. A clear apology for its wartime activities would be interpreted throughout Asia as marking a new chapter in Japanese history.

Unfortunately it would also anger powerful right-wing nationalists who continue to resist every suggestion that Japan should apologize for its wartime behavior. The truth is, as the history textbooks approved year after year by Japan’s education ministry continue to show, Japan has been avoiding the issues of wartime responsibility and guilt. Many in Asia are left to wonder whether Japan, by stubbornly denying the facts about its militaristic past, isn’t raising disturbing questions about its democratic future.

The nationalists must be resisted. Japan’s world stature would only rise if it showed true foreign-policy initiative and the maturity to break with its past in an effort to forge a new set of relationships with its Asian neighbors.