Today (August 15), which marks South Korea's Liberation Day and Japan's surrender in World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi refrained from visiting the Yasukuni Shrine but made no mention of remorse for past wartime damage inflicted by Japan.
Prime Minister Takaichi's memorial address at the National Memorial Service for War Dead, held to mark the 81st anniversary of Japan's war defeat, omitted the terms "remorse" and "pledge not to wage war."
This follows the footsteps of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom she considers her "political mentor."
While past Japanese prime ministers mentioned the suffering experienced by neighboring countries and expressed remorse on the anniversary of the war defeat, former Prime Minister Abe stopped using such remarks starting from the 2013 memorial address following his return to power in 2012.
Last year, former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba drew attention both inside and outside Japan by reviving references to remorse and the pledge not to wage war for the first time in 13 years, but Prime Minister Takaichi reversed this stance this year.
Going a step further, Prime Minister Takaichi altered the phrase "We will not repeat the ravages of war," which had been used by successive prime ministers including former Prime Minister Abe, into "We will not allow them to be repeated."
Analyses suggest this changed the expression from an active form denying the will for war to a causative form with an ambiguous subject.
Prime Minister Takaichi also avoided terms such as "aggression," "inflicting harm," and "damage and suffering caused to Asian nations," which Japanese prime ministers had historically used alongside "remorse" until 2012.
Instead, she claimed that "Japan can become a country that serves as a shining beacon of the Indo-Pacific."
Prior to the memorial service earlier this morning, Prime Minister Takaichi offered ritual payment fees, known as "tamagushi," out of her own pocket to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Before taking office, Prime Minister Takaichi regularly visited the Yasukuni Shrine every August 15. However, for her first war-defeat anniversary as prime minister, she appeared to have withheld from visiting to take into account potential backlashes from neighboring countries such as South Korea and China.
The Yasukuni Shrine honors about 2.466 million people who died in various wars instigated by Japanese imperialism. It also enshrines 14 Class-A war criminals from the Pacific War, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo executed following the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, making it a symbol of Japanese militarism.
(Reported by Jung Da-eun, Video by Na Hong-hee, Graphics by Lee Jung-joo, Produced by SBS Digital News)
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