Abe’s Pearl Harbor visit shines light on US-Japan tie

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor yesterday. It is the site of surprise attack by Japanese that pulled America into World War II. The attack had been prepared in secret by Japan for months. But it was over
within two hours. At least 2,300 Americans died on December 7, 1941, when more than 300 Japanese fighter planes and bombers pummelled US fleet.
A reluctant America was drawn into the war already raging in Europe and its colonies. In the ensuing years, the US incarcerated roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps before dropping atomic bombs in 1945 that killed some 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.
In eight years of his presidency, Obama failed to make headway he wanted in his vaunted ‘rebalance to Asia’ diplomatic strategy. But the outgoing US president and Abe chose a telling spot to celebrate US-Japanese partnership, 75 years after December 7, 1941, what President Franklin D Roosevelt called a ‘date which will live in infamy.’ But putting 75 years of resentment behind them, Obama and Abe visited together Pearl Harbor for a historic pilgrimage. It is a powerful proof that the former enemies have transcended the recriminatory impulses that weighed down relations after the war.
For Obama, it was likely the last time he was meeting with a foreign leader as president. For Japanese prime minister, it was an act of symbolic reciprocity. Abe visit came six months after Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima in Japan. The visit is the outcome of years of efforts at all levels by both government and societies.
Abe’s visit is not without political risk given the Japanese people’s long, emotional reckoning with their nation’s aggression in the war. Though Pearl Harbor is deemed a surprise attack, Japan’s government said it had intended to give the US prior notice that it was declaring war. But it failed only because of ‘bureaucratic bungling.’
Three-quarters of a century later, Abe wants to imbue the wartime rallying cry with a new resonance. “Remember Pearl Harbor’ is a phrase that was once used to fuel animosity towards Japan among the people of America. The peoples of Japan and the United States were put in position to hate each other,” he said.
“I hope the image of President Obama and I together visiting Pearl Harbor will serve to make the term ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’ symbolize the power of reconciliation.” Since the war, the US and Japan have built a powerful alliance. It has grown stronger during Obama’s tenure. There are questions about what the relationship will look like under President-elect Donald Trump.
It is something to be watched in the backdrop of president –elect’s statement during presidential campaign that Japan and South Korea should obtain their own nuclear weapons. But after Trump’s election, Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him.
Even before taking office, Trump has thrown a wrench in Abe’s plans. Trump promised to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, a deal that Abe has championed at home. Abe’s party pushed TPP legislation through parliament earlier this month in an attempt to convince the US Congress to do the same.
The trade relationship between Japan and the US could get significantly worse. The relationship could depend on whether or not Abe follows the new US administration’s diplomatic postures towards Russia and China. Japan also needs clarity if the Trump administration will stick to the Obama White House’s position on the dispute between Tokyo and Beijing over islands in the East China Sea. It is something to wait and see how US-Japan relations will fare after January 20.