Japan watched for next move on WWII acts

Abe's words of 'deep remorse' seen as not enough

China's top diplomat Wang Yi said on Thursday that the world is watching Japan's reactions as the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II nears.

The foreign minister made the comment to Chinese reporters after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of a series of meetings on East Asia cooperation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"Of course we are waiting to see (Japan's next moves)," CCTV quoted Wang as saying.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his cabinet are trying to pass new security bills through Japan's upper house, triggering nationwide protests as observers said the bills are believed to betray the spirit of its pacifist Constitution.

The decline of the Abe cabinet's approval rating, according to polls by Nikkei, from a peak of 76 percent last April to 48 percent is partly a result of the public opposition to the new security bills.

Wang, a former Chinese ambassador to Japan, said that the recent changes in Japan's military and defense policies "naturally lead to concerns of many countries, especially neighboring countries".

"We hope that Japan could continue taking the path of peaceful development, which they have stuck to," Wang said.

Lyu Yaodong, an expert on Japanese foreign policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that "Japan has not resolved its history issue", and that it is still attempting to beautify or deny its history of aggression.

Abe's statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII has been a key issue this month, especially for the people in China and on the Korea Peninsula who were brutalized by the Japanese Imperial Army during the war.

Abe's record of whitewashing Japan's role in the war, such as questioning whether it is aggression on the part of Japan and whether comfort women, or women forced into sexual slaves, were coerced by the Japanese army and government, have angered not only Chinese but Koreans.

Leading US newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, have run editorials over the years blasting Abe's revisionist views on history. Japanese American Congressman Mike Honda from California has repeatedly urged Abe and the Japanese government to correctly face-up to the comfort women issue.

On Thursday, South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed regret over an advisory report relating to Abe's upcoming statement, saying that the contents are "not at all" helpful for improving Seoul-Tokyo relations, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, Abe was handed a report by a group of experts from Japan of what, in their opinion, should be included in his statement to be released next week. The report cited acknowledgment of Japan's wartime aggressions, but at the same time it reportedly did not contain any calls for an apology, and instead refers to the South Korean government as having been moving around the "goal post" for the two countries' history-related issues.

On Abe's statement, likely to be made on August 14, the attention will be on whether he will truly uphold the view of history by his predecessors, in particular Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. Words like "heartfelt apology" and "colonial rule and aggression" were both in the 1995 Murayama Statement and 2005 statement by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Abe's words "deep remorse" were seen as not going far enough.

The US government has hoped that its two allies, South Korea and Japan, will be able to put bitter history issues behind to better support an envisioned US-Japan-South Korea trilateral alliance, but the US has not pushed hard enough on Abe, a stalwart supporter of the Japan-US alliance.

Asked about the advisory panel report to Abe on Thursday, US State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner only said that "we welcome Prime Minister Abe's positive comments this past year on history issues - as well as Japan's postwar contributions to peace.

"We took note of his remarks in Washington about upholding the views expressed by previous prime ministers in regard to the past," he said.

"And we believe, finally, that strong, constructive relations between countries in the region promote peace and stability and are in their interests as well as the interests of the United States," he told a daily briefing.

But he dodged the question on whether Abe should go further in the upcoming statement.

While many had thought Abe would visit Beijing in September to hold another summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said he had "not heard" of such as visit in September, words that have been interpreted as Beijing's dissatisfaction with Abe's recent actions.

Also on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of National Defense reacted to reports of Japan supplying patrol planes to the Philippines that would be used to monitor activities in the South China Sea.

Reuters cited four anonymous sources as saying that Tokyo wants to provide the Philippines with three Beechcraft TC90 King Air planes equipped with surface and air surveillance radar, though Manila reportedly preferred a more advanced aircraft, the LockheedMartinP3C, which may have the capability to track China's submarine activity.

The US had asked Japan to provide training programs and maintenance for any planes it gives the Philippines, a US military source told Reuters.

The information office of the Ministry of National Defense told China Daily in a written response, "China hopes that the military cooperation by relevant countries contributes to the peace and stabilization of the region, not the contrary."

The spokesperson's office of the Foreign Ministry stated that China hopes to see the parties involved do more to contribute to "improving mutual trust among countries in the region".

Contact the writers through zhangyunbi@chinadaily. com.cn.