Abe, Obama hail reconciliation after Pearl Harbor pilgrimage

Pearl Harbor / AFP

The leaders of war-time enemies America and Japan made a poignant joint pilgrimage to Pearl Harbor, issuing symbolic declarations about the power of reconciliation and warning against the drumbeat of conflict.
Seventy-five years after Japanese pilots brought war to idyllic Hawaii and dragged the United States into World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his “sincere and everlasting condolences.”
Abe and US President Barack Obama paid homage to the more than 2,400 Americans killed on December 7, 1941, delivering a wreath of peace lilies and standing in silence before a shrine to those lost on the USS Arizona—roughly half of all those killed. Abe’s visit is a high-profile mark of contrition by a leader for whom Japan’s wartime past is often a sensitive domestic issue.
“We must never repeat the horrors of war,” he said. “What has bonded us together is the power of reconciliation, made possible through the spirit of tolerance.”
Obama—who last May made a solemn pilgrimage to Hiroshima, the target of a US nuclear bomb that effectively ended the war—issued remarks that rang with history and America’s current hypercharged politics. “I welcome you here in the spirit of friendship,” he told Abe. “I hope that, together, we send a message to the world that there is more to be won in peace than in war, that reconciliation carries more rewards than retribution.”
“Even when hatred burns hottest, even when the tug of tribalism is at its most primal, we must resist the urge to turn inward,” Obama said against the backdrop of the USS Arizona. “We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.”

Changing of the guard
The meeting comes as Obama prepares to leave office and with Abe leading Japan into uncharted waters after remarks by incoming US president Donald Trump clouded US-Japanese relations.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, appeared during his campaign to suggest Japan break a taboo and develop its own nuclear weapons.
He caused consternation again last week when he threatened to revive the global nuclear arms race.
The US president-elect has also declared his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, effectively killing a major trade deal that Obama championed and Abe put at the heart of his economic strategy.
And—on the campaign trail at least—Trump called into question US security guarantees that shielded Japan through the Cold War and later the rise of an increasingly confident China.
What he will do in office is unknown. Three Japanese prime ministers, including Abe’s grandfather, visited Hawaii in the 1950s but Abe is the first sitting PM to pay his respects at the USS Arizona Memorial, which was built in the 1960s.
In an emotive speech on the waterfront, he imagined the long-silent voices of American victims chatting about their futures and their dreams, praying for as-yet unborn children before the carnage.
“All of that was brought to an end,” he said in Japanese. “When I contemplate that solemn reality, I am rendered entirely speechless.”
In 1941, the legendary Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto maneuvered six aircraft carriers to within 240 miles (385 kilometers) of Oahu and unleashed two waves of dive bombers.
The US Pacific fleet, formerly Japan’s main rival in the region, lost 21 warships and 328 planes.
After Pearl Harbor, the US Congress declared war on Japan. Three days later, Japan’s European ally Nazi Germany declared war on the United States in turn.

Japan minister prays at Yasukuni 

Tokyo / AFP

A Japanese cabinet minister offered prayers at a controversial Tokyo war shrine on Wednesday, shortly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a highly symbolic visit of reconciliation to Pearl Harbor.
Masahiro Imamura, the minister in charge of the reconstruction of northern Japan after the massive 2011 tsunami, visited Yasukuni Shrine in the afternoon.
Public broadcaster NHK showed Imamura throwing coins into a wooden box as an offering and bowing low at the shrine.
“I reported about this past year’s work, expressed gratitude and prayed for our country’s peace and prosperity,” he said.
Imamura said his visit “has nothing to do with” Abe’s trip to Pearl Harbor and the timing is “a coincidence”, according to NHK and other Japanese media. But Haruko Satou, professor of international politics at Osaka University, suggested the timing was suspicious.
“His real intention behind the visit is unknown, but it’s natural to think that he chose the same day when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbor,” Satou said.