TOKYO, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's equivocal words and gestures at recent events marking the 81st anniversary of the country's unconditional surrender in World War II have drawn criticism from domestic media, with a report by the Japan Times calling them "carefully crafted" and saying they "have raised eyebrows both at home and abroad."
In her speech at the national memorial service for the war dead held on Aug. 15 in Tokyo, Takaichi neither mentioned Japan's wars of aggression against its Asian neighbors nor expressed remorse or apology for the suffering they caused. Instead, she resorted to wordplay, altering a phrase traditionally used by previous prime ministers, tweaking "must never repeat the horrors of war" into "the horrors of war must never be repeated."
The report said that rather than pledging that Japan would never repeat the mistakes of war, Takaichi's wording "left it unsaid who had caused those horrors."
Misato Matsuoka, an associate professor at Teikyo University in Tokyo, was quoted as saying that Takaichi's wording was most likely chosen deliberately and the phrase she used does not identify Japan alone as the potential instigator of the war or its devastation, but suggests that Japan stands on the side of preventing such a recurrence.
Matsuoka added that the phrase "prevent war from being repeated" could be interpreted as a political message -- Japan must possess the military and diplomatic strength to deter others from starting one.
A similar purposeful ambiguity marked Takaichi's remarks on Japan's non-nuclear principles earlier this month at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing commemorations.
At both events, the prime minister only said Japan "is upholding" its Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory.
The report pointed out that while past Japanese leaders have traditionally used a forward-looking tone, pledging to "continue adhering to the principles," Takaichi merely described the government's current position, not ruling out a possible revision to the decades-old policy as her administration prepares to amend the nation's three key security documents later this year. ■