There are many in the West, and indeed in Japan, who do not understand why the past cannot be buried and why Japan's wartime aggression is held against it.

Why shouldn't Japan be a normal state? Why shouldn't it have a military like other countries? Why should it not change its Constitution, after all, they say, wasn't it written and imposed by the United States after the war? Such questions have come to the fore with the growing estrangement between Japan and its neighbors.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set himself the mission of restoring to Japan the status of being a normal state. In this noble task, he has cast himself as the hero battling the forces of evil (with a little help from of a now-friendly giant). It's a nice story; but in fact his tale has already been told.

In reality, he is tilting at windmills; because like that ingenious gentleman of Cervantes he has allowed himself to be deceived and ensnared by an outdated code of behavior. And in so doing, he has become the very obstacle that he is trying to overcome.

Quite simply, Japan can never be regarded as a normal state while he is at the helm, because he will never bring himself to look his country's history squarely in the face and offer a sincere apology for Japan's treatment of its neighbors during its pursuit of colonial ambitions.

Japan's growing estrangement from its neighbors is not only because he and his cronies have chosen to deny that the Japanese military, with the emperor at its head, did anything wrong. It is also because Abe and like-minded politicians in Japan are trying to mislead the Japanese people by perversely laying the groundwork to recant the apologies that Japanese politicians have made in the past and eliminate any reference to what really happened during the war from school textbooks.

There are already people in Japan who do not understand why their country receives such condemnation, for the simple reason they are ignorant of its origins. They are not informed of what really happened in those dark days and are presented with the picture of Japan in the role of victim thanks to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States.

For Japan to be considered a normal state, it needs its leaders to accept the truth of the past and acknowledge the suffering inflicted on other peoples in Asia during the war. This is not something that has been magnified out of all proportion by those countries that were the victims of its aggressive imperialism. Allied prisoners of war have also testified to the harrowing treatment they experienced at the hands of their Japanese captors.

That this was the outcome of Bushido, literally "Way of the Warrior", the code of conduct of the samurai that became the ethical foundation for the whole of Japanese society in the 19th century, (and which Abe's grandfather seems to have inculcated in him), does not provide an excuse for Abe and his cohorts to ignore the brutal crimes evidenced in the recollections of Japanese soldiers, not to mention the confessions of Japanese war criminals.

Yes, atrocities happen in war, on both a small and large scale, and they are not something exclusive to the Japanese, but they should not be tacitly condoned. And yes, fervent nationalism all too easily turns to racism. Japan is not exceptional because it manifested these. It is exceptional, because its current leaders refuse to acknowledge that some of their countrymen were guilty of both at a particular point in history.

Abe and his ilk seem to believe that with the United States willing to turn a blind eye to anything they do so long as it keeps China wrongfooted, they can do no wrong.

But two wrongs do not make a right. Just because the US administration is foolish enough to believe that Japan's words and deeds don't matter so long as it keeps China on a short leash, that does not mean that Abe and the other Japanese rightists are not doing their country and the region a grave disservice.

With no apology forthcoming, and therefore no awareness made public that he recognizes where such military ambitions can lead, Abe's haste to sidestep and even overturn the Constitution and its commitment that, "We desire to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace," is naturally of great concern to Japan's neighbors.

With an apology from Abe less likely than a genetically modified pig that can fly, it remains to be seen what further damage he can do before the Japanese public, or at least his party's coalition partner, already worried by the path he is leading them down, says enough is enough and turfs him out of office.

Hopefully, in that event, Abe's successor will have the courage to separate the present from the past, even if that means not getting any preferential treatment from the US, and be both willing and able to offer a heartfelt apology that will enable countries in the region to embrace the future together.

The author is a writer with China Daily.