Requiescat in Pace

 

Hiroshima, May 27, 2016

It is with profound sadness that I report the death on March 14 of Mr. Shigeaki MORI, 88, of Hiroshima, Japan. As many of you will remember President Barack Obama embraced Mr. Mori who was in the audience for the President's May 27, 2016 remarks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The Japanese government included Mr. Mori as a last minute guest to head off the White House's invitation of an American POW (Army Air Corps' Dan Crowley of Connecticut) to the event. 

Mr. Mori, a child victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, spent his adult life successfully identifying the 12 American airmen he witnessed become POWs and who also died in the bombing. See American POWs in Hiroshima. His quest was made into the award-winning documentary, Paper Lanterns. You can watch it for free here. Mr. Mori was a personal friend and we just exchanged New Year's cards.

our last correspondence December 2025

Monday Asia Events December 2, 2024

IMPLICATIONS OF AN IRANIAN NUCLEAR BOMB. 12/2, 10:30-11:45am (EST).
VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Heritage Foundation. Speakers: Right Hon. Liz Truss, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Nile Gardiner, Director, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow; Robert Peters, Research Fellow, Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense; Andrea Stricker, Deputy Director and Research Fellow, Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program, FDD; Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, The Stimson Center. 

"LIQUIDSCAPE" AND THE ART OF CURATING FROM REGIONAL JAPAN. 12/2, 8:00-9:15am (JST), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Asia Society Japan. Speaker: Yuka Takahashi, Curator, Arts Maebashi.   

BOOK TALK: THE TROUBLEMAKER: HOW JIMMY LAI BECAME A BILLIONAIRE, HONG KONG’S GREATEST DISSIDENT, AND CHINA’S MOST FEARED CRITIC. 12/2, 11:00am-Noon (EST), HYBRID. Sponsor: AEI. Speaker: author Mark L. Clifford, President, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. https://www.aei.org/events/the-troublemaker-how-jimmy-lai-became-a-billionaire-hong-kongs-greatest-dissident-and-chinas-most-feared-critic/ PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/4ihviyE 

 
NEW PARTY POLITICS OF EAST ASIAN DEMOCRACIES. 12/2, Noon-1:15pm (EST). HYBRID. Sponsors: Weatherhead Center Program on U.S.-Japan Relations; Korea Institute, Harvard University; Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School. Speakers: Joan Cho, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University; Aram Hur, Kim Koo Chair in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science, The Fletcher School, Tufts University; Koichi Nakano, Visiting Scholar, Program on US-Japan Relations, Harvard University and Professor of Political Science, Sophia University; Daniel Ziblatt, Director, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University. 

ANGELA MERKEL IN CONVERSATION WITH BARACK OBAMA. 12/2, Noon (EST). IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: The Anthem. Speakers: Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany; Barack Obama, former U.S. President. Fee.

THE FUTURE OF US-CHINA RELATIONS AFTER THE ELECTION. 12/2, 3:30-4:30pm (PST) 6:30-7:30pm (EST), HYBRID. Sponsor: UC San Diego School of Global Policy Strategy. Speakers: Susan Shirk, Director Emeritus, 21st Century China Center, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy; Xinbo Wu, Dean, Institute of International Studies, Director, Center for American Studies, Fudan University; Richard Madsen, Director, Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, UC San Diego. 

Abe at Pearl Harbor

Japanese PM Abe hugs survivor

Abe offers ‘everlasting condolences’ at Pearl Harbor as Obama praises partnership in peace

BY ERIC JOHNSTON, STAFF WRITER

Japan Times, December 28, 2016

HONOLULU – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic visit to Pearl Harbor wrapped up Tuesday with addresses from the Japanese leader and U.S. President Barack Obama on the power of reconciliation and its ability to transform once-hated enemies into close friends and strategic partners.

Seventy five years after the “day of infamy,” on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, Abe and Obama recalled the past but also focused on the importance of the present postwar U.S.-Japan strategic alliance. Abe’s visit and meeting with Obama, who leaves office in less than a month, was an attempt to gird the legacies of both leaders in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of uncertainties surrounding the fate of bilateral relations under President-elect Donald Trump.

In a meeting between the two leaders, Abe thanked Obama for his efforts to work with Japan on a number of issues ranging from dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program to his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, despite opposition by congress and large portions of the American public, as well as Trump, who has announced he will cancel the TPP on his first day in office.

For Abe, the hope is that his trip to Pearl Harbor also sends a message to the U.S., and especially to Trump, that the long-standing postwar relationship should continue, and that the military alliance in particular needs to be strengthened in order to deal with a host of challenges relating to regional security.

While U.S. veterans of Pearl Harbor invited to attend Tuesday’s ceremony appreciated Abe’s visit, how it will be received by the larger American public remains uncertain. Some groups expressed disappointment that Abe offered no apology for the attack, or suggested his administration needs to make similar efforts at reconciliation with not only the U.S. but also other nations victimized by Japan during the 1930s and 1940s.

In a carefully worded address that avoided an apology for Japan’s decision to go to war with the U.S., Abe spoke about the necessity of never repeating the horrors of war. [TEXT]

“As prime minister of Japan, I offer my sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives here, as well as to the spirits of all the brave men and women whose lives were taken by a war that commenced in this very place, and also to the souls of the countless innocent people who became victims of the war,” he said.

Abe, who favors revising Japan’s postwar pacifist Constitution to allow for a more proactive military, added that since World War II, Japan has resolutely upheld its vow to never again wage war.

“To the souls of the servicemen who lie in eternal rest aboard the USS Arizona, to the American people, and to all peoples around the world, I pledge that unwavering vow as the prime minister of Japan,” he said.

Obama, who hosted the prime minister in Pearl Harbor seven months after Abe hosted him at Hiroshima, called the visit a historic gesture and also spoke of reconciliation and Pearl Harbor’s historical legacy. [TEXT]

“We cannot choose the history that we inherit. But we can choose what lessons to draw from it. The fruits of peace always outweigh the plunder of war. This is the enduring truth of this hallowed harbor,” Obama said in his remarks following Abe’s address.

In a veiled reference to concerns both in and outside the U.S. created by Trump’s election, Obama also referenced the Japanese phrase otagai no tame ni — doing things with and for each other — as words to follow when resisting the urge to demonize others or turn inwards.

“Over the decades, our alliance has made both of our nations more successful. It has helped to underwrite an international order that has prevented another world war and that has lifted more than a billion people out of extreme poverty. And today, the alliance between the United States and Japan — bound not only by shared interests, but also rooted in common values — stands as the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific and a force for progress around the globe. Our alliance has never been stronger,” Obama said.

Following their statements, Abe and Obama shook hands and exchanged greetings with three survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack, who are now in their 90s. All three welcomed Abe’s visit.

“Apologize for the attack on Pearl Harbor? What for? There’s nothing to apologize for. The U.S. and Japan are friends now,” said Everett Hyland, who was on board the USS Pennsylvania when the attack began and was severely injured by a bomb.

Total U.S. casualties for the Pearl Harbor attack were 2,403 dead and 1,178 wounded.

Abe received a brief tour of the Pearl Harbor Visitors Center before proceeding to the Arizona memorial and holding a separate meeting with Obama. He then addressed a crowd that included large numbers of U.S. military personnel and Japanese-American residents of Hawaii.

The visitors center includes displays and explanations of the political situation in the U.S. and in Japan in the 1930s, describing the decisions, especially by Japan, that led to the attack as well as details of the attack itself. It also describes the impact it had in the U.S. as a whole and on Hawaii’s Japanese-American community.

The center’s chief historian, Daniel Martinez, told Abe that “The exhibits reflect the voices and views of people who were involved in the attack or the war, not the opinions of academics.” Abe was accompanied by Defense Minister Tomomi Inada — who in the past has espoused revisionist views of Japan’s wartime history — and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Abe’s gesture was widely welcomed in Hawaii and among Americans and Japanese who deal directly with each other. Its impact in the U.S. as a whole, three-quarters of a century after the attack, is less clear. For most Americans, Pearl Harbor was a long time ago — a different century.

However, for those concerned about historical reconciliation issues in the Asia-Pacific region, there were calls to continue the reconciliation process, especially with Japan’s Asian neighbors.

In an open letter released on Christmas Day, over 50 international historians, filmmakers — including director Oliver Stone — and others asked the prime minister about his views on Japan’s history and about previous public statements he’d made.

“You state that you are going to visit Pearl Harbor to ‘mourn’ the 2,400 Americans who perished in the attack. If that is the case, will you also be visiting China, Korea, other Asia-Pacific nations, or the other Allied nations for the purpose of ‘mourning’ war victims in those countries who number in the tens of millions?” the group asked.

They added that in Diet questioning on April 23, 2013, Abe, as prime minister, indicated that the definition of what constitutes “aggression” has yet to be established in academia or in the international community.

“Does that mean that you do not recognize Japan’s war against the Allied and Asia-Pacific nations and the preceding war against China as wars of aggression?” the scholars asked.

Jan Thompson, president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, said she was impressed by the sincerity of Abe’s speech, saying it took moral courage. She said she knew that he would not apologize for the Pearl Harbor attack but encouraged him to visit other Asian countries as well.

“It’s taken 75 years for us to get to this point where a Japanese prime minister can come to Pearl Harbor and make that kind of a speech. However, while some people are saying that his visit means reconciliation with the wartime past is over, it’s actually only one step on the road. Reconciliation is cross-generational,” she said.

Week of the Prisoner of War

On November 11th, Veterans Day, Dan Crowley, 94, will join President Barack Obama for his annual breakfast for representatives from America's Veterans Service Organizations. He will represent the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society.

Mr. Crowley was sent to the Philippines as an enlisted member of the Army Air Corps in 1941 untrained and unarmed. When the Japanese attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, he fought in an improvised air defense at Nichols Field near Manila. After the Field's destruction, the airmen were moved to Bataan to join the US Army Infantry in the Battle of the Points repelling three waves of the Japanese invasion. He avoided the Bataan Death March after Bataan's surrender by swimming and clinging to life rafts to Corregidor Island fortress where he engaged in shore defense with the 4th Marines. He was surrendered on May 6, 1942.

As a POW he worked on the infamous air field on Palawan Island. He was shipped to Japan in early 1944 to be slave laborer, thus missing the Palawan Massacre of 150 of his fellow POWs on December 14, 1944. First taken to a Hitachi copper mine, he was liberated in September 1945 from another copper mine near Tokyo owned by the Furukawa Company, today a major multinational. Its US subsidiary, Furukawa Rock Drill, is in Kent, Ohio. Kent is barely 100 miles from Port Clinton, Ohio. Company C 192nd Tank Battalion sent to the Philippines in October 1941 was a unit whose core was comprised of men from the Port Clinton area.  The 32 Port Clinton men were soon engaged in the Defense of the Philippine Islands. Only 10 of the 32 local men survived the Bataan Death March and three and a half years as POWs.

In 2014, he participated in a Japanese reconciliation program began in 2010 for former American POWs to visit Japan. Representatives from Furukawa refused to meet with Mr. Crowley. However, he was able to visit the mine where he toiled as it is now a museum and amusement park. There is no mention of the American and Allied POW labor at the mine.

You can find out more about Mr. Crowley at the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project.

click to order

Mr. Crowley will give two presentations open to the public, among the many veterans programs this week.

 LAST RING HOME. NOVEMBER 9, Noon-2:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: US Navy Memorial Foundation and Asia Policy Point. Author Minter Dial II discusses his new book The Last Ring Home: A POW’s Lasting Legacy of Courage, Love and Honor in World War II (Myndset Press, 2016) and documentary on his grandfather, Lt Minter Dial who commanded the USS Napa from September 1941 until March 1942 when he was ordered to Corregidor. Lt Dial's Annapolis Naval Academy ring, miraculously made its way home 17 years after he was killed as a POW of Japan on the Philippines. After his remarks, there will be a special advance screening of the new PBS documentary The Last Ring Home based on Dial's book.

Dan Crowley, a former POW of Japan who fought on Corregidor will be a special guest. After the Dial presentation, over a lite lunch. Mr. Crowley will offer his observations on Japan's invasion of the Philippines, the battles that followed, the historic surrender of American troops by their officers, and his over three years as a POW of Imperial Japan.

THE BATTLE OF THE PHILIPPINES 75 YEARS LATER: A VETERAN'S TALE. NOVEMBER 10, 1:00-2:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Sigur Center, George Washington University and the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society. Speaker: Dan Crowley, veteran of the Battle for the defense of Philippines with the US Army Air Corps, Army Infantry, and Marines; former POW of Japan in the Philippines and Japan, slave laborer for Hitachi and Furukawa. Location: Sigur Center, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, 1957 E Street, NW, Chung-wen Shih Conference Room, Suite 503.

Mr. Crowley is a life member of the VFW.

VFW NATIONAL COMMANDER BRIAN DUFFY will give a press conference on NOVEMBER 10th at 10:00am at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. . He will discuss the needs of the nation’s 20 million veterans and the plans of veterans’ groups to move President Obama's successor and the next Congress to improve the delivery of promised benefits. The VFW, which traces its roots to the Spanish-American War, requires its members to have served in combat zones overseas.

Putting Mr. Crowley's POW experience in historical perspective will be the following program.

PRISONERS OF WAR. NOVEMBER 14, 6:45-8:45pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Smithsonian Connections. Speaker: Judge Evan J. Wallach, an expert on war crimes and the law of war, circuit judge at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Location: Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Drive, SW.

War has always resulted in prisoners, and their treatment has always been problematic. The settings in which they have been held extend from the Revolutionary War’s prison ships to the Civil War’s infamous Andersonville camp, Japanese slave labor camps and German concentration camps during WWII, and North Korean brainwashing centers through to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Just as war has changed dramatically over the years, so has the treatment of captured prisoners.

Evan J. Wallach, an expert on war crimes and the law of war, finds that how a country treats—or mistreats—captured enemy prisoners is a key gauge of its values as a society and its views of international human rights. He discusses the history of prisoners of war, how POW status is defined in modern warfare, the current required treatment of prisoners, limits to their interrogation, and potential domestic and international legal sanctions for their mistreatment. 

Wallach is a circuit judge at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He served as a combat engineer in Vietnam and Cambodia and in the Pentagon as a U.S. Army judge advocate during the Persian Gulf War, where he was responsible for prisoner of war issues and wrote the Army’s investigation of Iraqi war crimes including mistreatment of coalition POWs.

A New Kind of Reconciliation in East Asia?

Obama's bow at Hiroshima

Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow, Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) and APP member Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman discusses in this essay the current opportunities for reconciliation in East Asia in light of President Barack Obama's May visit to Hiroshima.


President Obama noted in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun before his visit to Hiroshima that his presence was an example of reconciliation: “I will point out that Prime Minister Abe and I coming to Hiroshima together shows the world the possibility of reconciliation—that even former adversaries can become the strongest of allies.” Six weeks earlier, in an interview with Asahi TV, Secretary of State John Kerry also referenced reconciliation to characterize Japanese-U.S. relations: “Well, no matter what people feel about [the dropping of the atomic bomb], we are now friends and allies. We have worked through a remarkable reconciliation.” The visits of Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama to Hiroshima in April and May 2016 came at the same time as Franco-German commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Verdun, providing an opportunity to reflect on reconciliation in Europe and in East Asia.

The current international salience of reconciliation has not been missed by foreign policy experts. For example, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the State Department, Ambassador Wendy Sherman, recently identified the global need for reconciliation—what she calls “political forgiveness”—as a political priority.

This essay looks at the nature of the reconciliation suggested by President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, and how it compares to the iconic reconciliation pursued by Germany over more than seventy years. The path of Germany’s foreign policy of reconciliation (with France, Israel, Poland, and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic) can be described in terms of timing, motives, actors, mechanisms, opposition, and consequences. The argument here is that, while there are many similarities in the elements that make up reconciliation across the two cases, U.S.-Japanese reconciliation as exemplified at Hiroshima is more of a pragmatic kind, lacking the deep moral basis of the German and European experience.

Timing

Germany’s official policy of active reconciliation started early, in the 1950s with France and Israel, whereas Obama’s visit to Hiroshima took place a long 70 years after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Nonetheless, not all issues were settled speedily in the German case, as evidenced by the agreement on World War II slave and forced labor, which occurred only in 2000. And in the Japanese case, the framework for a new relationship was outlined soon after war, in the San Francisco Treaty of September 1951.

Motives

Germany was driven by both pragmatic motives (the return of considerable sovereignty in exchange for facing the past) and a moral imperative (compensation and contrition were the right thing to do). The dual motives were also present for Germany’s victims.

Obama’s motives for going to Hiroshima were pragmatic: to augment the U.S. relationship with Japan; to help stabilize East Asian security at a time of perceived growing threats from China, both economic and military. Obama also framed the visit in moral terms, but not like the morality in the European experience. By emphasizing the universal immorality of using nuclear weapons, Obama removed U.S. agency. He referred to a “shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.” German officials from Adenauer to Merkel have accepted German responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust. In the Obama visit, there was no Japanese acceptance of responsibility, and no explicit American accusation.

History and memory, often the expressions of moral composure, were general but key terms for Obama: “[T]he memory of the morning of August 6, 1945 must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change.” Yet, specifics were lacking.

There is a danger in this treatment of history that it will become a footnote in Japanese-U.S. relations rather than a touchstone for constant dialogue. Obama’s view of history fits with Prime Minister Abe’s. Abe insisted, in the recent “comfort women” agreement with South Korea, that there be no more discussion of the issue. For Germany, commemoration has taken place repeatedly at the same sites for 70 years. It is unclear with Hiroshima whether this visit by a head of state will be the first and only such visit, or the beginning of symbolic gestures by heads of state and government and cabinet members at sites where the war in the Pacific can be remembered with regularity. In the European context, these visits often have been additionally powerful when the German representative has been accompanied by a representative of the other country. Joint visits (as with Obama and Abe in Hiroshima) both confirm and contribute to reconciliation.

Actors

In the German and European example, civil society actors were catalysts for reconciliation, beginning soon after the war and even before the Federal Republic was founded. U.S.-Japanese postwar relations similarly have been shaped by non-governmental relations in many societal arenas from economics to culture, from town twinning to educational and academic exchange. The European societal activities typically have been coordinated with official initiatives. At first, in the planning for the Hiroshima visit, American POWs were led to believe an American POW would accompany the President, but in the end this amplification of the visit did not materialize.

Another aspect of the nature of actors in these bilateral relations is the distinction, and common experience, of being both victims and perpetrators. While carefully avoiding the idea of an apology or reexamination of the decision to drop the bomb, Obama’s presence and words at Hiroshima importantly validated Japan as victim, albeit not singularly but as part of a universe of victims: “We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women, and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.” Yet, Americans were Japan’s victims at Pearl Harbor and thereafter, which went unrecognized in the Hiroshima visit.

Germany recognized early on its role as perpetrator of World War II and the Holocaust, but Germany and its victims have underscored in the last 25 years that Germans—those expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia—were also victims, without suggesting a moral equivalence between Germans and other victims. Obama carefully avoided a victimhood vocabulary, but Abe said nothing to dispel the impression.

Mechanisms

In addition to symbolic gestures and civil society initiatives mentioned above, in a variety of policy arenas bilateral institutions have expressed policy preferences between the two sides in the European example. So, too, economics (constructing interdependence as an antidote to past conflict and as a bulwark against new conflicts) and defense (making war between the two impossible) have been prominent in the U.S.-Japanese case.

The key mechanism shaping European reconciliation has been the moral practice of acknowledgement of grievances, including but not limited to apologies, statements of regret, treaty language. The moral nature of acknowledgement is seen in its early and repeated use. Seventy years after World War II, Germans have no pragmatic need to acknowledge their conduct in the war and the Holocaust, but they continue to do so for reasons of moral compunction. Apology, or a variant thereof, has three basic requirements: a recognition of the suffering of the victims; the assumption of full responsibility by the perpetrator for his/her acts; an indication of the material or spiritual compensation for the loss. Only the first, a recognition of suffering, was present at Hiroshima, distinguishing morally the U.S.-Japan case as practiced at Hiroshima from Germany. Obama wanted to avoid the appearance of delivering an apology.

Opposition

European reconciliation teaches us that there is often opposition to the process, usually from domestic forces. Obama’s caution at Hiroshima was prompted by veterans’ rejection of the need for an apology. They felt it would call into question the decision to use the atomic bomb and would upend Truman’s reasoning that the bombing brought a speedy end to the war and avoided a massive loss of life. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, 56 percent of Americans believed the use of the bombing was appropriate. Among those over 65, the figure for acceptance was 70 percent.

Despite Obama’s conviction that his visit to Hiroshima might advance his most profound commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, making victims but not contrition important, he inevitably has received the political criticism he anticipated. Supporters of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee called Obama “weak” and the visit unnecessary because Japan was the undisputed aggressor. For Obama’s nuclear agenda, and for his policy of making Japan the Asian leader against a rising China, this first act of reconciliation was essential. The test now is whether it will hold and be reciprocated.

Consequences

Bilateral reconciliation in Europe contributed in the postwar world to the stability of Western Europe as a whole. A new round of reconciliation after 1989 contributed to stability and solidarity in Eastern Europe, although Putin’s hyper-nationalism and nostalgia for the Soviet era have put both in question. Greater stability in East Asia could be a consequence of Obama’s trip if the President were to move vigorously on three fronts:

1. insist on a visit by Abe to Pearl Harbor (both sides need to acknowledge history). The Japanese defence minister visited in November 2015, but an equivalent to the President’s Hiroshima gesture is necessary;  
2. increase the number and intensity of civil society connections between Japan and the U.S. and include China and South Korea. There are many disparate non-governmental initiatives, but increasing, consolidating, and profiling them would provide a critical mass for a new push to reconciliation; 
3. be willing to mediate between Japan and China and between Japan and South Korea over history issues. 

Before the Hiroshima visit, the U.S. did not have the moral authority to push Japan toward regional reconciliation because of the use of the atomic bomb. Japan perceived and presented itself as victim. Now that its victimhood has been validated, both sides are liberated to look at reconciliation with fresh eyes. Such a willingness would assume that the Hiroshima visit was a demonstration of strength and courage, not the weakness the President’s critics are intent to claim.

Ignorance of Japanese politics and history begets

Obama bows at Hiroshima

Why Obama Is Shinzo Abe’s Enabler

 Mr. Obama has advanced the politically fraught and historically unsupportable notion that Japan has been the victim of its painful past, not the beneficiary of its difficult lessons.


By Dreux Richard, author of the forthcoming Every Human Intention: Japan in the New Century

New York Times, MAY 31, 2016

TSURUGA, Japan — Visiting Hiroshima last Friday, President Obama warned that overcoming the perils of global conflict and nuclear weapons will require a “moral revolution” sustained by “the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family.” He omitted to mention that this notion has been the constitutional basis of Japan’s foreign policy since 1947. Future historians may conclude that Mr. Obama’s visit to Hiroshima provided a spectacle to help remilitarize the world’s wealthiest, most populous pacifist country.

Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s election in 2012, the Obama administration has relied on Japan to help escalate America’s military presence in Asia. The Abe administration has expanded Japan’s commitment to maintaining U.S. bases, relaxed restrictions on bilateral arms trading, and negotiated a framework for joint operations that makes America responsible for maintaining a regional balance of power that protects Japanese interests.

This restructuring of the U.S.-Japan alliance depends on the continued progress of Mr. Abe’s legacy project: removing language from Japan’s Constitution that forbids the use of force to settle international disputes. The Abe administration has been able to shed the prevailing interpretation of this article, widely understood to prohibit the international deployment of Japanese troops, but the language itself continues to restrict the scope of Japan’s military operations, including activities integral to the defense agreement Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama struck last year.

Eliminating these restrictions is ostensibly in the interest of peace, because the alternative to a rearmed Japan is an unchecked — and nuclear-armed — China. But this assessment leaves no room for the possibility that Japan’s military, among the best equipped in the world, has exerted a moderating influence on the region precisely because the Constitution has protected it from misadventure.

In supporting Mr. Abe’s effort to restore Japan’s ability to join and wage wars, Mr. Obama has chosen the wrong strategic partner. The next U.S. president will inherit an East Asia policy vulnerable to the uncertainties of Japan’s transition away from pacifism. Since 2012, Mr. Abe’s foreign policy decisions have harmed Japan’s relationships with its neighbors, including the U.S. ally South Korea. Several of his political appointees have proven scandal-prone in matters of diplomacy.

And Japan might not accept America’s strategic dictates. Firm supporters of Mr. Abe’s agenda see their efforts as the casting off of the final remnants of the American occupation, so that Japan can reclaim its own superpower status. In the ideological terrain of contemporary Japanese politics, the accommodation of American interests is chiefly opportunistic, and the underlying motive is often retrograde nationalism. Mr. Abe’s push to revise the Constitution has coincided with cabinet-level attempts to renegotiate history: Whether so-called comfort women used by Japanese soldiers during World War II were “sex slaves” or if their work was a form of indentured servitude; and how many Chinese civilians died in the Nanking Massacre in 1937.

For Japanese voters, these debates formed the political and social context of Mr. Obama’s visit. Questions of war memory dominated press coverage. According to a 2015 survey by Pew Research, 56 percent of Americans believe the atomic bombings were necessary; 14 percent of Japanese agree. By delivering an appeal for disarmament in a nation whose pacifist Constitution his Asian pivot has helped to controvert, Mr. Obama has risked lending credibility to the dangerous notion beneath Abe’s rhetoric: that Japan can best retain its identity as a peace-loving culture by embracing the restoration of its martial role in international affairs.

If it were the will of the Japanese electorate to adopt the Abe doctrine, then the question of how Mr. Obama’s visit has contributed to its legitimization would be academic. But nearly none of Abe’s policies, including revision of the pacifist Constitution, poll well. He nonetheless enjoys reliably favorable approval ratings, attributed by the center-right media to his carefully-cultivated public persona and by the left to calculated manipulation of the national psyche.

Mr. Abe’s attempts to claim Japan’s collective memory have been less than democratic. He has been at war with the press since he took office, and has been especially zealous about destabilizing the country’s foremost daily newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, chief antagonist of his most hawkish positions. He has responded to multiple Supreme Court decisions requiring reform of the nation’s broken electoral system with a plan calculated to delay changes for as long as possible, a manipulation intended to give him time to build an opposition-proof majority in Parliament, and to create the illusion of an overwhelming mandate to remove pacifist language from the Constitution.

For Mr. Abe, Mr. Obama’s visit also provided a distraction from an initial wave of policy failures related to his American pivot. Early attempts to expand Japan’s arms export business have produced tepid results; and in anticipation of rearmament, the branches of Japan’s military have engaged in a wasteful struggle for funding — U.S. arms dealers have responded by price- gouging the Japanese government.

In Hiroshima, Mr. Obama praised the U.S.-Japan alliance, saying it has taught both countries to cherish peace. He did not reflect on the 69 years of Japanese pacifism that have kept Japan out of war while the United States has waged several. By neglecting them, in a speech that touched so many old wounds, Mr. Obama has advanced the politically fraught and historically unsupportable notion that Japan has been the victim of its painful past, not the beneficiary of its difficult lessons.

Monday in Washington, November 9, 2015

PRESIDENT OBAMA AT G20, APEC AND ASEAN SUMMITS. 11/9, 8:30-9:30am. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Heather Conley, Senior Vice President for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic, CSIS; Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia, CSIS; Matthew Goodman, Senior Adviser for Asian Economics, CSIS; Ernest Bower, Senior Adviser for Southeast Asia Studies, CSIS.

IMF AFRICA REGIONAL ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 11/9, 8:45am-12:30pm. Sponsor: Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP), GWU. Speakers: Stephen C. Smith, IIEP Director; Celine Allard, IMF Lead Author; Amb. Reuben Brigety, Dean, Elliott School, GWU; Bhaswar Mukhopadhyay, IMF; Fariha Kamal, U.S. Census Bureau; Danny Leipzeiger, GWU; Dalia Hakura, IMF; James Foster, GWU.

TELECONFERENCE: THE CHINA-TAIWAN SUMMIT: HAS ANYTHING REALLY CHANGED? 11/9, 9:30-10:30am. Sponsor: Wilson Center. Speakers: Yeh-Chung Lu, Associate Professor of Diplomacy, National Cheng-chi University; Amb. J. Stapleton Roy, Distinguished Scholar, Wilson Center; Ming Wan, Professor of Policy, George Mason University.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP THE WORLD’S POOREST AND MOST VULNERABLE? 11/9, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: Center for Global Development (CGD). Speakers: Owen Barder, Director of CGD Europe and Senior Fellow, CGD; Jodi Nelson, Senior Vice President, Policy and Practice, International Rescue Committee; Sarah Bailey, Research Associate, Overseas Development Institute; Satwik Seshasai, Vice President of Engineering, Segovia; Moderator: Rajesh Mirchandani, Senior Director for Communications and Policy Outreach, CGD.

U.S. FED INTEREST RATE NORMALIZATION: THE IMPACT ON KOREA, THE U.S., AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. 11/9, Noon-1:30pm, Lunch. Sponsor: Korea Economic Institue (KEIA). Speakers: Thomas Byrne, President, Korea Society; Ayhan Kose, Director, Development Prospects Group, World Bank Group; Alex Pollack, Resident Fellow, AEI. Moderator: Donald Manzullo, President, CEO, KEI of America, Former member, House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

SECURITY CHALLENGES IN EAST ASIA. 11/9, 2:30-4:00pm. Sponsor: Wilson Center. Speakers: J. Stapleton Roy, Distinguished Scholar, Kissinger Institute, Wilson Center; Gerald Curtis, Burgess Professor of Political Science, Columbia University; Evans Revere, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Brookings; Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, Senior Fellow, Center for Naval Analyses; Moderator: Donald Zagoria, Senior Vice President, National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

AFGHANISTAN IN 2015: RIPENING INVESTMENT OR REGRESSIVE TURNS? 11/9, 3:30-5:00pm. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speaker: Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Former Minister for Interior Affairs, Afghanistan, Former Chief of Staff to President of Afghanistan; Moderator: Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate, Carnegie.

THE STRATEGIC LESSONS OF THE CAMPAIGNS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ. 11/9, 4:30pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics. Speaker: Joseph J. Collins, Director, Center for Complex Operations, National Defense University, Author of Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War.

BEHIND THE SWOOSH: SWEATSHOPS JUSTICE. 11/9, 7:00pm-8:30pm. Sponsor: Georgetown University. Speaker: Jim Keady, Director of Educating for Justice Inc.

Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule April 27-May 3, 2015

Monday, April 27, 2015
AM
(Local time in Boston, U.S.)
Visit the site of the Boston Marathon bombing incident, lay a wreath
Visit Harvard Kennedy School. Deliver address, question and answer session with students
Visit Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

PM

designed so he does not bow

(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)
Arrive by personal government aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base on outskirts of Washington, DC

Visit and walk around Lincoln Memorial guided by President of U.S. Barack Obama 

Visit Arlington National Cemetery, lay a wreath

Visit Holocaust Memorial Museum

Tuesday, April 28, 2015
AM
(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)
Welcome ceremony at White House, summit meeting with President of U.S. Barack Obama

PM
(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)
Joint Press Conference
Attend a luncheon hosted by Vice-President of U.S. Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at U.S. Department of State
Attend a state dinner at White House

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

again careful not to bow or lean forward

AM
(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)
Visit National World War II Memorial
Deliver an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress

PM
(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)

Interview with Nippon TV in Blair House

Attend a reception hosed by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, meet with members of the U.S. Senate 

Participate in a symposium organized by Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA

Meet with members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Attend a dinner reception for contributors to U.S.-Japan relations in Freer Gallery of Art.

Thursday, April 30, 2015
AM
(Local time in Washington DC, U.S.)
Attend a breakfast meeting with members of the U.S. science and technology community
Depart on personal government aircraft from Andrews Air Force Base on outskirts of Washington, DC

PM
Arrive at San Francisco International Airport by personal government aircraft
Exchange opinions with members of the U.S. business community, technology industry, and venture capital industry
Attend the Silicon Valley Japan Innovation Program and other events at Stanford University
Visit the headquarters of Tesla Motors and the headquarters of Facebook, and hold talks with Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg
Visit the Gladstone Institutes, which are affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco Hold talks with Gladstone Institutes Senior Investigator and Director of Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application Shinya Yamanaka and other members of the Institutes
Receive a courtesy call from Governor of the State of California Edmund G. Brown Jr., attend a cocktail reception and banquet held for contributors to Japan-U.S. exchange

Friday, May 1, 2015
AM
(Local time in California, U.S.)
Attend a breakfast meeting with Japanese entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley
Depart from San Francisco International Airport by personal government aircraft
Arrive at Los Angeles International Airport

here Abe bows

PM
(Local time in California, U.S.)
Attend a luncheon with contributors to Japan-U.S. exchange
Attend the Japan-U.S. Economic Forum
Hold talks with accompanying press group
Hold talks with Japanese nationals living in the United States and Japanese-Americans

Visit the Go For Broke Monument for Japanese American World War II veterans, lay a wreath
Visit the Japanese American National Museum, attend a reception hosted by the Museum

Saturday, May 2, 2015
AM
(Local time in California, US)

Hold talks with members of the KAKEHASHI Project
Visit University of Southern California

PM
(Local time in California, US)
Depart from Los Angeles International Airport on personal government aircraft

Sunday, May 3, 2015
AM
(In transit)

PM
(Japan time)
03:03 Finish visit to U.S., arrive at Haneda Airport on personal government aircraft with wife Akie
03:20 Depart from airport
03:44 Arrive at private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo
05:33 Depart from private residence
06:54 Arrive at Chinese restaurant Ren in Fujiyoshida city, Yamanashi Prefecture. Dinner with mother Kishi Yoko, friends, and secretary
08:51 Depart from restaurant
09:01 Arrive at holiday home in Narusawa Village, Yamanashi Prefecture

Provisional Translation by: Erin M. Jones and Lu Pengqiao 

Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule March 16-22, 2015

Monday, March 16, 2015

AM
12:00 At private residence (no visitors)
07:58 Depart from private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo
08:11 Arrive at office
08:12 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:40 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:48 Depart from office
08:50 Arrive at Diet
08:51 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
08:56 Upper House Budget Committee opens
11:54 Upper House Budget Committee recess
11:55 Leave room
11:57 Depart from Diet
11:59 Arrive at office

PM
12:00 Speak with President of Yamaguchi Prefectural Assembly Yanai Shungaku, Vice-Governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture Fujibe Hidenori, and colleagues
12:07 Finish speaking with Mr. Yanai, Mr. Fujibe, and colleagues
12:54 Depart from office
12:55 Arrive at Diet
12:57 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee reopens
04:59 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns
05:00 Leave room
05:01 Enter LDP President’s Office
05:05 LDP Officers Meeting
05:21 Meeting ends
05:22 Leave room
05:23 Depart from Diet
05:25 Arrive at office
05:45 Depart from office
05:55 Arrive at United Nations University (UNU) in Jingumae, Tokyo. Attend the Symposium of the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations, deliver address
06:51 Depart from university
07:04 Arrive at official residence

07:10 Reception for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his wife. Dinner meeting hosted by Prime Minister and his wife
08:28 See off Secretary-General Ban and his wife

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
07:23 Depart from official residence
07:25 Arrive at office

07:30 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:25 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:28 Cabinet Meeting begins
08:35 Cabinet Meeting ends
08:53 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:56 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
08:58 Speak with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro
09:00 Finish speaking with Mr. Aso
09:01 Upper House Budget Committee opens
11:54 Upper House Budget Committee recess
11:55 Leave room
11:57 Depart from Diet
11:59 Arrive at office

PM
12:31 Meet with Administrative Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Nagamine Yasumasa and Ministry of Finance (MOF)’s Director-General of International Bureau Asakawa Masatsugu
12:54 End meeting with Mr. Nagamine and Mr. Asakawa
12:55 Depart from office
12:56 Arrive at Diet
12:58 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee reopens
04:53 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns
04:54 Leave room
04:56 Depart from Diet
04:57 Arrive at office
05:18 Attend the Conference on Promoting Direct Investment into Japan
05:55 Conference ends
05:56 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)’s Vice-Minister Saiki Akitaka and Director-General of Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science Department Hikihara Takeshi enter
06:14 Mr. Hikihara leaves
06:20 Mr. Saiki leaves
06:33 Depart from office
06:34 Arrive at official residence
06:49 Receive courtesy call from former President of the United States Bill Clinton. Commemorative photo session. Former Prime Minister of Japan Mori Yoshiro and resident U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy also attend
06:50 Commemorative photo session ends
06:51 Dinner meeting with former President Clinton
08:16 Dinner meeting ends

08:17 See off former President Clinton
08:21 Finish seeing off former President Clinton

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
08:00 At official residence (no morning visitors)
08:45 Depart from official residence
08:46 Arrive at office
08:53 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
09:42 End meeting with Mr. Seko
09:53 Depart from office
09:55 Arrive at Diet
09:56 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
09:57 Speak with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro
09:59 Finish speaking with Mr. Aso
10:00 Upper House Budget Committee opens
11:59 Upper House Budget Committee recess

PM
12:00 Leave Upper House Committee Room No. 1
12:02 Depart from Diet
12:03 Arrive at office
12:54 Depart from office
12:56 Arrive at Diet
12:57 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
01:01 Upper House Budget Committee reopens
04:12 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns
04:13 Leave room
04:14 Depart from Diet
04:16 Arrive at office
04:20 Meet with Director of Cabinet Intelligence Kitamura Shigeru
04:49 End meeting with Mr. Kitamura
05:34 Depart from office
05:51 Arrive at Waseda University in Nishi-Waseda, Tokyo. Attend the JFK Symposium, “The Torch Has Been Passed: JFK’s Legacy Today”, deliver a speech
06:57 Depart from Waseda University
07:19 Arrive at official residence. Dinner meeting with Lower House Budget Committee’s Chairman Oshima Tadamori, Director Moriyama Hiroshi, and other colleagues. Cabinet Chief Secretary Suga Hiroshige and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu also attend
08:29 Everyone leaves

Thursday, March 19, 2015

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
08:00 At official residence (no morning visitors)
09:14 Depart from official residence
09:15 Arrive at office
09:16 Interview open to all media: When asked “How will the government respond to the Bardo National Museum terrorist attack in Tunisia?”, Mr. Abe answers “terrorism cannot be tolerated. In the future we will deepen cooperation with international community and do everything we can in the fight against terrorism.”
09:17 Interview ends
09:19 Meet with LDP Lower House member Nukaga Fukushiro
09:39 End meeting with Mr. Nukaga
09:51 Receive a courtesy call from next generation Latin American leaders of Japanese Descent
10:05 Courtesy call ends
10:35 Receive a courtesy call from the winners of the High School Speech Contest on the Northern Territories
10:42 Courtesy call ends
11:10 Meet with Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Cabinet Office Koizumi Shinjiro
11:36 End meeting with Mr. Koizumi
11:37 Meet with LDP Secretary-General Tanigaki Sadakazu

PM
12:11 End meeting with Mr. Tanigaki
12:47 Meet with Minister of State for Disaster Management Yamatani Eriko
01:12 End meeting with Ms. Eriko
01:13 Meet with Mr. Tanigaki and Secretary-General of New Komeito Inoue Yoshihisa
01:37 End meeting with Mr. Tanigaki and Mr. Inoue
01:38 Meet with Vice-Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Oishi Toshio
02:00 End meeting with Mr. Oishi
02:36 Depart from office
02:44 Arrive at Imperial Hotel in Uchisaiwai-cho, Tokyo. Attend the 121st Annual General Meeting of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) in banquet hall Fuji within hotel, deliver address
03:07 Depart from hotel
03:12 Arrive at office
03:13 Meet with Minister of State for Special Missions Arimura Haruko and Cabinet Office Director-General for Policies on Cohesive Society Takegawa Mitsuo
03:20 End meeting with Ms. Arimura and Mr. Takegawa
03:48 Receive a courtesy call from Mrs. Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States of America
04:09 Courtesy call ends

04:34 Receive a courtesy call from Harvard University graduate students
04:43 Courtesy call ends
04:48 Meet with MOFA’s Director-General of Foreign Policy Bureau Hiramatsu Kenji, MOD’s Director-General of Bureau of Defense Policy Kuroe Tetsuro and Chief of Staff for Joint Staff Council Kawano Katsutoshi
05:18 End meeting with Mr. Hiramatsu, Mr. Kuroe, and Mr. Kawano
05:34 Attend the13th meeting of the Council on National Strategic Special Zones
06:01 Meeting ends
06:02 Meet with Minister for Foreign Affairs Kishida Fumio, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Saiki Akitaka, MOFA’s Administrative Vice-Minister Sugiyama Shinsuke, and Director-General of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Ihara Junichi
06:34 End meeting with Mr. Kishida, Mr. Saiki, Mr. Sugiyama, and Mr. Ihara
06:35 Meet with LDP Lower House member Kawai Katsuyuki
06:50 End meeting with Mr. Kawai
06:58 Arrive at izakaya Umaizo in Akasaka, Tokyo. Dinner meeting with Yomiuri Shimbun’s Director of Politics Bureau Tanaka Takayuki and colleagues
09:38 Depart from izakaya
09:59 Arrive at private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo

Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule August 24-30, 2015

Monday, August 24, 2015
AM

12:00 At private residence (no visitors)
07:13 Depart from private residence
07:25 Arrive at office
07:32 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:45 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:49 Depart from office
08:51 Arrive at Diet
08:53 Enter Upper House Committee Room No.1
08:55 Meeting of Budget Committee of the House of Councilors opens
11:55 Meeting recesses. Exit Upper House Committee Room No.1
11:57 Depart from Diet
11:58 Arrive at office
12:00 Meet with LDP Lower House member Kaneko Megumi and Miyazaki Kensuke

PM
12:06 End meeting with Ms. Kaneko and Mr. Miyazaki
12:07 Meet with Director of Cabinet Intelligence Kitamura Shigeru
12:11 End meeting with Mr. Kitamura
12:55 Depart from office
12:57 Arrive at Diet
12:58 Enter Upper House Committee Room No.1
01:00 Meeting of Budget Committee of the House of Councilors reopens
05:18 Meeting adjourns. Exit Upper House Committee Room No.1
05:19 Enter LDP President’s Office
05:20 LDP Officers Meeting
05:39 Meeting ends
05:40 Speak with Chairman of LDP Election Strategy Committee Motegi Toshimitsu
05:41 End speaking with Mr. Motegi
05:42 Exit LDP President’s Office
05:43 Depart from Diet
05:45 Arrive at office
06:02 Receive a courtesy call from Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa
06:30 Courtesy call ends
06:47 Depart from office
06:48 Arrive at official residence
06:49 Host a dinner banquet for female ambassadors to Japan
08:28 Dinner banquet ends

Tuesday August 25, 2015

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
07:08 Depart from official residence
07:09 Arrive at office
07:16 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:27 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:29 Cabinet meeting
08:41 Meeting ends
08:42 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:49 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:55 Depart from office
08:57 Arrive at Diet
08:58 Enter Upper House Committee Room No.1
09:02 Meeting of Special Committee of the House of Councillors on the Legislation for Peace and Security of Japan and the International Community opens
11:31 Meeting recesses
11:32 Exit Upper House Committee Room No.1
11:35 Enter State Ministers’ Room
11:46 Exit State Ministers’ Room
11:47 Enter Upper House Committee Room No.1
11:48 Meeting of Special Committee of the House of Councillors on the Legislation for Peace and Security of Japan and the International Community reopens. Meeting recesses
11:49 Speak with Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen, LDP Upper House member Sato Masahisa, and other colleagues
11:51 Finish speaking with Mr. Nakatani, Mr. Sato and other colleagues
11:54 Depart from Diet
11:55 Arrive at office

PM
12:55 Depart from office
12:56 Arrive at Diet
12:58 Enter Upper House Committee Room No.1
01:00 Meeting of Special Committee of the House of Councillors on the Legislation for Peace and Security of Japan and the International Community reopens
06:19 Meeting adjourns
06:20 Exit Upper House Committee Room No.1
06:22 Depart from Diet
06:24 Arrive at office
06:25 Meeting with Minister in charge of Tokyo Olympic and Paralympics Endo Toshiaki
06:40 End meeting with Mr. Endo
06:46 Meeting with Director of Cabinet Intelligence Kitamura Shigeru
06:52 End meeting with Mr. Kitamura
06:58 Depart from office
07:07 Arrive at the building of Urban-Net Ōtemachi Building in Ōtemachi, Tokyo. Dinner meeting with Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Shimomura Hakubun, Chairperson of National Public Safety Commission Yamatani Eriko, JR Tokai Honorary President Kasai Yoshiyuki, and President of Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) Nishihara Masashi, and other colleagues in Level 21 Tokyo Hall in the building
08:42 Depart from the building
08:57 Arrive at private residence

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

http://japan.kantei.go.jp/97_abe/actions/201508/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2015/08/27/26caucus01_1.jpg?w=360

AM
08:00 At private residence (no visitors)
08:52 Depart from private residence
09:08 Arrive at office
09:30 Phone conference with U.S. President Barack Obama. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige, Director of National Security Council (NSC) Yachi Shotaro, and Director of Cabinet Intelligence Kitamura Shigeru also attend
10:10 Phone conference ends
10:45 Meet with Chairman of Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum, former Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy Omi Koji
11:05 End meeting with Mr. Omi
11:06 Meet with former Minister for Reconstruction Nemoto Takumi
11:35 End meeting with Mr. Nemoto
11:36 Meet with LDP Lower House member Kawai Katsuyuki
11:47 End meeting with Mr. Kawai
11:50 Meet with Ministry of Defense (MOD)’s Director-General of Bureau of Finance and Equipment Mimura Toru

PM
12:10 End meeting with Mr. Mimura
12:12 Meet with Chief Representative of New Komeito Yamaguchi Natsuo
01:05 End meeting with Mr. Yamaguchi
02:30 Meet with Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy Amari Akira and Cabinet Office’s Director-General for Policies on Cohesive Society Tawa Hiroshi
02:48 End meeting with Mr. Amari and Mr. Tawa
02:52 Meet with Chairman of LDP Research Commission on Tax System Noda Takeshi
03:21 End meeting with Mr. Noda

03:22 Meet with LDP Secretary-General Tanigaki Sadakazu
03:51 End meeting with Mr. Tanigaki
04:14 Receive a courtesy call from a congressional delegation of the U.S.-Japan Caucus led by U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro (TX-20)
04:32 Courtesy call ends
05:30 Meet with new Chairman of Sankei News Ota Hideaki and former Chairman of Sankei News Kiyohara Takehiko
05:52 End meeting with Mr. Ota and Mr. Kiyohara
05:53 Attend a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Monthly Economic Report and Other Relative Issues
06:08 Meeting ends
06:09 Meet with Secretary-General of Headquarters for Abduction Issue Ishikawa Shoichiro
06:23 End meeting with Mr. Ishikawa
06:24 Meet with Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Kimura Taro
06:26 End meeting with Mr. Kimura
06:29 Depart from office
06:31 Arrive at official residence
08:15 Depart from official residence
08:34 Arrive at National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Aomi, Tokyo. Communicate with Kimiya Yui, an astronaut assigned to the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” of International Space Station (ISS), and other astronauts
09:25 Depart from museum
09:48 Arrive at private residence

Thursday, August 27, 2015

AM
12:00 At private residence in Tokyo (no visitors)
08:55 Depart from private residence
09:11 Arrive at office
09:20 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
09:44 End meeting with Mr. Seko
09:54 Depart from office
09:56 Arrive at Diet
09:57 Enter Upper House 32nd Committee Members’ Room
10:00 Meeting of the Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of the House of Councillors opens
11:08 Leave seat during proceedings
11:10 Depart from Diet
11:12 Arrive at office
11:33 Meet with Chairman of Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu) Okuno Choei, and colleagues
11:44 End meeting with Mr. Okuno
11:50 Meet with MOFA’s Director-General of Foreign Policy Bureau Hiramatsu Kenji and Director of Gender Mainstreaming Division Matsukawa Rui

PM
12:08 End meeting with Mr. Hiramatsu and Ms. Matsukawa
12:46 Meet with Minister in charge of Tokyo Olympic and Paralympics Endo Toshiaki
01:22 End meeting with Mr. Endo
01:42 Receive a courtesy call from a delegation of Latin Americans of Japanese descent
01:49 End reception
01:54 Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Saiki Akitaka enters
02:11 Administrative Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Sugiyama Shinsuke enters
02:18 MOFA’s Director-General of Foreign Policy Bureau Hiramatsu Kenji enters
02:35 Mr. Hiramatsu leaves
03:02 Everyone leaves
03:07 Record video message for the First Ise-Shima Summit Forum
03:26 End recording
03:27 Meet with Minister of State for Measures for Declining Birthrate Arimura Haruko, Cabinet Office Director-General for Policies on Cohesive Society Takekawa Mitsuo, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT)’s Director-General of Lifelong Learning Policy Bureau Kawamura Junko, and Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW)’s Director-General of Equal Employment, Children and Families Bureau Ando Yoshiko
04:02 End meeting with Ms. Arimura, Mr. Takekawa, Ms. Kawamura and Ms. Ando
04:03 Meet with Minister of State for Disaster Management Yamatani Eriko
04:08 End meeting with Ms. Yamatani
04:24 Meet with President of Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union Nukaga Fukushiro
04:47 End meeting with Mr. Nukaga
04:48 Meet with Chairman of Parliamentary League for Volcanic Eruption Prediction and Countermeasures of the LDP Furuya Keiji
05:13 End meeting with Mr. Furuya
05:17 received proposal from the Parliamentary League for Volcanic Eruption Prediction and Countermeasures of the LDP
05:30 End reception
05:31 Meet with Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Takaichi Sanae
05:56 End meeting with Ms. Takaichi
06:32 Welcome President of the Republic of Liberia Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Attend commemorative photo session
06:33 Attend ceremony by the guard of honor
06:38 Ceremony ends
06:42 Attend Japan-Liberia Summit Meeting with Mrs. Sirleaf
07:18 Summit meeting ends
07:22 Joint press release
07:34 Joint press release ends
07:35 Depart from office
07:37 Arrive at official residence. Host banquet
08:42 Give a send-off to Mrs. Sirleaf
08:44 Send-off ends

Monday in Washington, June 22, 2015

POLITICAL POLARIZATION: FINDING SOLUTIONS. 6/22, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). Speakers: Nate Persily, Editor, Solutions to Political Polarization in America, Professor, Stanford Law School; Matthew Green, Associate Professor, Politics, Catholic University, President-elect, NCAPSA; John Fortier, Director, BPC’s Democracy Project.

SHARED WATER RESOURCES IN A WARMING WORLD: CONFLICT AND COOPERATION. 6/22, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsors: Wilson Center, Stimson. Speakers: Anders Jägerskog, Counselor for Middle East and North Africa Regional Water Issues, Embassy of Sweden, Amman, Jordan; Aaron Salzberg (TBC), Special Coordinator for Water Resources, US Department of State; Eileen Burke, Senior Water Resources Specialist, Nile Program, World Bank; David Michel, Director of the Environmental Security Program, Stimson Center.

IOSCO CHAIRMAN: GLOBAL REGULATORS WERE WRONG. 6/22, 10:00am. Sponsor: National Press Club (NPC) Newsmaker Program. Speaker: Greg Medcraft, Chairman, International Organization of Securities Commissions.

A NEW FOREIGN POLICY FOR AMERICA. 6/22, Noon-1:00pm. Sponsor: Wilson Center (WWC). Speakers: Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn; Aaron David Miller, Vice President of New Initiatives, WWC.

AT A CROSSROADS: THE FUTURE OF AMERICA’S MILITARY INSTALLATIONS AND COMMUNITIES. 6/22, Noon – 6/24. Sponsor: Association of Defense Communities. Speakers: Sen. Jerry Moran (KS): Sen. Dan Sullivan (AK); Congressman Adam Smith (WA); Congressman Joe Courtney (CT).

A NEW CLIMATE FOR PEACE: TAKING ACTION ON CLIMATE AND FRAGILITY RISKS. 6/22, 3:00-5:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Wilson Center's (WWC) Environmental Change and Security Program. Speakers: Alexander Carius, Co-founder and Managing Director, Adelphi; Geoffrey Dabelko, Senior Advisor, Environmental Change and Security Program, Professor and Director, Environmental Studies, Ohio University; Roger-Mark De Souza, Director, Population, Environmental Security and Resilience, WWC; Richard Engel, U.S. Air Force (retired), Director, National Intelligence Council's Environment and Natural Resources Program; Alice Hill, White House Senior Advisor, Preparedness and Resilience; Christian Holmes, Deputy Assistant Administrator, U.S. Agency, International Development's Bureau, Economic Growth, Education and Environment; David McKean, Director, Policy Planning, State Department; Andrew Selee, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor, Mexico Institute; Navy Rear Adm. Jonathan White, Oceanographer and Navigator, Navy, Director, Task Force Climate Change.

INDIA'S NUCLEAR COMMAND AND CONTROL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGIC STABILITY IN SOUTH ASIA. 6/22, 3:30-5:00pm. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speaker: Brigadier Arun Sahgal, Director, Forum for Strategic Initiative.

ALLEVIATING POVERTY BY FREEING THE WORLD OF ECONOMIC DISTORTIONS. 6/22, 4:30-6:00pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics (IWP). Speaker: Shanker A. Singham, Managing Director, Competitiveness and Enterprise Cities Project at Babson Global.

A NEW TRANSATLANTIC TRADE DEAL: GOOD FOR AMERICA? 6/22, 5:30-7:00pm. Sponsor: McCain Institute. Speakers: Ted Bromund, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage; Jon Decker, White House Correspondent, Fox News; Shaun Donnelly, Vice President, Investment and Financial Services, USCIB; Jim Kolbe, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund; Thea Lee, Deputy Chief of Staff, AFL-CIO.

BETWEEN RECOVERY AND DECLINE? OBSERVATIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HISTORIAN ON THE OBAMA YEARS AND BEYOND. 6/22, 6:30-8:30pm. Sponsor: German Historical Institute (GHI). Speaker: Hartmut Berghoff, GHI Washington.

Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule November 10-16, 2014

Monday, November 10, 2014

AM
(Local time in Beijing, China)
Conference with President of Indonesia Joko Widodo and President of Peru Ollanta Humala successively at China National Convention Center in Beijing

PM
(Local time in Beijing, China)
Conference with President of China Xi Jinping at Great Hall of the People
Attend Trans-Pacific Partnership Leaders’ Summit at Embassy of the US
Attend Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Summit at China National Convention Center
APEC CEO Summit reception event at National Aquatics Center
Dinner meeting
Attend fireworks viewing
Stay night at Hotel New Otani Chang Fu Gong

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

AM
(Local time in Beijing, China)
Attend APEC CEO Summit at Yanqi Lake International Conference Center on outskirts of Beijing

PM
(Local time in Beijing, China)
Commemorative tree planting with APEC Leaders, working lunch
Attend APEC CEO Summit
Press conference with domestic and foreign media at Hotel New Otani Chang Fu Gong
Stay night at hotel

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

AM
(Local time in Beijing, China)
Depart from Beijing Capital International Airport on private government aircraft

PM
(Local time in Naypyidaw, Myanmar)
Arrive at Naypyidaw International Airport
Conference with President of Myanmar Thein Sein at Myanmar International Convention Center (MICC) in Naypyidaw City
Summit Conference with Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot at MICC
Japan Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit
Conference with President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III
Japan-Mekong Summit Meeting
Attend ASEAN dinner meeting
Stay night at Horizon Lakeview Resort Hotel in Naypyidaw

Thursday, November 13, 2014

AM
(Local time in Naypyidaw, Myanmar)
Attend East Asia Summit (EAS) at MICC

PM
(Local time in Naypyidaw, Myanmar)
Conference with Prime Minister of Thailand Prayut Chan-o-cha and Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak successively at MICC
Attend ASEAN Plus Three (Japan, China, South Korea) Summit
Depart from Naypyidaw International Airport on private government aircraft
(Local time in Yangon, Myanmar)
Arrive at Yangon International Airport
View General Post Office in Yangon City
Depart from Yangon International Airport on private government aircraft
Spend night on aircraft

Friday, November 14, 2014

AM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
Arrive at Brisbane Airport on private government aircraft

PM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
Conference with President of South Africa Jacob Zuma at Pullman Hotel in Brisbane City
Conference with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi at members-only club Tattersall’s Club
Stay night at Novotel Brisbane Hotel

Saturday, November 15, 2014

AM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
Attend G20 Leaders’ Summit at Queensland Parliament House in Brisbane, Australia

PM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
G20 lunch meeting at Parliament House
G20 reception at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre
G20 Leaders’ Summit
Attend reception hosted by Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot at Brisbane Modern Art Gallery
Attend G20 working dinner and cultural event at Queensland Art Gallery
Stay night at Novotel Brisbane Hotel

Sunday, November 16, 2014

AM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
Trilateral Leaders Meeting with President of US Barack Obama and Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre
Continue Japan-US Summit Conference with President Obama
Attend G20 Leaders’ Summit
Attend G20 working lunch

PM
(Local time in Brisbane, Australia)
Conference with President of European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre
Informal talk with accompanying press group at Novotel Brisbane Hotel
Dinner meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro at Consulate-General of Japan in Brisbane
Stay night at Novotel Brisbane Hotel

Provisional Translation by: Erin M. Jones