“The prospect for Japan’s relationship with China and South Korea remains uncertain, partially due to (Abe’s) view of history,” said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who teaches international politics at the University of Niigata Prefecture.

Abe has made waves by quibbling over the definition of “invade” and provoked anger by downplaying Tokyo’s formalised system of sex slavery in military brothels.

His 2013 visit to Yasukuni Shrine - seen by Japan’s neighbours as a potent symbol of its militarist past - sent relations with Beijing and Seoul to their lowest point in decades, earning a rebuke from close ally Washington and aggravating simmering territorial tensions.

The visit dented Abe’s bid to hold summit talks with China’s President Xi Jinping and his South Korean counterpart.

At a later meeting, the Chinese leader told Abe that he hoped “Japan will send a positive message by earnestly responding to concerns in Asian countries and facing history squarely”.

The issue has been top news in Japan, with public broadcaster NHK reporting this week that an original draft of Abe’s statement included the words “apology” and “aggression”.

Those words appeared in a landmark 1995 statement by then-premier Tomiichi Murayama, who expressed “deep remorse” and a “heartfelt apology” over Japan’s actions.

The so-called Murayama Statement, which became a benchmark for subsequent leaders’ apologies, said Japan “through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations”.

Abe himself has said only that he would express remorse and follow previous prime ministerial apologies “as a whole”.

But Abe has repeatedly talked of the need for what he calls a “forward-looking attitude” that concentrates on the positive role pacifist Japan has played in Asia since its surrender in 1945.

While Abe’s nationalism tends to be popular on the political right, Japan’s own national self-narrative has been one more of victim than colonialist aggressor largely responsible for an ill-fated Pacific conflict.

The atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the Japan’s surrender, stirred that sense of victimhood, said Akira Yamada, professor of modern Japanese history at Meiji University in Tokyo.

“Japan’s memory of the war has long been one of a victim. The memory of perpetrator has been taken over,” Yamada said.

Japan must make “painful” efforts to rebalance its wartime memories, and take the lead in forming an Asian version of the European Union to prevent another conflict, said Yamada. “Rebuilding history should be painful - you cannot do it in a comfortable way.”