American lives lost in the second world war were “sacrifices in defending freedom”, Shinzo Abe told the US Congress in an emotive speech which nonetheless stopped short of the reckoning with history his critics have called for.
Becoming the first Japanese prime minister to address a joint session of Congress, Mr Abe name-checked Pearl Harbor, where Japan’s attack began the Pacific war; and Bataan Corregidor, a battle followed by a death march of US prisoners.
But Mr Abe, whose conservative nationalism causes unease in northeast Asia and occasionally in Washington, offered no direct apology. His speech gave little sense that any part of Japan’s wartime history requires a special reckoning.
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