Obama-Abe meeting at Pearl Harbor fraught with symbolism

SOME 75 years after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Shinzo Abe will become the country's first prime minister to visit the US base on Dec 26-27. He will meet Barack Obama for what will be one of the US president's last sessions with a world leader before he hands over power to Donald Trump on Jan 20.

For Mr Abe, now four years into his second stint as prime minister, the meeting is a symbolic way to showcase to the world, especially China, the enduring strength of US-Japan relations in the post-war period. And it is all the more potentially powerful as the second leg in a year of historic reconciliation with the United States following Mr Obama's visit to Hiroshima in May.

The symbolism of the visit is underpinned by the fact that the Japanese attack in 1941 helped bring the United States into World War II, cementing Washington's role as a nascent global superpower. Mr Abe's visit comes at a time when there are growing concerns that the world order that followed from the World War II may now be increasingly fraying, in multiple ways.