Japan marks 76th anniversary of WWII defeat; no Suga apology

Suga stated Japan by no means forgets that the peace the nation enjoys immediately is constructed on the sacrifices of those that died within the warfare.

“We are going to decide to our pledge to by no means repeat the tragedy of the warfare,” he stated in his first speech on the occasion since changing into prime minister.

Suga didn’t provide an apology to the Asian victims of Japanese aggression throughout the area within the first half of the twentieth century – a precedent set by the nation’s earlier chief, Shinzo Abe, who was steadily accused of attempting to whitewash Japan’s brutal previous.

In a largely domestic-focused speech, Suga listed injury inflicted on Japan and its folks, together with the U.S. atomic assaults on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo and different cities and the fierce battle of Okinawa, and mourned for them.

Emperor Naruhito, in distinction, expressed “deep regret” over his nation’s wartime actions in a fastidiously nuanced speech that adopted the footsteps of his father, who devoted his 30-year profession to creating amends for a warfare fought within the title of Hirohito, the present emperor’s grandfather. Naruhito additionally stated he hoped that folks can put their hearts collectively to beat the problem of the pandemic whereas looking for happiness and peace for all.

Amid Tokyo’s surging coronavirus infections, about 200 contributors, decreased from about 6,000 earlier than the pandemic, mourned for the lifeless with a minute of silence. Masks had been required, and there was no singing of the nationwide anthem.

Suga vowed to cooperate with the worldwide group in tackling world points below “proactive pacifism,” a imaginative and prescient that Abe promoted to permit Japan to play a higher army function in worldwide conflicts.

Starting in 2013, Abe stopped acknowledging Japan’s wartime hostilities or apologizing in his Aug. 15 speeches, scrapping an almost 20-year custom that started with the 1995 apology of Socialist chief Tomiichi Murayama.

On Sunday, earlier than attending the ceremony at Tokyo’s Budokan corridor, Suga laid flowers at a close-by nationwide cemetery for unknown troopers. Whereas Suga stayed away from the controversial Yasukuni shrine, he did ship a non secular providing to the shrine, Japanese media reported.

Victims of Japanese actions throughout the first half of the twentieth century, particularly the Koreas and China, see the shrine as a logo of Japanese militarism as a result of it honors convicted warfare criminals amongst about 2.5 million warfare lifeless.

Abe, who stepped down as prime minister final yr, prayed on the shrine Sunday, as did three different members of Suga’s Cupboard. Two different ministers visited the shrine Friday.

The visits sparked criticism from China and South Korea.

On Sunday, South Korea’s Overseas Ministry in a press release urged Japanese officers to point out “honest regret by means of motion” in order that the nations might develop “future-oriented ties.”

China’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs additionally stated they’d lodged “stern representations” with the Japanese facet in Tokyo and in Beijing over the visits to the Yasukuni shrine, noting Suga’s spiritual providing. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying referred to as on Japan to

actions that might “win the belief” of its neighbors.