What a difference 20 years make.

In 1995, then-prime minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized for Japan's aggression toward other Asian countries, in what is now known as the Murayama Statement. Prior to the statement, Murayama, who led an unorthodox coalition government of the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the now-defunct New Party Sakigake, sought to see Japan's parliament, the Diet, adopt a resolution marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the World War II, on the strength of a consensus reached between the SDP and LDP.

He attempted to settle the historical perception issue once and for all with the resolution including an apology for Japan's invasion of China and its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.