Historical debate follows Japanese leader to U.S.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have a hard act to follow when he makes his first trip as Japan’s leader to the United States this week.
President George W. Bush took his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to Graceland in Memphis, where Mr. Koizumi put on Elvis Presley’s shades and played air guitar while mugging for the camera.
By contrast, Mr. Abe is expected to make a low-key visit ...
In his seven months in office, Mr. Abe has reassured Washington by smoothing relations with China. Relations between the two countries had grown dangerously tense under Mr. Koizumi.
But relations between the United States and Japan have grown slightly strained because of differences over two issues intimately tied to Mr. Abe’s nationalist ideology: North Korea and his revisionist views on history.
American officials took the rare step recently of publicly rebuking Mr. Abe for denying that the Japanese military had coerced women into sex slavery in World War II. While the United States still wants Japan to become more assertive in Asia, even American conservative voices have recently urged caution about being too closely tied to Japan’s nationalist leaders.
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President George W. Bush took his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to Graceland in Memphis, where Mr. Koizumi put on Elvis Presley’s shades and played air guitar while mugging for the camera.
By contrast, Mr. Abe is expected to make a low-key visit ...
In his seven months in office, Mr. Abe has reassured Washington by smoothing relations with China. Relations between the two countries had grown dangerously tense under Mr. Koizumi.
But relations between the United States and Japan have grown slightly strained because of differences over two issues intimately tied to Mr. Abe’s nationalist ideology: North Korea and his revisionist views on history.
American officials took the rare step recently of publicly rebuking Mr. Abe for denying that the Japanese military had coerced women into sex slavery in World War II. While the United States still wants Japan to become more assertive in Asia, even American conservative voices have recently urged caution about being too closely tied to Japan’s nationalist leaders.