Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends the National Memorial Service for the War Dead on August 15, 2024 in Tokyo, Japan.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed to step up his country’s effort to defend a rules-based international order in a peace pledge made Thursday (August 15, 2024) on the 79th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
“We will never again repeat the tragedy of war” and will stick to the country’s postwar pacifist resolve, he said at a solemn ceremony at the Budokan hall.
“In the world where tragic battles have persisted, Japan will continue its effort to maintain and strengthen the rules-based, free and open international order” and endeavor to resolve difficult global issues,” Mr. Kishida said.
Mr. Kishida noted the more than 3 million Japanese killed, the destruction and the lives lost from bloody ground battles on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, fire-bombings across Japan, and the atomic attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He did not mention or apologize for Japanese aggression across Asia or millions of lives lost there.
The omission follows a precedent set by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his speech in 2013, a move critics call a whitewashing of Japan’s wartime atrocities.
Earlier Thursday (August 15, 2024), three of Kishida’s ministers, including Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, prayed at the Yasukuni Shrine — seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of militarism.
The controversial shrine honours convicted war criminals among about 2.5 million war dead. Victims of Japanese aggression, especially China and the Koreas, see visits to the shrine as a lack of remorse, and visits by defence officials are considered especially controversial.
Mr. Kihara is the first serving defence chief to pray at the shrine on the anniversary since then-Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi’s 2021 visit.
“I offered my sincere condolences for those who sacrificed their precious lives in the war and expressed my respect,” Kihara told reporters, adding that he paid tribute as a private individual. Asked about a possible impact on the relationship with Seoul, he said he would continue his effort to strengthen ties with South Korea.
Mr. Kishida abstained from praying at the Yasukuni Shrine just a block away and sent a religious ornament instead.
Asian neighbours criticized the ministers’ visit to Yasukuni on Thursday (August 15, 2024).
China’s official Xinhua News Agency said that “Visits and ritual offerings made by Japanese officials to the controversial shrine have consistently sparked criticism and hurt the feelings of the people of China, South Korea and other countries brutalized by Japan during the war.”
In Seoul, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry in a statement expressed “deep disappointment and regret” over the ministers’ visits to the shrine and said, “Our government calls for the responsible leaders in Japan to squarely face history and demonstrate through actions a humble reflection and genuine remorse for the past and we emphasize again that this would be an important foundation for the development of future-oriented Korea-Japan relations.”
Emperor Naruhito, who also attended the ceremony, repeated his “deep remorse” over Japan’s actions during the war that was fought in the name of the wartime emperor Hirohito, his grandfather.
Mr. Kishida accelerated Japan’s military buildup and spending as the country further deepens military cooperation with the United States and their Indo-Pacific partners in the face of growing threats from China and North Korea.
Mr. Kishida, who took office in 2021, announced Wednesday (August 14, 2024) that he plans to step down after his governing party leadership vote in September.
