In his historic speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fell short of apologizing for Japan’s role in World War II and kept mum on the issue of Japanese Imperial Army’s military sexual slavery during the war.

Mindful of the fact that he was primarily addressing the U.S. audience, he devoted a few sentences in the 45-minute-long speech to specific incidents involving the U.S. military during the war. Recalling his earlier visit to the World War II Memorial, he cited Pearl Harbor, Bataan Corregidor, the Coral Sea and said, “With deep repentance in my heart, I stood there in silent prayers for some time.” He also offered “eternal condolences to the souls of all American people that were lost during World War II.”

Abe offered his typical vague acknowledgement of Japan’s wartime and colonial past and the word “apology” was conspicuously absent in the speech. “Our actions brought suffering to the peoples in Asian countries. We must not avert our eyes from that. I will uphold the views expressed by the previous prime ministers in this regard,” he said. Most American viewers watching Abe’s speech on television would have had little inkling of what “our actions” referred to. Nor would they have known what the “views expressed by the previous ministers” referred to.

Abe skipped the issue of military sexual slavery altogether, instead, saying, “Armed conflicts have always made women suffer the most. In our age, we must realize the kind of world where finally women are free from human rights abuses.” It is an insult to women everywhere that Abe, who has been referring of late to the wartime military sexual slavery as “human trafficking” without mentioning the fact that the Japanese military were the traffickers of as many as 200,000 young women from Asian countries, talks about realizing a world free from women’s human rights abuses.

Granted that, as Abe said in his speech, “History is harsh. What is done cannot be undone,” hope for the future lies in that we can learn from history so that we do not do again what should not have been done. It is Abe’s unwillingness to look squarely at history ― as shown, for example, by his order to review the Kono Statement, a landmark 1993 statement that acknowledges the Japanese military’s involvement in creating and running military brothels and the transfer of sex slaves ― that causes much discomfort among Japan’s Asian neighbors.

A Japan that refuses to acknowledge its past, in the minds of Koreans, still poses the threats that Japan of more than 70 years ago posed. Abe argues that an apology does not need to be issued repeatedly; but it is his continued fudging on the issue that leads countries in the region to demand an unequivocal statement of acknowledgement of history and apology.

In his speech, Abe highlighted the newly signed Defense Cooperation Guidelines as enabling Japan to play a greater role in building “more reliable peace in the region.” The U.S. should realize that countries in the region still harbor anxieties about Japan’s remilitarization, particularly in the face of Abe’s blatant revisionist views. Abe should not expect to piggyback ride on the U.S. into playing a greater security role in the region, foregoing the requisite step of assuring Japan’s neighbors that it has learnted the lessons of history.

Abe has another chance to prove to the world that Japan is a responsible member of the international community, ready to assume a greater role in world affairs. He can do that by issuing unequivocal apologies about Japan’s wartime aggressions and about the wartime military sexual slavery in his August speech marking the 70th anniversary of end of World War II. Neither Japan’s future nor the region’s security should be fettered by history.