Japan's Abe pays respects at Hawaii memorials ahead of Pearl Harbour ceremony

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific to place a wreath at the Honolulu Memorial. Photo: AP

Published: 1:55pm, 27 Dec 2016Updated: 10:08pm, 27 Dec 2016

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stopped at several memorials in Hawaii, before he will visit the site of the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbour during a trip intended to show a strong alliance between his country and the United States.

Abe made no public remarks and stood in silence before a wreath of flowers at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, a memorial to people who died while serving in the US Armed Forces.

Abe, joined by two of his Cabinet members, bowed his head before wreaths of white flowers and greenery laid at the feet of stone monuments at Makiki Cemetery in Honolulu dedicated to Japanese who settled in Hawaii in the 1800s.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at the Honolulu Memorial. At right is James Horton, director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and at left is Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada. Photo: AP

The crowning event of the trip comes Tuesday Hawaii time, when Abe and US President Barack Obama will visit Pearl Harbour, the site of the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into the second world war. Obama, who was born in Hawaii, is spending his winter vacation there.

Abe does not plan to apologise for the 1941 attack but to console the souls of those who died in the war, his aides said this month.

Japan hopes to present a strong alliance with the United States amid concerns about China’s expanding military capability. Japan was monitoring a group of Chinese warships that entered the top half of the South China Sea earlier on Monday.