Shinzo Abe to be first Japanese PM to visit Pearl Harbor - Polidicks

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38209839"]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38209839[/URL] [QUOTE]Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is to visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first leader of his country to go to the US naval base in Hawaii. Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the base in 1941, killing 2,300 US servicemen and propelling the US into World War Two. Mr Abe will visit on 27 December with US President Barack Obama. The announcement, two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack, follows a visit by Mr Obama to Hiroshima. He became the first US president to visit the Japanese city, where about 150,000 people are believed to have been killed in 1945 by a US atomic bomb. Mr Abe said in a statement: "We must never repeat the tragedy of the war. I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the US." The two leaders will pray for the dead at the site of the attack, before a final summit meeting between them in Hawaii. The White House said the visit would "showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values".[/QUOTE] I would hope this would lead Japan down a route of recognising what it did during the Second World War.

A bit too late for that honestly, plus Pearl Harbor is not the place to do it.

[QUOTE=Portugalotaku;51480751]A bit too late for that honestly, plus Pearl Harbor is not the place to do it.[/QUOTE] It certainly marks a change in attitude though.

yeah i'll believe it when he stops visiting yasukuni shrine and turning a blind eye to japanese ultranationalism

[QUOTE=Portugalotaku;51480751]A bit too late for that honestly, plus Pearl Harbor is not the place to do it.[/QUOTE] I agree that it's a bit late, as the atrocities that occurred during the second world war were atrocious. However, why would pearl harbor not be appropriate?

[QUOTE=Jund;51480839]yeah i'll believe it when he stops visiting yasukuni shrine and turning a blind eye to japanese ultranationalism[/QUOTE] But the date has already been set? Hes gonna go

Better body search him for torpedoes.

this will help relations but i hope the american people aren't looking for him to apologize on behalf of the japanese people (or something related to that matter) as if he was leading the empire during the war, much like how people expected obama to apologize for nuking japan.

[QUOTE=SonicHitman;51481490]this will help relations but i hope the american people aren't looking for him to apologize on behalf of the japanese people (or something related to that matter) as if he was leading the empire during the war, much like how people expected obama to apologize for nuking japan.[/QUOTE] When you're the figurehead of the country it's not too out there to suggest that the person who is for all intents and purposes the personification of the country at that time, apologises for huge atrocities committed by the country itself when trying to mend old wounds. It's not Obama apologising for whatever, or Abe apologising for whatever. It's the global representative of the USA or Japan apologising for whatever.

I don't think Abe will ever apologize for anything, this is the guy who was disappointed when Japan wasn't given back their old territory of the Kuril Islands when he asked. If they had just accepted the Potsdam demands, declarations, whatever it was then there wouldn't have been any nukes, there would still be Japanese Kuril Islands, and maybe the Korean war would never have happened. Fuck Hebihito.

[QUOTE=Jund;51480839]yeah i'll believe it when he stops visiting yasukuni shrine and turning a blind eye to japanese ultranationalism[/QUOTE] The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates millions of soldiers. Not just those that were war criminals. Are you saying that they cannot have a place to remember them? And are you telling me that every soldier at any war memorial never did a bad thing?

[QUOTE=Jund;51480839]yeah i'll believe it when he stops visiting yasukuni shrine and turning a blind eye to japanese ultranationalism[/QUOTE] Isn't Japan basically a racist ethnostate where it is impossible to become a citizen unless you have Japanese blood?

[QUOTE=Pantz Master;51482004]Isn't Japan basically a racist ethnostate where it is impossible to become a citizen unless you have Japanese blood?[/QUOTE] i know there's some inequality issues there but i'm not sure race is one of them

[QUOTE=Pantz Master;51482004]Isn't Japan basically a racist ethnostate where it is impossible to become a citizen unless you have Japanese blood?[/QUOTE] it's certainly true that if you're not japanese by blood and raised in japan, you'll never truly be accepted into the culture

[QUOTE=Octopod;51482073]i know there's some inequality issues there but i'm not sure race is one of them[/QUOTE] Uhh... of all the inequality stuff I hear out of Japan, it's almost always race-related.

[QUOTE=Kyle902;51481322]But the date has already been set? Hes gonna go[/QUOTE] i meant his supposed gesture of reconciliation with japan's wrongdoings in the war yeah he's gonna go, but i'm still skeptical whether or not he actually cares [editline]6th December 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=$$>MUFFIN<$$;51481984]The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates millions of soldiers. Not just those that were war criminals. Are you saying that they cannot have a place to remember them? And are you telling me that every soldier at any war memorial never did a bad thing?[/QUOTE] [quote]The shrine authorities and the Ministry of Health and Welfare established a system in 1956 for the government to share information with the shrine regarding deceased war veterans. Most of Japan's war dead who were not already enshrined at Yasukuni were enshrined in this manner by April 1959. War criminals prosecuted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East were initially excluded from enshrinement after the war. Government authorities began considering their enshrinement, along with providing veterans' benefits to their survivors, following the signature of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, and in 1954 directed some local memorial shrines to accept the enshrinement of war criminals from their area. No convicted war criminals were enshrined at Yasukuni until after the parole of the last remaining incarcerated war criminals in 1958. The Health and Welfare Ministry began forwarding information on Class B and Class C war criminals (those not involved in the planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of the war) to Yasukuni Shrine in 1959, and these individuals were gradually enshrined between 1959 and 1967, often without permission from surviving family members. Information on the fourteen most prominent Class A war criminals, which included the prime ministers and top generals from the war era, was forwarded to the shrine in 1966, and the shrine passed a resolution to enshrine these individuals in 1970. The timing for their enshrinement was left to the discretion of head priest Fujimaro Tsukuba, who delayed the enshrinement through his death in March 1978. His successor Nagayoshi Matsudaira, who rejected the Tokyo war crimes tribunal's verdicts, enshrined the Class A war criminals in a secret ceremony in 1978. Emperor Hirohito, who visited the shrine as recently as 1975, was privately displeased with the action, and subsequently refused to visit the shrine. The details of the enshrinement of war criminals eventually became public in 1979, but there was minimal controversy about the issue for several years. No Emperor of Japan has visited Yasukuni since 1975, although the Emperor and Empress still continue to attend the National Memorial Service for War Dead annually. Yasukuni Shrine's museum and web site have made statements criticizing the United States for "convincing" the Empire of Japan to launch the attack on the United States in order just to justify war with the Empire of Japan, as well as claiming that Japan went to war with the intention of creating a "Co-Prosperity Sphere" for all Asians. Critics allege that this rhetoric invokes the same arguments as propaganda created by the wartime regime.[/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine[/url] [quote]He initially refrained from visiting the shrine as a sitting prime minister. He did not visit at all during his first term from September 2006 to September 2007, unlike his predecessor Koizumi, who had visited yearly while in office. Abe not visiting the shrine prompted a Japanese nationalist named Yoshihiro Tanjo to cut off his own little finger in protest and mail it to the LDP. While campaigning for the presidency of the LDP in 2012, Abe said that he regretted not visiting the shrine while Prime Minister. He again refrained from visiting the shrine during the first year of his second stint as Prime Minister in consideration for improving relations with China and Korea, whose leaders refused to meet with Abe during this time. He said on December 9, 2013 that "it is natural that we should express our feelings of respect to the war dead who sacrificed their lives for the nation... but it is my thinking that we should avoid making [Yasukuni visits] political and diplomatic issues." In lieu of visiting, Abe sent ritual offerings to the shrine for festivals in April and October 2013, as well as the anniversary of the end of World War II in August 2013.[/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinz%C5%8D_Abe#Yasukuni_Shrine[/url] basically it's such a touchy subject that the emperor/empress hasn't personally gone since 1975. but more importantly, it's about the meaning it's true that only 1000 of the 2.5 million names on there are convicted war criminals, but the shrine and museum push revisionist history and ultranationalists are using the shrine as a figurehead for their movement if you're a japanese politician and you visit the shine, it's a pretty damn big political statement you're making [editline]6th December 2016[/editline] it would be as if the US govt found the names of some US war criminals, added them to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, ultranationalists started parading around it, and then Obama went to visit no bueno