There were commemorations earlier today in Hiroshima, to mark seventy years after the atomic bomb devastated the city and killed an estimated 150 thousand people, almost all of them civilians. More ceremonies follow Sunday, in Nagasaki, but amid the solemnity of those events, many across the region are waiting to hear what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will say to mark Japan's surrender. More from Neal Conan in today's Pacific News Minute.
While the date the war ended in the Pacific is fairly straightforward; when it began, depends on where you're from. Americans, of course, remember December 7, 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, but Chinese would cite 1937 when Japanese troops invaded, and Koreans might go back to 1910 and the Japanese colonization.
Given the enormity of their suffering, both countries remain deeply suspicious of Japan despite its post-war pacifism, enshrined in Article Nine of the Constitution which prohibits involvement in any conflict, except in self-defense. The clause remains deeply popular in Japan, where many point to Hiroshima and say, never again to war.
Even so, the Government of Shinzo Abe is now well on the way to passage of new laws that reinterpret Article Nine and widen the circumstances under which Japan could become involved in combat. The government argues that Japan is an island nation that relies utterly on overseas trade, faces threats from North Korea and China and might want to come to the aid of an embattled ally in a crisis, meaning the United States.
Prime Minister Abe mourned the souls lost in Hiroshima earlier today, but in the days ahead, he faces a difficult task, to acknowledge the lessons of history and reposition his country amid the enduring mistrust of his neighbors.
