More than a half year after the inauguration of the Abe Cabinet, Japan's bilateral relations with China and South Korea remain chilly. South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with U.S. President Barack Obama in early May in Washington. Although South Korean leaders traditionally follow up such a meeting with a visit to Japan, Ms. Park chose instead to travel to Beijing in late June to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In early July, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was able to meet with his South Korean counterpart, Mr. Yun Byung-se, at the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Brunei. But he wasn't even able to have an informal chat with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a former ambassador to Japan, on the sidelines of that meeting.
Clearly Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statements on the perception of 20th-century history in Asia are a major reason for the chilly state of Japan's ties with China and South Korea. When Japan faced criticism from China and South Korea over three Cabinet members' visit to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Japan's war dead, in April, Mr. Abe said, "My Cabinet members will never yield to any threat" over Yasukuni visits. His statement shows that he does not understand the ideological role the shrine played in promoting Japan's 20th century militarism.
In April, Prime Minister Abe told the Diet, "There is no definition of aggression, academically and internationally." As for Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama's Aug. 15, 1995, statement in which Mr. Murayama apologized for Japan's colonial rule and aggression in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Abe denied that his Cabinet accepts the Murayama statement in its entirety.