At a 2006 summit with Chinese leaders during his first stint as Japan’s prime minister, he agreed to establish a joint commission, involving historians from Japan, China, and elsewhere, to study twentieth-century history. The idea was that the commission could make unbiased recommendations about contentious issues like the contents of history textbooks and even the Yasukuni shrine, a nationalist pilgrimage site where the remains of Japanese war criminals, among others, are interred.
好消息是，安倍晋三表现出这方面的勇气。2006年，在其第一次担任日本首相期间与中国举行的峰会上，他同意建立一个由日本、中国和其他国家历史学家组成的联合委员会研究二十世纪历史。其初衷是该委员会能就历史教科书内容甚至靖国神社（供奉日本战犯的民族主义朝圣地）等争议问题给出无偏颇的建议。