What does Abe believe? That Japan won World War Two? That Japan had a noble cause in wreaking havoc across Southeast Asia?

That the Imperial Japanese was a master race? That Hirohito was everybody’s god?

How would Abe react to Hitler’s estimation that since "the ancient civilization of Japan actually became fossilized and petrified," it owed its later development to the Aryan influence? [Mein Kampf, 1934. Translated into English by James Murphy, 1939]

Does Abe concur with his wartime predecessor’s assessment that: "The materials of Japan, Man-choukuo and China added with the materials of the various areas of the southern region…have established a foundation of strengthening and expanding our military power." Prime Minister Hideki Tojo bragged about the confiscations conducted by the Nipponese military in his address to the Opening Session of the Diet on May 27, 1942.

What about the Italian fascist dictator’s take? "It is with raw materials that Japan has enriched herself. They are the prime raw materials of which our enemies are being impoverished." [Benito Mussolini, Premier of Italy, Speech to the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations, Rome, December 2, 1942] Is it a zero-sum game as well for Abe?

As it is, Japan is already the world’s leading importer of tropical timber, the number one market for Philippine fish and a dependent buyer of Middle Eastern oil. Japan’s craving for other nation’s natural resources – a failing that made it a plundering Axis aggressor – underlines its status as the World Bank’s third largest lender, the Asian Development Bank’s heaviest investor and Asean’s biggest trade partner. [Renato Constantino, "The Second Invasion"]

Moreover, Japan has to watch out for "a fall in productivity and investment feasibility" given its graying population. [JR Chaponniere, "Southeast And East Asia Towards 2020: Exploring An Image Of Asia’s Future"]

Japan’s balancing act, Abe has to remember, is easily upset. By trade disputes with Europe and the United States. By autonomous links among members of Asean in addition to rivalries among Japanese transnational corporations operating within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. By China’s courtship of Asia-Pacific economies.

Abe has to stabilize the situation for Japan’s benefit instead of stoking the fires of discord. Is he apathetic to the fact that resurgent Japanese militarism and the eruption of the comfort women issue in August 1991 "has continued to dog Japan’s relations with South Korea and its other East Asian neighbors?" [Glen D. Hook, "Japan And East Asia: The Impact Of Economic Links"]

Abe must also keep in mind that in the eyes of Filipinos, Japan bears the stigma of being the clearest example of a domineering neocolonial kingdom. The Yakuza’s syndication of japayuki entertainers and the onerous conditionalities of Official Development Assistance will be aggravated by the deplorable provisions of the JPEPA.

Abe has to know that it is not only the Filipinos who rebuke the rightist, the fascist, the militarist presumption of history. Abe has constituents who consider the move of Japanese legislators to water down the Kono Statement as "the conspiracy to deny Japan’s responsibility for the comfort women issue." At the same time, these Japanese voters "condemn the double standard of Prime Minister Abe who tolerates this kind of campaign in his own Cabinet."

The Japan Military Sex Slavery Issue Action Network c/o the Japan Anti-Prostitution Association, with address at 2-23-25 Hyakunin-cho, Shinjuku, Tokyo, points to the December 2006 announcement of Hirofumi Shinomura, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, and Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council, that the Kono Statement needs rethinking.

The Kono Statement refers to the August 4, 1993 acknowledgement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono of the involvement of the Japanese military authorities in the establishment and management of so-called comfort women stations across Asia and the transport of sex slaves in Japanese-occupied territories during World War II. In admitting that many Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Taiwanese, Malaysian and other Asian girls and women were coerced into living in misery in Japanese military sex stations, Kono also offered the firm view of the Japanese Government never to repeat the same mistake by engraving such issues in the memories of the Japanese people.

The Kono Statement, which is now 12 years old, has been bolstered by rediscovered Japanese government and military documents, court cases and painful testimonies of surviving comfort women of unwanted pregnancies and venereal diseases caused by the rapacious Nipponese troops.

Abe needs to affirm the Kono Statement if he wants to turn Japan into a "beautiful country" and keep peace with Tokyo’s neighbors, partners and rivals. Abe can uphold the Kono Statement by instructing the Japanese Education Ministry to teach Japanese students the truth about World War II.