“You know, when my forebears killed yours, it really wasn’t that bad. I mean, dude, seriously, who can say what happened? Convicted criminals are, like, not really criminals because they were, like, not clearly breaking the rules of their gang, you know? Anyway, it’s not my place to say anything one way or the other about how it really wasn’t that bad when my forebears protected yours by killing them so they couldn’t be put in a subservient position to Europeans. So, what should I bring when I come over to your place? You guys like gyouza?”

Abe Shinzo is preparing for his first visit to Japan’s neighbors as Prime Minister. He’ll visit the PRC’s Hu Jintao on Sunday and follow that up by meeting with the RoK’s Roh Moo-Hyun on Monday. He prepared well by issuing the following statement in the Diet on Thursday:

“The people who are said to be so-called Class-A criminals were tried and convicted as war criminals at the Tokyo tribunal, but they were not war criminals under domestic laws. That also was the case for my relative [wartime Cabinet member, Manchukuo administrator, untried war criminal, 56th and 57th Prime Minister, and Abe’s grandfather Kishi Nobusuke].”

This after Abe gave not particularly ringing endoresements to Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi’s August 15, 1995 apology for Japan’s role in World War II and Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei’s 1993 statement on “comfort women,” saying those statements were made by the Cabinets at those times and were handed down to his Cabinet, and failed to draw a distinction between the view of wartime history propounded by the Yushukan at Yasukuni Shrine and the view of his Cabinet when questioned by the DPJ’s Kan Naoto.

Dumbass.

Neither neutral nor responsible, I know, but there’s not much else to say. Beyond the issue of Abe’s long-known hard right wing views inevitably rising to the surface while he serves as PM, those poorly-reasoned and politically inept statements, the Prime Minister’s failure to take what should be no-brainer stances, and the proof that his being the first PM born after WWII is irrelevant to his views on history are going to make his seemingly insincere goal of mending ties with, or at least extingusihing the flames on the bridges with South Korea and China very difficult. Abe took a crowbar to his own best horse’s leg before his chariot even reached the starting line.

It simply will not do for the Prime Minister to pretend that Japan’s role in the War is a hotly debated, unclear issue outside of his right wing circles if he actually wants to make his “Beautiful Country” one that is on friendly terms with its neighbors. Korea, China, and pretty much the rest of the world know exactly where they stand on the issues surrounding Japan’s wartime actions and they tend to stand together, from Stalinist autocrats to democratic leaders as divorced from reality as Abe. (It doesn’t seem to be a very good time for world leaders, does it? When did the parody become the reality?) It also seems that most of the rest of the world would like to be on good terms with Japan, at least on trade terms, but that it’s Japan that keeps stymieing those efforts. There’s a stone in diplomacy’s hoof and Abe seems content to have his horse run on it.

It is Abe Shinzo’s prerogative and responsibility to take some rather obvious steps towards moving the country into more fruitful diplomatic territory. It’s a shame he refuses to do so.