By Mina Pollmann
The language in Abe’s statement reflects a mainstream consensus on modern Japanese identity.
After months of heated speculation, Asia watchers can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II has been issued, and did indeed include the four key terms: “aggression,” “colonial domination,” “deep remorse,” and “apology.” Though the quibbling among politicians and diplomats — over Abe’s passive tense or the indirectness of the references to “comfort women” or the extraneous history lesson — will undoubtedly continue for a few more days, the more interesting and enduring question is this: what changes, if any, in Japanese identity does the Abe Statement reflect?
The Abe Statement, after all, was passed as a Cabinet resolution, meaning that it was intended to reflect broader Japanese sentiment. The purpose was to try to unify as many Japanese people as possible behind a common understanding of what the war means to Japan and what lessons Japan learned from the war. Sheila Smith echoes this sentiment in CFR’s Asia Unbound blog: “Asked what his message to the Japanese people was, Abe answered that he sought to make a statement of Japan’s past and future that would be shared broadly among the people of Japan.”
In this, Abe may well have succeeded. As Michael Green writes in CSIS’s Critical Questions series, “Abe’s statement is likely to play well with the center in Japan.” Though individual Japanese will find fault with Abe’s statement, it is not far-fetched to characterize his statement as a generally accepted understanding of Japan’s role in the war itself, and more importantly, role in the postwar international order.
In analyzing what sort of change in Japanese identity the Abe statement reflects, it is useful to turn to a model developed by Linus Hagström and Karl Gustafsson to explain identity change (the full article is available for free here). Hagström and Gustafsson postulate that the best way to understand Japanese identity is by conceiving of it as three mutually interacting layers.
Read the full story at The Diplomat