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.
LOL, I know all about that love/hate thingiee. You can almost tell how long a gaijin has lived in Japan by where they are at with it!
Nuff Said.
If this isn't clear, check with the taliban and Saddam whatshisname.
" I know all about that love/hate thingiee "
This whitewashing of WW2 history and the worship of WW2 class A war criminals at Yasukuni by every LDP Prime Minister since the end of the war are two things that REALLY get my blood boiling hot .
:)
"Do a little Googling on Unit 731 in Pingfan and Harbin during the 1930s. The cold, calculating brutality of the starvation, dehydration, pressure and other deadly human experiments equal the horror of anything done to anyone anywhere, ever."
You're probably right. Like those two little human experiments conducted when atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Lookit. Arguments like "the Japanese were worse than the Germans" must be substantiated by data. Bald assertions won't do. Whether its tactics, techniques, or simple body count.
But, really, what is going on here isn't a desire to get at some justice for whatever alleged atrocities were committed by whomever country. Or even an interest in the truth. Its just political opportunism and, maybe, legal posturing, all for financial gain and influence. That's all.
I choose to side with the Japanese. Banzai Nippon!
Well, I'm about as happy as I get. :>)
Find out how many Chinese died in WW2, then add in the numbers from the rest of Asia.
Re: Your #45
>> Like those two little human experiments conducted when atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I think you missed the point entirely; there was no "experiment" involved. Please click on the "to 42" just below.
Past. Present. Future.
'Nuff said.
http://www.bcast.co.jp/cgi-bin/yahoo/news.asx?cid=20050410-00000005-nnn-int-movie-000&media=wm300k
Main features:
Huge crowd. The New "Red Guards" reminiscient of the Cultural Revolution.
Young Communists with huge red communist flags, some with posters of Mao Tse Tung, throwing rocks and eggs at the Japanese Embassy.
Police allowing the vandalism, and then briefly overrun.
Saudi Embassy person's car turned upside down and torched because it was Japanese.
A dog dress up with a sign "Japanese are Dogs".
"Chugoku Kyosanto, funsai!"
So omoimasu ka?
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