In 2015 Japan and its neighbors will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII. In the coming months, people around the region will be reflecting on their shared past and probably wondering why Asia remains haunted by the past traumas in ways that Europe is not.

Of course, the key factor is that Japan has not taken the full measure of this past and the suffering and devastation it inflicted. In order to regain its own dignity and restore the dignity of its victims, Japan must do much more to acknowledge its responsibility for imperial aggression, offer sincere apolo¬gies and make unequivocal gestures of atonement.

Alas, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not appear to be equal to the challenge. He embraces a revisionist history and seeks to rehabilitate Japan's shabby wartime past.

Indeed, he has consistently downplayed past misdeeds and promoted patriotic education to nurture national pride among the young people. In 2014, textbook publishers were encouraged to delete references to "comfort women" (sexual slaves) and forced labor, and to represent history according to governmental views and Supreme Court rulings.

Moreover, Abe did nothing in 2014 when his party colleagues in the Diet worked to discredit the 1993 Kono Statement, in which the Japanese government took the responsibility of and apologized for the "comfort women" issue and vowed to atone for it. Abe has also made no secret of his discomfort with the 1995 Murayama Statement on the 50th anniversary of Japan's surrender in WWII that acknowledged and apologized for Japan's wartime misdeeds.

Japan's neighbors are thus wary of what Abe will include in his 70th anniversary statement later this summer. Many Japanese, including Emperor Akihito, share these concerns.

In his 2015 New Year message, Akihito expressed concerns that imply Abe should proceed carefully on war memory and easing constitutional constraints on Japan's military, demonstrating why the 81 year-old monarch is so admired by the Japanese public.

Since his rein began in 1989, Akihito has weighed in on sensitive issues numerous times and has repeatedly repudiated the agenda of right-wing nationalists.

Of course his words are carefully vetted and are sufficiently ambiguous to avoid an explicit political stand, but in the context of his remarks and gestures over the years, his comments about war constitute a powerful message.

In contrast to Abe's nationalism, Akihito has pointedly referred to the horrific suffering Japan both endured and inflicted from 1931 to 1945, an anti-war message that endorses Japan's pacifist constitution and rejects efforts to rewrite and burnish the history of Japanese aggression.

Akihito's reference to the Manchurian Incident of 1931, or the 9.18 Incident, in his speech was a rebuke to revisionists who maintain that Japan was fighting a defensive war of Pan-Asian liberation against the Western colonial powers.

Instead, the emperor's comment implies that the wider war was ignited by Japanese aggression against China and that on the 70th anniversary of Japan's defeat, it is important to learn the lessons of this tragedy. It is hard to ignore the warning about the dangers of militarism and historical revisionism, especially when one considers Akihito's record.

Akihito has maintained his father's boycott of Yasukuni Shrine since 1978 when 14 Class-A war criminals were secretly enshrined there. Then emperor Hirohito confided to an aide that he refrained from visiting the shrine thereafter due to the presence of those war criminals.

Akihito has often demonstrated to the world that Japan is indeed repentant for the wartime horrors it inflicted, thus rejecting the unrepentant, vindicating narrative associated with Yasukuni Shrine and the adjacent Yushukan Museum.

The emperor's reconciliation diplomacy, crisscrossing the region to express remorse, has done more than all of Japan's politicians combined to address the legacies of Japanese imperial aggression and thus restore national dignity. Alas, reactionary politicians and the jingoistic press intentionally undermine his efforts.

The author is director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn