アメリカのThe New York Times が、社説で安倍首相を批判

  アメリカのThe　New　York　Timesが、１月３日に安倍首相を批判する社説を掲載した。アメリカの有力紙がこのような社説を掲載するのは異例のことである。憲法を改悪し、国防軍を作ろうという安倍政権が世界からは厳しい目で見られているのだ。

　直接的には、安倍首相が１２月３１日に産経新聞のインタビューで語った二つの談話の見直しである。（ニューヨークタイムズは安倍首相を右翼だと書いている。）

　１つは、村山談話の見直しであり、もう１つは、従軍慰安婦もんだいでの河野談話の見直しである。

　村山談話では、日本の植民地支配と侵略に「心からのお詫び」を述べ、歴代の政権が継承して来たものである。河野談話ではアジアやヨーロッパなどの女性を軍の慰安所で性の相手として提供したことを認めて謝罪をしたものであった。それを慰安婦の「強制連行」は資料がないとして否定したのだ。

　こうした動きは、韓国、中国、フィリピンなど近隣諸国を激怒させるだろうと警告している。

　Few relationships are as important to stability in Asia as the one between Japan　and South Korea. Yet Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, seems inclined to start his tenure with a serious mistake that would inflame tensions with South Korea　and make cooperation harder. He has signaled that he might seek to revise　Japan’s apologies for its World War II aggression, including one for using Koreans and other women as sex slaves.

　　In 1993, Japan finally acknowledged that the Japanese military had raped and enslaved thousands of Asian and European women in army brothels, and offered its first full apology for those atrocities. A broader apology by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama　in 1995 conceded that “through its colonial rule and invasion,”Japan had caused “tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.”

　In an interview with the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, Mr. Abe, a right-wing nationalist, was quoted by Reuters on Monday as saying he wants to replace the 1995 apology with an unspecified “forward looking statement.” He said that his previous administration, in 2006-7, had found no evidence that the women who served as sex slaves to Japan’s wartime military had, in fact, been coerced. However, at a news conference last week, the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said that Mr. Abe would uphold the 1995 apology but hinted he may revise the 1993 statement.

　It is not clear how Mr. Abe, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, might modify the apologies, but he has previously made no secret of his desire to rewrite his country’s wartime history. Any attempt to deny the crimes and dilute the apologies will outrage　South Korea, as well as　China　and the　Philippines, which suffered under　Japan’s brutal wartime rule.

　Mr. Abe’s shameful impulses could threaten critical cooperation in the region on issues like　North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Such revisionism is an embarrassment to a country that should be focused on improving its long-stagnant economy, not whitewashing the past.