Japanese prime minister arrives in Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor

Shinzo Abe landed on Oahu on Monday; he is to visit the USS Arizona memorial tomorrow.

|
Marco Garcia/AP
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's plane flies over Air Force One in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Hawaii on Monday to recognize the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Abe landed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for the historic visit. He will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit the memorial that honors sailors and Marines killed in the attack that spurred America to enter World War II.

Japan's former leader Shigeru Yoshida went to Pearl Harbor six years after the country's World War II surrender, but that was before the USS Arizona Memorial was built. Yoshida arrived at Pearl Harbor in 1951, shortly after requesting a courtesy visit to the office of Adm. Arthur W.R. Radford, commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet. The office overlooked Pearl Harbor, offering a direct view of the attack site.

The memorial will be closed to the public Tuesday when Abe visits the historic site, joined by U.S. President Barack Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii with his family.

The importance of the visit may be mostly symbolic for two countries that, in a remarkable transformation, have grown into close allies in the decades since they faced off in brutal conflict. At the same time, it's significant that it took more than 70 years for U.S.-Japanese relations to get to this point.

Abe won't apologize for Japan's attack when he visits, the government spokesman said earlier this month.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology."

The visit comes six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

On Monday, Abe visited the Ehime Maru Memorial near downtown Honolulu. Nine boys and men died when a U.S. Navy submarine collided with their Japanese fishing vessel off Oahu on Feb. 9. 2001. Hawaii Gov. David Ige and Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, were among those who joined Abe for the solemn memorial visit.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Japanese prime minister arrives in Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/1226/Japanese-prime-minister-arrives-in-Hawaii-to-visit-Pearl-Harbor
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe