article_snippet.sent: raises with Abe revisionist views on history.
article_snippet.sent: Washington deliberately set the bar on history very low for Abe because the Obama administration is more focused on the shared perception with Tokyo that China China is a threat requiring a collective response.
article_snippet.sent: It is also problematic that Abe's stance on history is a factor in hindering trilateral security cooperation with South Korea, something America sees as essential.
article_snippet.sent: Abe is putting Abe personal agenda on history ahead of the national interest and therefore not meeting the test of statesmanship.
article_snippet.sent: But that doesn't mean Abe shouldn't try a bit harder.
article_snippet.sent: Essentially outsourcing "apology and war responsibility" to Abe predecessors gets low marks on the empathy and sincerity scale.
article_snippet.sent: It is also troubling that throughout Abe political career, Abe has worked to undermine and repudiate previous Mea Culpa.
article_snippet.sent: Rather than merely "upholding" what others have said it might have been better for Abe to prove Abe critics wrong by clearly expressing an apology.
article_snippet.sent: Fatalistically, Abe said, "History is harsh.
article_snippet.sent: Given Abe's evasive track record about the comfort women system of sexual slavery, a forthright apology or acknowledgment of state involvement was never in the cards.
article_snippet.sent: What Abe managed, however, was even weaker than expected: "Armed conflicts have always made women suffer the most.
article_snippet.sent: In Abe Abe says Abe upholds the 1993 Kono statement, but Abe has flouted the 1993 Kono statement and over the past year members of Abe party have been busy controverting this forthright admission of responsibility and coercive recruitment.
article_snippet.sent: Moreover, Abe's support for patriotic education and pressures on textbook publishers has effectively erased comfort women from what is taught in junior high schools, contravening what the 1993 Kono statement promised.
highlights_snippet.sent: Kingston: Abe is putting Abe personal agenda on history ahead of the national interest .