In one case, a publisher was forced to revise a section in an unreleased textbook on Korean and other women forced to work in Japanese military brothels. The publisher deleted the testimony of one of these former so-called comfort women, and instead repeated the official line that there is no written evidence that they had been forcibly abducted.

Intense attention has also fallen on a statement that Mr. Abe is expected to release on the Aug. 15 anniversary of the war’s end, and whether it will contain the same language as statements issued by previous prime ministers on the 50th and 60th anniversaries. Those statements expressed remorse for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression” that caused “tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries.”

So far, Mr. Abe has refused to specify what his anniversary statement will say. Analysts say he appears torn between more moderate voices and his political base on Japan’s far right, many of whom believe their nation was unjustly painted as the villain by the victorious Allies after the war. Those divisions have appeared in a 16-member advisory panel appointed by Mr. Abe earlier this year to help him draft the statement. The panel has had heated debates over whether to use the word “aggression” to describe Japan’s wartime expansion, according to minutes of a recent meeting.

Many in the United States also want Mr. Abe to come clean on history issues during a visit later this month to Washington, where he will become the first Japanese leader to address a joint meeting of Congress. Some veterans and Korean-Americans opposed inviting Mr. Abe to speak unless he promised to admit responsibility for Japan’s wartime misdeeds.

These demands were ultimately brushed aside by American lawmakers eager to support Japan, the United States’ largest Asian partner. Still, many in the United States and Asia will be paying close attention to what Mr. Abe says to Congress as a possible foretaste of his 70th anniversary statement.

American analysts and policy makers say they hope Mr. Abe makes a clear repudiation of Japan’s wartime conduct. Failing to do so, they fear, may undermine his efforts to take a leading role in Asian security by easing Japan’s self-imposed restraints on its military, something that is warmly welcomed by Washington at a time when it faces a rising China, military budget cuts and new crises in the Middle East.

Disputes over history “threaten to reduce Asian appetites to work more closely with Japan,” wrote Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “They also provide an opportunity for China to rally regional opposition” to a larger Japanese security role “based on a shared sense of grievance.”