Has Japan ever paid reparations to China or Korea?
“Has Japan ever paid reparations to China or Korea?”
I don’t care if they do or don’t, and I’m well aware of just what Japan was during WW2. In my late teens, I visited the Air Force Museum in Dayton. They had a display comparing ‘trinkets’ recovered from Americans who were German POWs and Americans who were Japanese POWs (I think it’s still there - I saw it again 15 years ago). I’m having trouble typing now because I’m literally crying about what I saw regarding how the Japanese treated our POWs - the Germans actually, for much of WW2, were providing dental care to American POWs (it only got bad for them towards the end, understandable) - the Japanese were literally cut limbs off Americans to feed themselves (and thereby keeping what was left of our prisoners from ‘spoiling’ until they got around to eating it. Not too long ago, I saw a similar display in Thailand (River Kwai).
So, I don’t take it lightly when I say that JAPAN WAS RIGHT to protect their national culture, even considering what they did. They are now a cohesive, modern, country with a near-zero crime rate. Yes, in a perfect world, we would beat Japan down as we did with Germany.
But Germany is a DOOMED COUNTRY, with the best outcome being a civil war that makes the holocaust look like a walk in the park. Most other Western European countries are in the same boat.
(I’m drying out now, thankfully)
Just to add a bit. The display at Wright-Patt showed what was recovered from our POWs in Germany - and it was clear that they were living pretty well, certainly withing Geneva Convention standards (keep in mind these are Air Force POWs, so the Germans likely wanted their POWs treated decently too). It’s too long ago, so I don’t remember just what I saw, other than it showed they were treated decently, not much different than Hogan’s Heroes, from what I remember. Of course the Germans had the other little issue of how they treated many of their own people and conquered people - so this decent treatment wasn’t going help them much there (and shouldn’t have).
For the Japanese, you’d see a little stick, a scrap of paper, maybe some tube. The text at the display made it clear that while it wasn’t much, it was ALL THEY HAD to themselves - it was that bad. The comparison was night and day.
No.
However, the Chinese were satisfied when a Leading General toured Hiroshima and Nagasaki, commenting, “You Americans do good work.” Thus ended Chinese plans to exterminate the Japanese.
From the “Rape of Nanking”.