英字新聞

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 15
EDITORIAL: Abe’s war anniversary statement falls way short of the mark
（社説）戦後７０年の安倍談話　何のために出したのか

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II has left us wondering for what purpose and for whom it was written.
　いったい何のための、誰のための談話なのか。

Issued Aug. 14, the statement falls grossly short as an accounting to sum up Japan’s modern history on the occasion of this landmark anniversary.
　安倍首相の談話は、戦後７０年の歴史総括として、極めて不十分な内容だった。

The statement includes all of the terms that had been singled out as crucial elements and were the main focus of international attention: aggression, colonial rule, remorse and apology.
　侵略や植民地支配。反省とおわび。安倍談話には確かに、国際的にも注目されたいくつかのキーワードは盛り込まれた。

But the statement somewhat obscures the fact that Japan was the country that committed the aggression and carried out colonial rule.
　しかし、日本が侵略し、植民地支配をしたという主語はぼかされた。

The document referred to remorse and apology for the war only indirectly by mentioning the fact that past Cabinets expressed these sentiments.
反省やおわびは歴代内閣が表明したとして間接的に触れられた。

We feel strongly that the Abe administration did not have to issue, or rather, should not have issued this flawed statement.
　この談話は出す必要がなかった。いや、出すべきではなかった。改めて強くそう思う。

BACKING DOWN FROM POSITION SET BY MURAYAMA
　■「村山」以前に後退

The Abe statement struck us as an awkward compromise between the views about history held by him and his supporters and the hard and weighty historical facts.
　談話全体を通じて感じられるのは、自らや支持者の歴史観と、事実の重みとの折り合いに苦心した妥協の産物であるということだ。

The statement issued in 1995 by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the war has been internationally recognized as a document describing the Japanese government’s views about the nation’s wartime past. Its most important feature is that it clearly acknowledged Japan’s act of aggression and candidly expressed remorse for the nation’s past and apologies to peoples of Asian countries.
　日本政府の歴史認識として定着してきた戦後５０年の村山談話の最大の特徴は、かつての日本の行為を侵略だと認め、その反省とアジアの諸国民へのおわびを、率直に語ったことだ。

In contrast, the Abe statement referred to Japan’s aggression in the following passage.
　一方、安倍談話で侵略に言及したのは次のくだりだ。

“Incident, aggression, war--we shall never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”
　「事変、侵略、戦争。いかなる武力の威嚇や行使も、国際紛争を解決する手段としては、もう二度と用いてはならない」

This declaration, in itself, is not wrong, of course. But this clearly represents a back down from the position set by the Murayama statement, which Abe himself had pledged to uphold.
　それ自体、もちろん間違いではない。しかし、首相自身が引き継ぐという村山談話の内容から明らかに後退している。

Even a report drawn up by a panel of personal advisers to Abe appointed to offer advice over the war commemorative statement made a clear reference to Japan’s aggression on the Asian continent.
　日本の大陸への侵略については、首相の私的懇談会も報告書に明記していた。

The new statement is also a back down from how past prime ministers of the Liberal Democratic Party who held office before the Murayama statement described Japan’s wartime behavior. These leaders said to the effect that there was no denying Japan’s aggressive acts, even if they didn’t use the word “aggression.”
侵略とは言わなくても「侵略的事実を否定できない」などと認めてきた村山談話以前の自民党首相の表現からも後退している。

Much the same is true with the issue of apology.
　おわびについても同様だ。

Abe’s statement says, “We must not let our children, grandchildren and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize.”
　首相は「私たちの子や孫に、謝罪を続ける宿命を背負わせてはなりません」と述べた。

Many Japanese certainly have the feeling of how long Japan has had to keep apologizing. On the other hand, China and South Korea have their reasons to keep demanding that Japan apologize.
　確かに、国民の中にはいつまでわび続ければよいのかという感情がある。他方、中国や韓国が謝罪を求め続けることにもわけがある。

Although the Japanese government has expressed remorse and apology, ministers and other top government officials repeatedly made remarks that cast doubt over the government’s statements. Prime ministers and other politicians paid many visits to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war criminals along with general war dead. Japan itself has done things that undermine the credibility of its own words.
　政府として反省や謝罪を示しても、閣僚らがそれを疑わせる発言を繰り返す。靖国神社に首相らが参拝する。信頼を損ねる原因を日本から作ってきた。

SAD SPECTACLE OF FLIP-FLOPPING
　■目を疑う迷走ぶり

If he wants to relieve Japan from the burden of having to keep apologizing, Abe, who is suspected by the international community to have biased views about history, should have gracefully offered his own apologies to end the cycle of negative sentiment that has been straining the relationship between Japanese and the peoples of other Asian nations. It is a pity that he failed to make that decision.
　謝罪を続けたくないなら、国際社会から偏った歴史認識をもっていると疑われている安倍氏がここで潔く謝罪し、国民とアジア諸国民との間に横たわる負の連鎖を断ち切る――。こんな決断はできなかったのか。

Aside from the content of the statement, the political process leading to the release of the document was a depressingly sad spectacle of flip-flopping by the administration.
　それにしても、談話発表に至る過程で見せつけられたのは、目を疑うような政権の二転三転ぶりだった。

Immediately after returning to power, Abe began expressing his desire to issue a “future-oriented statement fit for the 21st century.” His remarks indicated his intention to replace the history perceptions displayed by the Murayama statement with his own.
　安倍氏は首相に再登板した直後から「２１世紀にふさわしい未来志向の談話を発表したい」と表明。村山談話の歴史認識を塗り替える狙いを示唆してきた。

As this move caused serious concern to not only China and South Korea, but also the United States, Abe tilted toward issuing only his personal statement without official Cabinet endorsement.
　そんな首相の姿勢に中国や韓国だけでなく、米国も懸念を深め、首相はいったんは閣議決定せずに個人的談話の色彩を強めることに傾く。

But some close aides to Abe and Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, voiced an objection to the idea, saying that such a statement would not represent the government’s official position.
Abe then decided to have the statement approved by the Cabinet after all. It was distressing to see the administration change its mind repeatedly on the milestone statement.
　それでは公式な政府見解にならないと反発した首相側近や、公明党からも異論が出て、再び閣議決定する方針に。節目の談話の扱いに全くふさわしくない悲惨な迷走ぶりである。

Meanwhile, Western scholars as well as Japanese researchers called for Japan’s “unbiased” accounting of past wrongs. In opinion polls, a majority of Japanese also said the statement should acknowledge Japan’s “aggression” and other past wrongdoings.
　この間、国内のみならず欧米の学者も過ちの「偏見なき清算」を呼びかけた。世論調査でも過半数が「侵略」などを盛り込むべきだとの民意を示した。

In the first place, whether it is approved by the Cabinet or not, the prime minister’s statement cannot be cast merely as his “personal view.”
　そもそも閣議決定をしようがしまいが、首相の談話が「個人的な談話」で済むはずがない。

The statement is inevitably taken by the international community as Japan’s official view about its past based on the people’s collective will.
日本国民の総意を踏まえた歴史認識だと国際社会で受け取られることは避けられない。

After making a wrongheaded and miserably failed move to turn the statement into his personal credo, Abe pathetically ended up issuing a statement that is fuzzy about the responsibility for aggression and his intention to offer an apology.
　それを私物化しようとした迷走の果てに、侵略の責任も、おわびの意思もあいまいな談話を出す体たらくである。

CONFUSED POLICY PRIORITIES
　■政治の本末転倒

It is simply impossible for Abe to push through a major revision to the standard history perceptions that have been accepted by many Japanese and the international community by taking advantage of the ruling camp’s majority control of the Diet.
　国会での数の力を背景に強引に押し通そうとしても、多くの国民と国際社会が共有している当たり前の歴史認識を覆す無理が通るはずがない。

Abe has been stressing the need to adopt a future-oriented attitude toward history. But making the present and the future better than the past requires coming to terms with the past.
From this point of view, there are still many problems concerning Japan’s past that have been left unsolved, despite the urgent need to settle them.
　首相は未来志向を強調してきたが、現在と未来をより良く生きるためには過去のけじめは欠かせない。その意味で、解決が迫られているのに、いまだ残された問題はまだまだある。

The biggest of these problems concerns Yasukuni Shrine and the issue of how the government should mourn the war dead.
　最たるものは靖国神社と戦没者追悼の問題である。

Diplomatic friction over Yasukuni has eased somewhat recently because Abe has not visited the Shinto shrine since the end of 2013.
But the issue will flare up immediately if he pays it another visit.
安倍首相が１３年末以来参拝していないため外交的な摩擦は落ち着いているが、首相が再び参拝すれば、たちまち再燃する。

Even so, there has been no notable political move toward finding a solution to this problem.
それなのに、この問題に何らかの解決策を見いだそうという政治の動きは極めて乏しい。

No political consensus has been reached on any possible solution to the issue of “comfort women.” There has also been no progress either on the problem of the past abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea, with which Japan has no formal diplomatic relationship. Tokyo’s negotiations with Moscow for a settlement of the territorial dispute over the Northern Territories, a group of islands off Hokkaido controlled by Russia, have become bogged down.
　慰安婦問題は解決に向けた政治的合意が得られず、国交がない北朝鮮による拉致問題も進展しない。ロシアとの北方領土問題も暗礁に乗り上げている。

While it has spent so much time and energy on a statement that did not have to be issued, the administration has done little to tackle these history related problems, which are crying out for effective political actions for solutions amid the aging of the Japanese and peoples of neighboring countries who experienced firsthand the ravages of war.
　出す必要のない談話に労力を費やしたあげく、戦争の惨禍を体験した日本国民や近隣諸国民が高齢化するなかで解決が急がれる問題は足踏みが続く。

We cannot help but wonder for what purpose and for whom the administration is making its policy efforts. Its priorities are totally wrong.
　いったい何のための、誰のための政治なのか。本末転倒も極まれりである。

The blame for this wretched situation should be borne by Abe himself.
　その責めは、首相自身が負わねばならない。