In the first visit by a Japanese monarch to a World War II battlesite abroad, Emperor Akihito arrived on this tiny US territory yesterday to pray for tens of thousands of Japanese lives lost here in the name of his father, plus the thousands of US soldiers and islanders killed.
But the visit comes amid growing anger in China and the Koreas over what many there see as Japan's failure to make amends and over repeated visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a war shrine in Tokyo that is a powerful symbol of Japan's pre-1945 militarism.
Akihito and Empress Michiko were to spend two days on this semitropical island, where some of World War II's fiercest fighting marked the beginning of the end for Japan's war machine in the Pacific.
PHOTO: AFP
One scheduled stop was "Banzai Cliff," where Japanese fearing capture by US troops plunged to their deaths after shouting "banzai," which means long life, for Akihito's father, the late Emperor Hirohito.
"Our hearts ache when we think of those people who fought at a place where there was no food, no water, no medical treatment for the wounded," Akihito said in a statement at Tokyo's airport.
The royal couple also planned to place wreaths at monuments to the US troops and the local islanders, mostly Chamorro or Carolinians, who were killed.
At least 30,000 Japanese troops -- some Japanese estimates go as high as 43,000 -- and 12,000 civilians died in the battle. More than 5,000 Americans, about half of them Marines, and 1,000 or so islanders also were killed on Saipan or nearby islands.
Akihito, who was 11 years old when the war ended, attends an annual ceremony in Tokyo marking Japan's 1945 defeat.
He has been to China and has expressed remorse for the past during visits to Japan by South Korean leaders.
But he has never made a trip to offer condolences at a former battlefield overseas.
"This time on soil beyond our shores, we will once again mourn and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the war and we will remember the difficult path the bereaved families had to follow," he said in the statement. "And we wish to pray for world peace."
But anger over Japan's militarist past still runs deep in Asia, where many believe Tokyo has failed to atone.
Though Akihito was expected to receive a warm welcome here -- Saipan's economy relies heavily on Japanese tourism, and flag-waving crowds braved a downpour to line the path of his motorcade -- such sensitivities hung over the visit.
A small minority of Koreans living here threatened to stage protests because the imperial couple was not expected to pay their respects at a memorial to the Koreans who died fighting here.
Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 until 1945, and many Koreans were forced to fight for the Japanese military.
Operation Forager, which began on June 15, 1944, has been called the D-Day of the Pacific.
The fall of Saipan three weeks later allowed US B-29 bombers to pound Japan's cities, weakening the country's defenses and will to fight.
A Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) cybersecurity tool called ARTEX was used in a spate of recent hacks of Japanese companies, the subsidiary of a major Tokyo-based Internet company yesterday. Dozens of Japanese companies, from restaurant chains to a car hire operator, have disclosed unauthorized access or data breaches in the past weeks — potentially impacting millions of customers. The information security arm of GMO Internet Group Inc said it had “confirmed ARTEX was used” having investigated the attacks in collaboration with external organizations. “It also became clear ... the attacks were almost exclusively targeting Japan,” GMO cybersecurity center director Daiki
China’s first fully artificial intelligence (AI)-generated feature film opened in cinemas yesterday in what promised to be a tough box-office test for the country’s booming tech industry as advance ticket sales lag. More than 10,000 screenings of the sci-fi thriller Sanxingdui: Future Past were scheduled yesterday, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. However, public reception has been less than enthusiastic. Presale revenue as of yesterday morning was 80,000 yuan (US$11,992), while total box-office takings were forecast to remain below 150,000 yuan, only a fraction of the reported production cost, Maoyan said. Ticket prices range from 20 to 90 yuan, bringing the number sold to a
A STEP UP: The moving of small military positions forward should be taken seriously amid the North’s recent demonstrations of its firepower, an analyst said North Korea has moved new units into “firing positions,” the sister of leader Kim Jong-un said yesterday, days after Pyongyang warned it was considering deploying additional strike means to its border with South Korea. Tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang have soared since the South last month blamed an explosion inside the heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two countries on landmines laid by North Korea, an accusation it has rejected. “Our military leadership underlined the need to make those rogues aware that our new firepower units have taken their firing positions,” state media cited Kim Yo-jong as saying. Her statement came a
Thousands of British and French troops have taken part in a military training exercise that included one of Britain’s largest airborne operations in two decades, the British government said yesterday. The war game is designed to show how NATO countries could be defended against a modern-day attack and comes during fears about Russian aggression in Europe amid Moscow’s war against Ukraine. About 2,500 troops were involved in the seven-week exercise, in which 600 British and French paratroopers dropped from four RAF A400M Atlas transport aircraft over Germany. The exercise called Rhino Titan, held at the Sennelager military training center in
RSS