Japan’s ‘pro-China’ PM faces WWII anniversary dilemma: apologise, or stay silent?
Abe’s statement, while acknowledging Japan’s wartime aggression and expressing “deep repentance for the war,” also carried a message of defiance: “We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologise.”
For Abe, it was time to move on from the cyclical demands for apologies that have often defined Japan’s relations with its neighbours.