Posted on 04/08/2005 6:49:46 PM PDT by blam
Asia rises against 'whitewashing' of Japan's atrocities
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 09/04/2005)
The cherry blossom is reaching the peak of its splendour in Tokyo, and the gardens of the Yasukuni shrine have been turned into cheerful festival ground, with a pink stage for musicians and rows of stalls selling anything from food to potted plants.
But for millions of people across Asia, Yasukuni stands for something more sinister than love of botany: it is the supreme symbol of Japan's former love of war.
Sixty years after the Second World War, the wounds may have healed in Europe, but they remain all too raw in Asia.
In recent days China and South Korea have been in uproar over the publication of new Japanese textbooks which, they say, justify the militarism of the Japanese empire and its aggression during the Second World War. The books are accused of glossing over atrocities committed by Japanese troops in the region.
Amid calls in China for a boycott of Japanese imports, and sporadic mob attacks on Japanese stores, diplomats in Tokyo warned Chinese citizens to stay away from large anti-Japanese protests planned in Beijing today.
China has accused Tokyo of spreading "poison for Japan's future generations", while South Korea has warned Tokyo that "our people are greatly enraged".
The refurbished military museum at Yasukuni does nothing to dispel the impression that Japan has not fully atoned for the past.
The main hall displays an Ohka or "Cherry Blossom", the rocket-powered glider-bombs that kamikaze pilots flew into American warships and a "Kaiten" suicide torpedo.
Display cabinets show letters written by the suicide pilots vowing to "meet again at Yasukuni", a flag with the Rising Sun painted in the blood of Japanese schoolgirls, and a section of wall with a message written in the blood of suicide motorboat crews declaring: "Even though we were defeated in war, in our spirit we have not been defeated."
Historical panels describe how Japan sought peace and had "no choice" but to go to war to avoid being strangled by an American-inspired economic embargo.
Although Japan lost, the display explains that Japan kindled the spirit of independence among other Asian people who later cast off their European colonial masters.
There is little recognition that Japan colonised Asian lands, often brutally; no acknowledgement of massacres carried out by Japanese troops and the enslavement of "comfort women" as prostitutes.
The spirits of 2.46 million people who died in Japan's wars in the service of the Chrysanthemum Throne since 1853 are enshrined at Yasukuni. In 1978, the spirits of 14 "Class A" war criminals, including the wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo, were among those "called" to the shrine. Yasukuni's website bemoans the fact that more than 1,000 martyrs "were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces".
This unabashed nationalism has been given respectability by Japan's prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has pointedly made annual visits to Yasukuni since his election in 2001 despite denunciations from China and South Korea.
Taiwan, which was also colonised by Japan, has traditionally made less fuss. But this week there were protests against a visit by a Taiwanese member of parliament to Yasukuni, ostensibly to honour 28,0000 Taiwanese enshrined there.
The outcry over Japanese school textbooks is only the latest issue to plague Japan's relations with its neighbours. Territorial disputes over far-flung islands are a constant source of tension with Russia, China and South Korea.
Officials in Tokyo maintain that Japan has repeatedly apologised for its past misdeeds, and has offered generous development aid and investments in lieu of "reparations". For them the problem is not Japanese militarism or lack of repentance, but "nationalism" and bigotry that is being deliberately stoked by neighbouring leaders to shore up their popular support.
"Japanese people are getting tired of 'apology diplomacy'. If China puts pressure on Japan, the Japanese just get angry," said Prof Ryosei Kokubun, an expert on China at Tokyo's Keio University.
Alarmed by China's rapid re-armament, and a North Korean missile test over Japan in 1998, Japan is shedding another legacy of the Second World War, its doctrine of pacifism.
It has stretched the war-renouncing Article Nine of its constitution to the limit by sending Japanese forces to help with humanitarian reconstruction in Iraq, where British and Australian troops now provide security for their former Japanese enemies.
The Japanese parliament is debating constitutional amendments that would allow Japanese troops to take part in United Nations-sponsored operations.
At Yasukuni's museum, visitors seemed ready for Japan to resume a more "normal" military role.
Taguchi Ito, 31, said: "Japan should have nuclear weapons because our neighbouring countries have them. We need to be strong so that other countries do not attack us."
In today's Japan, the only country to have been attacked with atomic weapons, even the nuclear taboo has started to break down.
Ping.
I'd like to think that Hiroshima speaks for itself. Some tensions still run high here in the US also.
A recent episode of "King of the Hill" centered around a "healing" trip to Tokyo by US WWII veterans. Hanks father, Cotton Hill, lost his shins to the Japanese during the war. His purpose for going to Tokyo was to spit in the eye of the Japanese Prime Minister. It was hilarious, and must have also been so to the Korean animators who likely penned the episode.
Dormant Japanese ultra-right has got the chance of revival thanks to N. Korean missile and nuclear crisis. Having full-fledged military had been their long-time wish. The unfolding issue of Japanese abductee gave them added ammunition. With this momentum on their side, they want to revive old imperial tradition and legitimize white-washing of their history. Such efforts used to be covert and piece-meal until now. Recently, they became overt and bold.
That pretty much sums it up!
Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
We need militaristic allies. I would take Japan over any other country except England.
The Japanese were the most brutal and least humane of any of the axis armies, including the Nazis.
The Japanese have proven themselves to be the only reliable Asian ally the United States has in the Pacific. If the United States could reconcile with Japan (and the Japanese with the US) given what we've done to each other, then I'm with Japan all the way on this matter. These other spoil sports, like China, Korea, and every other whining failure in Asia, can go suck eggs.
Banzai Nippon!
I expect that with a name like Henderson Field, you may have some special insight.
"The Japanese were the most brutal and least humane of any of the axis armies, including the Nazis."
Say what??? Tell that to the Poles, the Russians, and the people from any other country the Nazis invaded.
Particularly not to the JEWS!
Nobody has such a clean history in Asia. Or anywhere else for that matter. But State rewrites of history ought to be exposed to the dialectic.
Just got hold of a book on the Rape of Nanking....for anyone who doesn't believe the Japanese were brutal in WWII.
They raped, beheaded, tortured and killed about 300,000 Chinese there.
The regular German army did behave more humanely than the regular Japanese army, I think.
I don't think the regular German army had any atrocities to compare with the regular Japanese army in Nanking, for example.
" The Japanese were the most brutal and least humane of any of the axis armies, including the Nazis."
I live in the boondocks of Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan , and heard a story first-hand from a local , Japanese veteran of WW2 ...An American plane crash landed locally , about 5 miles from where I am now living . The survivors were sent to either Fukuoka or Tokyo where medical experiments were conducted on them . I can't tell you how horribly these men suffered . They were considered equal to animals , and not human beings . Living in Japan ahs always been a love/hate kind of thing with me . When I read stories about their whitewashing of history it really pisses me off . The government , not the sheeple , are to blame , though .
"I don't think the regular German army had any atrocities to compare with the regular Japanese army in Nanking, for example."
Read about the battles of Stalingrad or Leningrad, then tell me about Wehrmacht "honor".
Who runs the government there?
The Communists in China and North Korea are giving Imperial Japan a good run for its money. Nobody in Asia has a record that we in the West would consider humane, just look at the neighborhood. The Japanese were simply the best at it.
Personally I can't wait to see a militarily active Japan again. It's long past time they stepped back into their historical role of limiting the expansion of China in the Pacific.
By the way, when is communist China planning to apologize for murdering 65 million innocent people?
:)
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