Commentary: Hypocrisy of Abe's "reconciliation" efforts self-evident with shrine visit

By offering selective condolences to war victims while paying tribute to Japanese war criminals, the Abe administration has showed its hypocritical and unscrupulous true colors in dealing with historical issues.

Shortly after a "reconciliation" visit on Monday by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Pearl Harbor, the U.S. port in Hawaii that suffered a deadly surprise attack from Japan during World War II, two of Japan's top officials visited the infamous Yasukuni Shrine that honors 14 Class-A war criminals, including the man responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack.

Masahiro Imamura, Japan's reconstruction minister for disaster-hit regions, and Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, who accompanied Abe to Pearl Harbor, visited the controversial war shrine separately on Wednesday and Thursday.

Unlike Germany, Japan has never fully admitted to and reflected upon its horrific war crimes against other Asian nations during WWII that killed tens of millions of civilians.

Japan's selective "reconciliation" with the United States, in comparison with the repeated denial of its wartime atrocities including the Nanking Massacre in China and "comfort women" across Asia, is shameful and aims only for geopolitical profit.

The victims and heroes of Pearl Harbor, as well as the tens of millions more innocents who perished during the war over 70 years ago, deserve sincere and genuine repentance from Tokyo.

Sadly, Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor is just a calculated move to boost the Japan-U.S.alliance through which Japan hopes to realize its ambitions of becoming a political and military power on the global stage.

At home, Abe, since he returned to power in 2012, has been pushing for revising Japan's Constitution, in particular its war-renouncing Article 9.

Steps toward this goal were first made by Abe's ruling coalition forcibly enacting the controversial security laws through its dominance in parliament and in doing so enabling Japanese troops to deploy overseas and engage in offensive military action, despite a clause in Article 9 of the Constitution prohibiting Japan from fighting overseas.

Despite domestic and international criticism, the Abe administration began the overseas implementation of the new security law since it came into force in March.

It is worth reminding that postwar Japan was able to achieve full recovery and an economic boom thanks to a peaceful and stable environment.

Yet Tokyo, under Abe's leadership and a strong right-wing influence, is embarking upon a dangerous path that could threaten regional and global peace and stability and again bring great misfortune to its people. Endi