What Japanese history lessons leave out: Why neighboring countries still hold a grudge against Japan

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.

From Homo erectus to the present day - more than a million years of history in just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of Japan's relations with the outside world.

For three hours a week - 105 hours over the year - we edged towards the 20th Century.

It's hardly surprising that some classes, in some schools, never get there, and are told by teachers to finish the book in their spare time.

When I returned recently to my old school, Sacred Heart in Tokyo, teachers told me they often have to start hurrying, near the end of the year, to make sure they have time for World War II.

When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book's 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.

There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.

There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.

There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army

In the case of American black slavery it was White Christians who died by the thousands in the process of getting them freed.

"Getting them freed" was not at all a goal of the war. It eventually was adopted as a goal about 18 months after the war started, but the intent of sending Armies into the south was not to free the black people, it was to control the economic powerhouse that was the Southern trade with Europe.

People nowadays do not know this, but the South produced 75-85 % of all the European trade, and because the Federal government was paid through tariffs, the South was effectively paying for 75-85% of all the cost of running the Federal Government.

An independent South would have wrecked the Northeastern shipping and finance industries, and the powerful men of New York were not going to have that.

The North went to war to stop the South from damaging the economics of the powerful people of New York and Washington DC.

In other words, the same people who are "the establishment" today.

Tariffs on exports are specifically forbidden under the US Constitution. They may only be imposed on imports. You are correct that they were the chief source of revenue for the Federal government, a situation that really only ended after passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 under Democrat and Confederate sympathizer Woodrow Wilson.

But very much contrary to your point, the North was not afraid of any "Economic Powerhouse" (that term in relation to a Southern economy based on agriculture and slave labor is laughable). No, it was the South that was deathly afraid the high tariffs which protected Northern industry from European imports would lead to increased retaliatory tariffs on their goods, leaving cotton and tobacco income damaged in the crossfire. That was the economic impetus to secession and war. If slavery had anything to do with it, the Southern States' fear of the growing populations and political power in the North leading to their realization that they would never have the power to keep it in place by extending it west into new States and Territories, was the link.

Lincoln was very clear before and after his election that he (and most Northerners were of the same mind) had no intention of interfering with the "Peculiar Institution" where it already existed. But secession happened anyway, followed by attacks on Federal installations left within the new Confederacy, and even a far from secret plan to assassinate a President Elect on his way to his inauguration as he passed through Baltimore.

Secession was the first "cause" of the war, followed by a North incensed by attacks on Federal troops and unexpected humiliating defeats on the battlefield. As the casualty lists published in the papers in Northern towns and villages grew so did anger and a deep desire for revenge. It was only when "Preserving the Union" lost its luster in a bath of bloodshed that a new justification, a noble cause (and what's more noble to the American mind than "Freedom"?) turned the Northern cause into an anti-slavery crusade. And by that time overwhelming Northern numbers and industrial might, coupled with British queasiness over slavery and caution about creating a dangerous enemy in a re-United States, and Lincoln's reelection in 1864 made the end result inevitable, a very different country than the one preceding the war, stronger, more united, and destined to become the most powerful military, economic, and political force in history.

But very much contrary to your point, the North was not afraid of any "Economic Powerhouse" (that term in relation to a Southern economy based on agriculture and slave labor is laughable).

That depends very much on what you mean by the term "the North" in this context. The average Joe citizen of the north was not afraid of Southern secession, and in fact most of them were in favor of "Wayward sisters depart in peace." The people who were afraid of the South's secession were the power barons of New York and Washington on who's fortunes European trade depended. (The same people whom we regard today as the "crony capitalist/establishment/deep state." )

In other words, the very wealthy and powerful men who backed Lincoln for the Presidency, and who were reaping the benefits of the lopsided trade policy and government subsidies.

No, it was the South that was deathly afraid the high tariffs which protected Northern industry from European imports would lead to increased retaliatory tariffs on their goods, leaving cotton and tobacco income damaged in the crossfire.

They didn't fear it. They had been living with it for decades. They were simply sick and tired of it. How would you like to be 1/5th of the total population but yet you are paying 75-85% of all taxes?

If slavery had anything to do with it, the Southern States' fear of the growing populations and political power in the North leading to their realization that they would never have the power to keep it in place by extending it west into new States and Territories, was the link.

The higher populations is what had given the Northern coalition so much control in congress that they were able to tax the Southern peoples at 75-85% (again, 1/5th their population) while the other 80% of the population was only paying the FedGov the remaining 15-25% of it's income. This is a perfect example of the flaw in Democracy in which two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner.

Regarding your statement about the expansion of slavery into the territories, the oft repeated and commonly accepted claim is that there was an imminent threat that slavery would expand to the territories, and that if it didn't, it would wither and die. Therefore all opposition to expanding slavery into the territories was the consequence of concern for the black man, and none of it was done for self serving reasons like control of congress or anything.

A funny thing happened when I started looking at this claim. It doesn't hold up at all. In 1860, the dominant product of slave plantations was cotton, followed by Tobacco, and then lesser agricultural products, but Cotton was by far the dominant source of revenue for the slave industry. So could they have grown cotton in the Territories? I got to wondering if it were even possible, since we now have machinery to do all the work. If it was possible, we should be doing it now. So I looked it up.

A little further research informed me that Cotton cannot grow in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or California without heavy usage of modern irrigation systems, which were impossible in 1860. So the answer to the question is "No." Slavery could not have expanded to the territories because it was literally impossible to grow a slavery produced cash crop in these areas.

So they lied to us. There never was a risk of slavery "expanding" into the territories, because it was literally impossible. So why then were people supposedly so concerned about it? Could it be that the real issue was control of Congress?

Well they already made the laws heavily biased in favor of the Northern industrial alliance, and they had a system set up to tax the south heavily, and they also had laws set up to make New York control the European shipping. The robber barons were sitting in the catbird seat so long as the South didn't get enough states to side with it. Could it be that the propagandized concern about slavery expanding into the territories was ONLY about ensuring control of Congress?

Looks that way.

I agree with both your point as well as the other guy’s point.

However, regarding Japan, unfortunately, even the few Japanese people who DO want to expose the dark side of Japanese history during the Japanese Textbook Controversy a while back seemed to have ill intent for Japan and America at large.

For example, Hideo Kojima advocated for exposing Japanese war crimes around the time MGS2 was in development, even having Snake say, and I quote, “[We should] let our children read our sad and messy history by its light.” And Kojima, well, let’s put it this way: MGS2 had him pretty much sympathizing with the Gurlukovich Mercenaries (who were explicit Communist Russians wanting to recreate the USSR), had The Boss essentially advocate for open borders and globalism in her speech in MGS3, advocated for multilateralism in MGS4, especially America effectively being forced to undergo multilateralism, and, save for a drunken rant from one of the characters, this result of the Patriots being eliminated was treated as an actual good thing. Oh, and Peace Walker had the characters singing praises for Che Guevara (despite the fact that, had he had his way and launched nukes at the United States, the USSR would probably take the opportunity to reenact Nagasaki and Hiroshima multiple times in the resulting nuclear war) and even Mao Zedong. Don’t get me started on the rampant anti-Americanism in every game of Metal Gear save for MAYBE Snake Eater and Portable Ops.

So yeah, even the people of Japan who DO try to expose Japan’s sordid history ultimately have ulterior motives that would probably place Japan in a similar position to Germany right now (heck, like America with our own educational system right now. Say what you will about Japan, at least IT still teaches them to love their country, which is far better said than our own educational system). I don’t like it one bit, letting Japan whitewash its history, but on the other hand, I also realize I don’t have any reason to trust the ones who wish to expose the sad history as well, since they have bad aims as well (certainly, Kojima did). In other words, it’s a “pick your poison” option here.

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