News Analysis: Japanese PM's scheduled Hawaii visit draws speculation in U.S.

With Shinzo Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor two weeks away, American pundits kept suspicion to see if the Japanese prime minister would apologize directly to China for the barbaric atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers against Chinese civilians in World War II (WWII).

That direct apology has never happened since the end of the war.

Abe's historic meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama scheduled for Dec. 26, to commemorate Japan's Dec. 6, 1941 surprise bombing raid that left 2,500 Americans dead will be the first visit by a Japanese leader to the site since the attack.

Abe was expected to be apologetic in his remarks, especially to his American hosts, and recently named countries attacked by Japan in WWII, saying "We must never repeat the atrocities of war."

"This is a great opportunity for Japan to come clean -- to apologize to both the USA and China for their WWII atrocities," said retired Denver history professor John Yee, 95.

According to Yee, Japan's atrocities in the war were considered some of the most barbaric acts in world history, with the Nanjing Massacre in which more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed by Japanese invaders between Dec. 13, 1937 to Jan. 1938, called the worst.

"They (the Japanese aggressor troops) had contests flipping Chinese babies in the air and bayoneting them on the way down; at knife-point they forced fathers to rape daughters and sons to rape mothers; and they had contests to see how many Chinese heads they could cut off," Yee said.

Iris Chang, the best-selling, Princeton-educated journalist who wrote the "Rape of Nanking" in 1997, killed herself in 2004 from depression triggered by writing the book, Yee cited.

"Germans have been much more transparent about their WWII role; and there are museums dedicated to the Holocaust in Germany, while Japan has done no such thing," said Denver political analyst James Ryder.

Japanese media and teachers still denied the historical data of the Nanjing massacre, Ryder told Xinhua Monday, and Japan held back its UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) funding after the organization's decision to inscribe documents related to the Nanjing massacre in its Memory of the World register.

"Japan's failure to acknowledge what the rest of the world knows to be true is really beneath the modern, sophisticated Japanese state," said Seattle attorney and former Washington foreign policy analyst Dave Richardson.

"Everyone knows it happened, Japan knows it happened. I don't know what Japan thinks it is achieving by its failure to recognize history," said Richardson. "It should step up to the plate, acknowledge what happened, and apologize to each country individually, especially China."

Last week, regarding opinions in Japan that Abe should visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that if the Japanese side wishes to reflect on its history and offer a sincere apology, there are many places in China for them to do so.

Abe had a chance to start the healing process, Richardson thinks. Endi