Japan marks 78th anniversary of WWII defeat as Kishida renews peace vow with no mention of wartime aggression
- PM Kishida instead stressed the destruction Japan suffered from the war and said the country would cooperate with the world in solving global issues
- The memorial events coincided with a new survey which showed nearly half of all students said they had never talked about the war with family members or friends
Kishida, who heads a more liberal faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, sent a masakaki offering to the shrine and spoke at a ceremony at the nearby Budokan Hall to mourn the 2.3 million military personnel who died during the Pacific War, and an estimated 800,000 civilians who were also killed.
Japan would “stick to our resolve to never repeat the tragedy of the war”, Kishida said at a solemn ceremony in a speech that was almost identical to what he read last year.
Kishida instead stressed the destruction that Japan suffered from the war, including the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fire bombings across Japan and the bloody ground battle on Okinawa, and the suffering of Japanese people. He said Japan would stick to its postwar peace pledge and would continue to cooperate with the world in solving global issues.
Japan’s emperor also addressed the event, with visitors to the shrine and at the Budokan observing a minute of silence at midday.
