Japan's Pearl Harbor Opportunity

...To illustrate his point about the importance of clearing the air, he tells the following story: "Fifty years ago, Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe sought a meeting in Hawaii with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the issues that had led to a crisis in U.S.-Japan relations...

...According to sources close to Kaifu, he is seriously weighing the idea...

...Whenever it occurs," insists Robert J.C...

...The fighting in the Gulf made it necessary for the President to postpone the trip...

...Our Prime Minister should speak out boldly," he says...

...Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu responded by pledging $9 billion to the coalition forces...

...Those who are trying to persuade the Prime Minister to issue the apology had hoped to link the gesture to George Bush's anticipated February visit to Japan...

...The choice is obvious...

...Many of our bureaucrats think everything was settled by the signing of the peace treaty at San Francisco in 1951," Sassa explains...

...These countries have bitter memories of Japanese atrocities during the Sino-Japanese War and World War II...

...The 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, he adds, presents another opportunity...

...And Japan's public television network, NHK, has produced several documentaries dealing with the often ugly memories of Japanese expansion in the 1930s and '40s...

...We were allowed to forget the War, and as a result, we never went through the kind of internal examination that could show us where we went wrong...

...The meeting never came off, and we can never be sure that talks between FDR and Konoe could have averted war, but at the very least it was a missed opportunity for dialogue that might have reduced the tensions...

...Butow, who has written two books about the events preceding the Pearl Harbor bombing, is now working on a book entitled FDR and Japan...

...The move, however, was clearly unpopular with his countrymen, who largely oppose the Gulf hostilities...

...His concern is that any such action will almost certainly be opposed by hard-line Rightwingers in his ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP...

...who killed innocent farmers," wrote Setsuro Kawashima, who fought in China...

...Of the approximately 600,000 Japanese captured by the Russians in the closing days of the War, an estimated 60,000 later died in Siberian POW camps...

...It is therefore not difficult to see how remembrances of Pearl Harbor could easily trigger a new round of animosity between the United States and Japan...

...Gorbachev reportedly is ready to lay a commemorative wreath at Hiroshima as well...

...We can either launch a new era of friendship or let the old wounds fester...

...Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, speaking at a recent security symposium here, outlined a similar approach...

...Once the head of a national security unit attached to the Prime Minister's of fice, Sassa believes the present monumental year "is our last and best chance to face this issue squarely...

...First, Japan's Prime Minister should travel to Pearl Harbor and lay a wreath at the USS Arizona memorial to victims of the December?, 1941, attack...

...THE POLITICS OF APOLOGY Japan's Pearl Harbor Opportunity By Michael Berger Tokyo The 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is still almost a year away, but people on both sides of the Pacific already are speaking of it as a potential time bomb because of the heightened tensions between this country and the United States...

...Michael Berger contributes frequently to The New Leader from Japan...

...If Kaifu does what our older leaders lacked the courage to do and openly acknowledges Japan's misdeed in the War, he will free us from the curse of our past sins...

...Toshimi Motoyama, another veteran of the Sino-Japanese War, wrote: "There isn't a single day when I do not remember what I did...

...While most officials continue to remain silent about Japanese militarism, a growing number of people here have gone beyond simply expressing their feelings and are working intently to force the subject into public view...

...Sandhu, director of Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, the key question "is how to give the Japanese the sensation of power, without letting them put their finger on the trigger...

...In recent years, private Japanese groups have invited Chinese survivors of the occupation to come here and lecture...

...Ifhedoes," saysSassa, "there is the chance that he could suddenly become more popular among Japanese than the American President...

...With Japan's emergence as a longterm economic presence in East Asia, notes K.S...

...Yet the current climate is only one reason an informal group of prominent Japanese is trying to convince Kaifu to make a dramatic move that would defuse the situation...

...I was touched by the great humanity of the Chinese compared with the brutal way we acted...

...Many of us would hate to see that happen...

...Butow, a diplomatic historian at the University of Washington, "it is absolutely essential that the first move be made by the Japanese, and that the statement be clear-cut...

...Meanwhile, quite apart from the Iraqi conflict, public opinion polls have found that an increasing number of Americans view Japanese economic power as the principal threat to the U.S...

...troops in effect became the protectors of Japan's oil supply...

...But individual feelings of remorse notwithstanding, Sassa declares, it is up to the government to take a decisive step...

...I was one of many Japanese...

...That prospect has aroused reactions from Japan's neighbors, primarily South Korea and China...

...Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is scheduled to come to Japan in April, and Moscow has indicated to the Tokyo government that he is prepared to offer an apology for the severe treatment of Japanese prisoners in the years following World War II...

...A substantial number of Imperial Army veterans, for example, have formed an organization called Fusen (No War...

...I feel great regret and sadness...

...Against the historic background and the continuing problems of communication which have led to new tensions today, this is an excellent chance for the two leaders to declare that we are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past...

...Interviews with defense and security policy planners in Southeast Asian countries, though, reveal far more concern with Chinese and Indian naval power in the region than with a resurgence of the Japanese military...

...By paying homage to the dead at these sites," Armitage said, "we can put the specter of World War II behind us...

...In the case of Pearl Harbor, there is yet another reason why some Japanese are urging Kaifu to make up his mind fairly quickly about an overture to ward the U.S...

...If we make a clear statement about the War and our determination never again to be an aggressive force," he argues, "we can then revise our Constitution and the Self-Defense Forces Law so that we can send military units to help international efforts in trouble spots abroad such as the Persian Gulf...

...The answer, he and other observers agree, is to work toward establishing a framework of regional security agreements that embrace Japan— rather than leave it an outsider...

...With the actual outbreak of war the criticism sharpened, as U.S...

...Then, President Bush should stop at Hiroshima, where the first atomic bomb was dropped just before the War's end in August 1945...

...Even if there were no crisis in the Middle East, we would think it urgent that the Prime Minister issue an official apology for the Pearl Harbor attack," says former government official Atsuyuki Sassa...

...Japan needs to seize the initiative, Sassa stresses...

...Japanese are afflicted with collective amnesia about the War, but those who suffered at our hands cannot forget," he wrote in a commentary published in one of Japan's largest daily newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun...

...But nothing has been settled in emotional terms...

...Harumi Kinoshita, a 62-year-old businessman, observes that "thanks to General Douglas MacArthur's leadership during the occupation after the War, we Japanese were allowed to concentrate our efforts on economic recovery...

...Although Tokyo has recently been expressing regret to Asian nations, including China and South Korea, for its aggressive military actions and oppressive occupations in the first half of this century, no official statement has ever been made to the United States...

...Many members of Congress were harshly critical of Tokyo for its unwillingness to make a physical contribution to the military deployment in the Persian Gulf...

...After an official Japanese apology to the United States for wartime actions, the former national security adviser continues, Kaifu should put forth an innovative proposal to both Gorbachev and Bush: "Japan should suggest the early start of Asian disarmament talks, and offer to host them—in Hiroshima...

...They hold frequent meetings, give speeches at local gatherings and publish a magazine in which members tell about their Army experiences...

...Former U.S...

...Sassa agrees...