US President Barack Obama's four-nation East Asian tour from Wednesday is aimed at pushing forward Washington's "pivot to Asia" policy. First, his visits to Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines show the US is determined to consolidate its military presence and use its diplomatic power to ensure the success of the policy.
By calling China irresponsible, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has once again merely demonstrated his own irresponsibility.
Hitoshi Tanaka, former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, said Friday that Japan should take a realistic view of history.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration is receiving flak all round, a situation made worse by friends and like-minded people that he has recruited to push his nationalist right-wing agenda.
The Japanese cabinet on April 1 approved eased principles and guidelines on the transfer of defense equipment to replace the country's original Three Principles on Arms Exports. The Japanese government's "success" in renewing arms exports after decades of an absolute ban on the trade of defense equipment and technologies marks a major change in the country's defense and security policy and suggests that the Shinzo Abe cabinet has made an important step toward turning the country into a military power.
A shadow was cast over regional peace and stability last week when Japan's chief cabinet secretary rejected Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks on Japan's invasion of China and the Nanjing Massacre, says a Xinhua commentary.
Instead of self-reflection, some senior government officials in Japan are relentlessly denying the country's war crimes; such an irresponsible attitude will only jeopardize the country's future.
In her almost nine years as chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel has won respect around the world for her dignified leadership, strong moral sense and disciplined, responsible fiscal policies.
While the world is wondering what the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit, held on Monday and Tuesday in The Hague, the Netherlands, will achieve, Tokyo is busy working on a draft statement, due to be considered in a nuclear disarmament meeting in Hiroshima next month, aimed at urging China to engage in nuclear arms reduction talks with the United States and Russia. As a driving force behind the efforts to pressure China, Japan is choosing to ignore the gap between the size of China's nuclear arsenal and those of the US and Russia, which are by far the largest in the world.
Removing the restraints on collective self-defense imposed by Japan's pacifist Constitution through constitutional interpretation has become a top priority for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his cabinet, as these restraints are the last "defensive line" of the Japanese pacifist Constitution.
A correct perception on history requires not only readiness to bear responsibility for what one has done in the past, but also the courage to look for the root causes of one's wrongdoings.
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