Japanese Leader Begins Historic Trip To China

Japan’s prime minister began a pilgrimage Saturday to a Chinese region brutalized by Japan during World War II, a gesture meant to reassure China that Japan’s militarist days are over.

Ryutaro Hashimoto’s visit to Manchuria is the first by a postwar Japanese prime minister. Before leaving Beijing, Hashimoto said the journey, along with two days of meetings with Chinese leaders, would help build trust between the two Asian powers.

“It was a good opportunity to contemplate the future of our relationship while looking squarely at the history,” Hashimoto, speaking through an interpreter, said at a news conference.

Manchuria was brutalized by Japan for 14 years, starting with a 1931 invasion and only ending with the Japanese defeat in World War II.

Hashimoto repeated to Chinese leaders an apology for the suffering caused by Japanese troops during the war, but he refused to go beyond the wording first used by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995.