Just a quick note before I hit the sack tonight: I recall your post the day after the US elections, bringing up the subject of Collective Responsibility - how every citizen must take responsibility and acknowledge the actions and policies of his country in the past and present. I think that's basically what the Chinese are looking for - a frank acknowledgment by Japan of its war crimes. They aren't going about it the right way though....violent protests will only elicit a knee-jerk reaction from the Japanese, which will be one of defending their stance.

There might be a parallel worth drawing here between how Japan has handled its WW2 history and how the germans have handled theirs.

Nev said..
>I think that's basically what the Chinese are looking for -
>a frank acknowledgment by Japan of its war crimes.
The interesting thing is often people who defend Japan's position will say "Japan *has* apologized, how many times must we apologize?" Does anyone know in what official capacity Japan has apologized? Not including the massive ODA. Obviously they were less than sincere apologies given the current state of textbooks in Japan, at least that's how Chinese see it.

Well I would try not to forget how in the background this issue is really sadly politicized. An example of this is that the PRC covered up the Nanjing atrocity for many years because they wanted to downplay the influence the Guo Ming Dan (who defended Nanjing) had in the past. This is something almost no mainland Chinese people know.

But you know, it's politicized in a weird way, from on high. It's amazing how all the citizenry in China, it seems despite income level, know and care about this issue. But I can't shake the feeling that the sad things that happened to China is now being used as a political bargaining chip...I'm not sure what for though, either just to gain more general political hand, or maybe to ensure Japan's ODA to China doesn't dry up.

So I guess this important issue becomes a stupid one ruined by self-serving politicians, on both sides. Finally, some common ground ; )

Japan needs to call China's bluff. China's government's playing their people to get the most impact, supporting their demonstrations and using it to their advantage. There's no way that country capable murdering so many of their own people in Tiananmen Square can't stop a protest of just a few thousand people. There's no doubt that the Japanese textbooks are myopic but the chinese response is childish and manipulative.

It's also ironic that a totalitarian Chinese government is ridiculing Japan's educational materials. I'm sure that Chinese materials put out by the communist party are completely historically objective.

Japan should join the US and refuse to pay her UN dues in protest for not protecting their embassies and consulates. Those two countries could force the hand of the body. Japan should then call in any loans or other funds earmarked for china and ship them (and the SDF) off to Sudan or to fight AIDS--showing real international leadership instead of just following others with a checkbook like she often does.

And if they really wanted to get results, recognize the legitimate democracy in Taiwan.

Or, maybe they could just respond with a proverbial olive branch donate a boatload of Mountain Cedar trees to the reforestation effort in China :)

You've made some extremely good points.

The problem I think we have are two big & powerful nations with matching egos and some unfortunate history between them.

Japan might need to revamp their educational syllabus but China needs to engage the Japanese rather than take such a hard position. Generate goodwill and build long term relationship and better understanding will occur between the two people.

Visiting Singapore these last few days has given me some interesting perspective on this issue.

Put simply, this is a major PR coup for the Chinese government. For very little, they have managed to boost national image, local support for government, embarrass a troublesome trade partner, and draw attention away from various domestic problems. And Japan seems to be doing everything in it's power to help thhem accomplish this.

The international press is full of stories of demonstrations in China and damage to Japanese businesses and govenrment offices. While the stories always make the Japanese out to be the victims here, they can not help but explain why the Japanese are being targeted. Right wing organizations and an extrememly conservative govenrment approved some questionable textbooks for school. What sounds scarier, some rioters smashing windows and Toyotas or the fact that one of the largest economies in the world is being controlled by right wing conservatives who *might* be interested in reviving the good ol days of Japanese impperialism. Noo matter how you write it, the "victims" look less sympathetic than the hooligans.

On the other side, you have the Chinese govenrment. How many people who remember the demonstrations in Tiananman in the 90's are keen to tell the Chinese leadership to tone down "free speech"? Provided the government can excert enough control to make sure that human casualties are avoided, the more press these demonstrations draw, the more moderate the current leadership looks to the world.

At this rate, Japan's Security Council seat bid is pretty much squashed for years. China can put the thumbscrews into Japanese trade negotiators trying to open the Chinese market, the rest of Asia sees a more democratic "big brother" in China and Japan looks more like a beligerant, stubborn relic trying to relive the past.

This isn't a battle over the ideas and relics of the past. It's a PR war being waged for the future dominance of Asia. And so far the Japanese leadership has done nothing but provide extra ammunition for the other side to use.

Nev: Yes. I think the Japanese can learn a bit from the German response after the war. There are a few differences. The Japanese never had battle (other than bombs) on their soil and didn't see war up close. They didn't see the horror, although they did suffer. Also, as I pointed out above, many Japanese don't feel that they supported or even elected the people who ran the war. Although Nazi Germany was not a good democracy, in a way, I think people felt responsible for having elected Hitler. Finally, I think with Germany sharing borders and more physical proximity, it might have encouraged Germany to reach out more than the Japanese have.

With respect to apologies... I know the Japanese have apologized but I do not know the details. It might be interesting to do a bit of investigation on what, how and when the Japanese apologized about. I will note that Japanese companies have pushed for further apologies and it is typically the Government which tends not to want to apologize.

Nev: And yes. I agree with you. Japanese need to take collective responsibility. I feel the responsibility. I was pointing out in my post the way many Japanese feel and why. I don't believe that this passive view is necessarily politically appropriate.

As a lot of people saying, anti-Japan activities or protests has been driven by Chinese government itself because they can distract public eyes from domestic issues such as jobless problems.
Textbook, yasukuni stuff or whatever a just a part of probems. There is another big reason why they have to go freaky protests. Real problem is often covered by easily bashing stuff.
So, it is just my guess but Chinese protesters wouldn't quit protesting however all textbooks are revised as they want. They will pick something else up to complain and will throw eggs and tomatoes anyway. Until the real problem resolved, same thing will keep happening.
I heard Opium War is not taught in UK. I am not sure if it is true or false but, if it's true, why don't Chinese protest against UK? Why anti-Japan only?

Chinese government, actually current Hu Jintao cabinet, is very afraiding if those protesters would turn to be antigovernment activities. That's one of biggest reasons why they can not take action against protesters. For protesters, anything can be a target to offend. So far, Japan is their main target though, nobody knows when it turn to be something else.

In my estimation, these anti-Japan actions are just a different for m of anti-Hu Jintao cabinet. Japan may better to keep supporting Hu Jintao cabinet. Should not accept too much anti-Japan protests nor anti Chinese government protests in China either.

And what non-politician can do with it is having relationship in cultural scene. As we are already doing with Korea. It doesn't solve political issues but it helps soothing people's mind and realising that they are just also human beings.

Two quick things I'd like to note:

1. Chinese have almost no understanding of the modern Japanese psyche. They want to think those guys across the pond have some connection to those who did the bad deeds in WWII, but unfortunately, to the average Japanese that's just ancient history.

2. To say that Japanese should apologize for WWII implies something, doesn't it? It implies that they were wrong to go along with the Emperor and building the Empire, and therefore implies that they should have stood up and fought against their own government for some sense of moral right. If you understand Japanese culture even a little bit, you understand what an incredible mental leap it is to suggest not going along with their nation, government, and Emperor, no matter how 'wrong' they seemed to be... Japanese, as you said, Joi, felt this was not an option culturally or practically, and so all they can do (for the most part) is apologize out of pity rather than out of guilt.

I find myself responding in an irrational manner when I consider the Chinese protests against Japan. Mostly, I'm angry at the Chinese. That's strange, since I have no stake in the matter whatsoever. Except, of course, that Japan happens to be one of my country's most friendly and important allies.

In my gut, I suspect that the Chinese are looking for an excuse to be indignant. We are coming up on a century now since the Japanese violated China's shores, for chrissake. Those Chinese who protest most loudly, I suspect, are not deep thinkers.

The scenario is tragic and sad, in a way. Japan and China are like two lovers that cannot resist the temptation to lash out in times of crisis by opening old wounds. What bothers me most, is that Chinese folk seem to be indulging in the idea that they are in a position to push others around. First Taiwan. Then Japan. Better watch it... no joke.

First a link, cause some of you wondered if, when and how Japan apologized to its neighbors. It’s a post by ESWN about the schoolbook issue. Chronology of apologies and compensation-payment is at the bottom of the page:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050328_2.htm

Now, when it comes to comparing German and Japan during WW II. I don’t think the big difference is that Japanese never experienced fights on their soil. What is remembered in Germany very lively are not the fights at the end of the war, but the bombings of the cities and that happened in Japan too. I think the big difference is the Holocaust and the impact it had on the whole western world and culture. In the West Holocaust became the synonym for the evil itself and there was a lot of pressure from the outside world, but also from inside Germany - especially after the 60es - on the government and those who are responsible for the education to deal with it. What Japanese soldiers did on the other hand where war crimes, though terrible, “only” war crimes, like they happened in human history before.

Trevor -

I agree with your point numbered one. Strangely, I know many third or even fourth generation Chinese *Americans* who actually hold WWII grudges against the Japanese. Their grandparents drill it into them.

i have recently lived in jeju-do south korea where there is still angry feelings towards the japanese mostly by the elders, yet the korean youth embrace much of japan's culture thru j-pop and amongst the japanese youth there is a passion for korean soap operas. youth culture appears to be the ambassador for peace between these 2 asian countries who share an ugly past. the chinese youth seem to be bitter and reluctant to participate in modern cultural integration...they believe themselves to be above this!

The BBC reports only 18 schools will use the textbook, as most of the others rejected it as too biased. I think the others amount to 42,000 schools.

Oops. 18 of 11,000.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_re_as/japan_tempest_in_a_text

I don't think you miss anything, and I think you make a number of good points. Having said that, I don't think the Chinese protests are solely about Chinese/Japanese relations (now or in the past). These protests have been getting bigger, and they have been either backed by the government or allowed by the government - and the latter is interesting. Have a look here:

http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=CHINA.HTM

There's a real possibility that the Chinese government finds anger at Japan (and Taiwan) to be a convenient way to let people blow off steam.

This is a complex issue and, as with other governmental posturing in East Asia, is usually linked to something else.

Japan is currently trying to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and opposition of any current member - including China - would derail that.

Recently China has tied the two together and indicated that it won't support the bid unless Japan makes clear its regret over its wartime past.

As for Japan's apologies ... Murayama's was viewed as a personal apology because he said "I" rather than "we." We can argue forever about whether that was a slip of the tongue or something more calculated but the fact is he never repeated the apology using "we" even though he was well aware of the way it had been taken.

A few years later Obuchi repeated the apology but only verbally and wouldn't include it in a communique at the end of an official visit to Japan by China's Jiang.

I fail to see how anyone can take these apologies seriously and as coming from the Japanese government when they fail to clear up possibly unclear language and won't commit them to paper.

NoSpamPlease! wrote @17:
I fail to see how anyone can take these apologies seriously

Methinks the original Japanese text of these apologies — instead of the possibly distorted foreign language translations of them — leaves no doubt as to their seriousness. The problem is, who actually reads them outside Japan ?

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本の戦争謝罪発言一覧

http://www.cass.net.cn/chinese/s30_rbs/files/xszl/rbr.htm

these chinese protesters seem very well organized, i wonder who is finacing them. is the real issue the chinese government not wanting a japanese security council seat at the UN?

just to clarify the above, almost every new japanese history textbook has generated an official protest from the chinese government, followed by another apology from the japanese government. all of this gets very little international media coverage. these "popular" protest movements make good tv, and have been on the evening news now for days. prior to this, when was the last time we saw a "popular" chinese protest movement on CNN?

"Noo matter how you write it, the "victims" look less sympathetic than the hooligans." Wow. A voice from within the moral abyss.
Kakyou, your analysis ignores one other player here: the US. The real question is going to be, given China's adamant position on Japan joining the Council, what the US response will be. If Japan presses her case, the US will have to decide where to throw her chips, and the US is determined to get Japan on the security council, the Chinese are going to lose this chicken race. It all depends on the commitment of the US.

As a resident of the nation that, ahem, "removed the native American threat" I feel that I am in a poor position to lecture Japan about past crimes along these lines. Perhaps the Chinese protestors should gaze in the direction of Tibet for a while before returning to their righteous rage against Japan. The closer you really get to history, the cloudier the moral story becomes. As H. I. said in Raising Arizona: "Now, y'all without sin can cast the first stone..."

Above all, this is grand political theater designed to serve the interests of one particular actor, the Chinese state.

it should be noted that the intervention of the western powers during the colonial period bears responsibility for the actions of Japan during that period. History books (American history books) state clearly that for thousands of years the asian nations lived in harmony. It was only until the period of western expansion that the two came into conflict. The western nations, the history books say, were something of a "bad influence" on Japan.

The period of which the Chinese protesters complain was really only a brief one, which occured a relatively short time ago. These "historical tensions" are only a blip in the long history of peace between the asian neighbors.

George.

I see that you're a product of the Berkeley, California public school system. Me too, but I recovered.

Joi,

Thank you for a very balanced and informative article. I first heard about the present conflict while chatting online with a friend of mine who is Brazilian of Japanese descent. She is studying in Japan currently, and brought me up to speed on the issues. Your post clarified for me Japanese thinking on the subject.

Thanks

Are there any movies that document the Japanese occupation of China? Until recently, I grew up ignorant of the details of this history of Japan. It seems that US history books tend to downplay the significance of this event as well.

I agree with Joi here on the education aspect. We should all learn about indecent moments of history so it is not repeated. However, I do think that the Chinese need to get over it. The current Japanese population has nothing to do with the crimes of the past, and I doubt they would have condoned that behavior.

In my travels to Japan, I admired the non-violent attitude and public safety compared to the United States. A major cultural difference I noticed is that Japanese television contains very little violence, whereas popular US television is loaded with programs about murder and death (CSI, Law & Order, 24, etc.) It seems to me that Japan has learned from their mistakes and has taken a new road towards becoming a more friendly society.

Anyhow, I think the Chinese should take a note from other countries that have forgiven Japan for the atrocities they committed in WWII. It is the past and continuing the hate will only result in future cycles of violence.

Josh -

It's by no means a documentary or historical record, but an excellent film nonetheless. Empire of the Sun tells the tale of a young English boy (Christian Bale) who struggles to survive under the Japanese occupation of fallen China during World War II

Josh,

I agreed that nowaday's Japanese people are amongst the most polite and friendly people in the world. The current Japanese population truly has nothing to do with the crimes of the past. However, speaking for the chinese, the protest is against the Japanese government, not the people. The Chinese people/victims do not think that Japanese government has sincerely repent for their wartime wrongs throughtout the years.

The many visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead by Japanese Prime minister has triggered the bad memories for the Chinese. Those Japan's war dead are the soldiers that kill the Chinese 50 years ago. I think they have to stop visiting the Yasukuni shrine and be sincerely apologize for the wartime wrongs in the past. If Pope John Paul II can apologize for the church's wrongs in the past, why can't the Japanese government do the same?

In fact, I think the main issue is incorrectness in Japanese history textbook. If history is not taught correctly in school, how can the next generation learned from the mistakes in the past?

Please look at the big picture of the whole issue.

I'm not too familiar with the political strategies etc that have been employed by both the Japanese and Chinese governments in terms of handling this issue. Although I do believe that the politics played the major role in this whole problem, I also believe that the inherent negative emotions of the public in China, Korea and other Asian countries should not be ignored when considering this. I'm originally from Korea (now living in Australia) and my grand parents had to live through one of the most horrifying periods of Korean history. Even though they are no longer with us (well, apart from my dad's mother) when I think just how hard it must have been for them, I can't help but to feel extremely sad and angry.

Paying "visists of respect" to Yasukuni and playing with words (or even completely denying) in textbooks to cover up that period, without a doubt, are wrong acts. Japan has no excuse for that, and people in Japan should feel ashamed that their government's displaying dispeakable behaviours. Whether they like it or not, it's their national history and their modern culture exists on the basis of that.

I really like Japan. I'm extremely interested in Japanese culture, whether it be modern or traditional. And I think it's fantastic how the relationship between the Japanese and Koreans have been improving dramatically through pop-cultural exchange.

I'm not from China and I only have a pretty limited understanding in Chinese culture, particularly that of the modern days, so I can only speak from my Korean point of view - but as much as this issue is political, it is also cultural and even personal to a certain extent, to the Korean people. We know (well, at least we feel) that we don't hold a "strong global status" and feel that our voices are not being heard by the rest of the world. The majority of those Korean grandmas who were used as sex slaves during the war have not been compensated for what they had to suffer. Can you even imagine what it would've been like? Getting raped all day everyday. And can you imagine what it'd be like to be forced to change your name to Japanese (therefore deny your heritage) and forced to completely ignore and "trash" your own culture? That was what happened and that scar is not going to go away easily. Unfortunately this is the truth at least in Korea. This is why, I believe, many people in China and Korea are willing to participate in extreme actions. They want to be heard. They want to be heard by the world and they want to be heard by today's Japan.

Yes, definitely. The violent action taken by certain groups of Chinese public was wrong, and the Chinese government should've shown more initiative to prevent such terriblly violent actions/outcomes. I'm completely against it. There is no excuse. However, I do empathise with them. As a person of the Korean origin, I can understand why they wanted to take such actions in the first place. And I hope the world can feel, or at least "see" this issue from the Chinese/Korean perspectives as well.

As a peace-loving Chinese who's not usually interested in politics. I too, wish there's something we could do to stop the hatred and the violence. We have to respect the fact that the Japanese government does not always represent the wish of its people. At the same time, it is just too simplistic to call the protests a "political showdown", and doubt the real motivation of the protesters, which, first and foremost, is to prevent the Japanese government from entering the UN Security Council.

The Japanese invasion of China during WWII is unlike any other modern warfare in terms of violence and violation of international protocols. I was greatly disturbed to see the extremist opinions, overturned cars, smashed windows from anti-Japanese protests, but that was nothing compared to the anguish reading about the rape of Nanking and other historical records of the war itself. What would the Chinese people feel, when not only some of the war criminals are still unpunished, but the dead ones are also being honored at the shrines? Now it's not like anybody (especially the US government) cares about Security Council voting any more, but with all the questions unresolved, to consider Japan for a Security Council member still could be the ultimate insult to the Chinese people who lost their lives during the war.

Sadly enough, the more time I spent reading about the protests and related history, the more my opinion is influenced by my own biased emotions. This is how hatred and anger spread more readily than love and peace. I just hope people from the "other countries" can understand our frustration, the debt of war is indeed a neverending vicious circle.

Would it be something to note that at least, the official reaction from the Chinese government is still advocating "peace and friendship"?

　伊藤さん、はじめまして。私は上海に住む日本人です。例の暴力デモをこの目で見ました。このページは、私がよく読む中国語のブログとリンクされており、存在を知りました。以下はその彼に宛てた中国語の文面です。もし必要でしたら、和訳をつくりますので、おっしゃってください。

Issac, Ni不能逃避中国媒体就這件事情完全忽視了事実,如Ni想指出日本人或日本社会是怎麼様,Ni必須要談到中国媒体和Ni們的言論被封閉的情况,要麼太不公平了.
我認為最近在中国発生的一系列的暴力游行事件根源于中国人民在過去受到的很深的痛苦.当然一个是大日本帝国対无辜之民進行了大量屠殺,ling一个是从大躍進運動到文革的時代,那時候是中国人互相傷害的,結果莫大的人民死亡了.
最重要的是這両个事情有密切的関系,可如果Ni在這方面深入研究的話,応該面対有些政治団体的創立神話,這様的行為在大陸太危険了...我相信Ni会明白我的意思.
在這様的限制下,在中国人的集体意識上為保護自己只有最強烈的感情,就是報讐的観念通過了几次的濃縮留下来了.人突然得到自由的時候,這様的報讐的欲望是很不容易控制的.而且現在的年軽人,不管他是日本人還是中国人缺乏真正的歴史意識,結果我們不得不看到暴力的笑劇,是用SONY録像機来拍《抵抗日貨》的游行，za毀中国人営業的日本餐館的様子.
反思歴史，説起来很簡単，做起来就難。

Most of the valid points have already been covered. I'm one who thinks that this is all about the CCP making a power play PR move and using its own people as tools. As for the politicians themselves, this looks mostly like a case of "pot meet kettle", with the noted exception that at least one side has provided 17 official appologies over the years for acts of conquest while the other continues to deny its acts of agression.

As to the horrors of WWII, sure bad things happened, just like every other war everwhere at any time in history. East Asian has not always been at peace with itself and the 1930s werent even the first time Japan tried to conquer the Korean pinensula with the hopes of eventually conquering China. Granted the last time was hundreds of years ago, and before that the mongols tried to invade Japan, etc. etc. etc. Killing civilians in war isnt new, nor is organized prostitution as part of the "military industrial complex". Wiping out entire villages or towns goes as far back as war itself, and biowar has been traced back officially to the period of Brittish colonization of North America, although the Roman (and possibly Mongol) tradition of poisioning wells in conquered territory by dumping animal carcases in them, may also be considered biowar. There is a story about how during one of Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea, a high ranking official prostitute killed one of the Japanese generals by seducing him on a high balcony then pushing him over to his death. IIRC she is regarded as a war hero to this day (by Koreans of course).

My point with all this? Its really childish to point fingers and try and extort others over history without knowing history itself.

i have translated a large part of your writing into chinese and posted it to an alternative media in hong kong: http://www.inmediahk.net/public/article?item_id=26210&group_id=28

hope it can spread to chinese internet community and people can start to think the significance of border crossing people alliance.

Chris [32]: Of course pointing fingers is childish. But that doesn't mean that a condemnation should not be made for an instance of a crime - even though there may have been other instances of it by other perpetrators in the past. To take the stance of "Look, don't point at me. They did it too!" is merely another form of finger pointing. The emphasis, imho, should be on taking our lessons from history to develop a more informed and higher consciousness. China's tantrums for an apology will not heal anything - in fact, maybe they even derive a sense of self from the incident. Japan's defensive stand will also not get us anywhere.

We can only hope that they - and the rest of the us - can look at history and be aghast at what we (as a species) descended to on these occasions, and use that as a stepping stone to a more civilized way of life.

Chris_B, it would be greatly appreciated if you could get your facts straight. I'm sure you understand that geisha doesn't mean a prostitute. The woman (who is regarded as a hero by Koreans.. of course) was "Giseng." You probably don't know anything about this, but her role as "giseng" was in providing entertainment (like geisha), not prostitution.

My mistake there. There were a certain class of "gisengs" who worked as official prostitutes. However, she was a wife of an army official. The man commited suicide as the result of his army's loss in a battle with the Japanese, so the woman (Non-ge) disguised herself as one of the "prostitute class giseng" in order to kill the head of the Japanese army. Once they lost the head, the Japanese were easily defeated, and ran back to their own country. And seriously, do you think you can compare the story of a woman who killed the head army official to save her country with the story of the sex-slaves and dispeakable cruelty during the war?

and i forgot to mention that she didn't "push him over to his death." she "jumped off the balcony into the river with him - into their deaths."

jaz: Thanks for the correction on the woman. I did not mean to make light of the sufferring of the women forced into prostitution, nor to support any military's use of said practice. I see now that the annecdote was not a good one to support my point that the use of organized (often forced) prostitution to service an invading army is not isolated to the Imperial Army's activities in East Asia in the 1930s. As far as I know the practice has been historically more common in non Christian nations historically.
There is alot of context around the practice, none of which can be said to support it according to 21st century morals, to wit:

the practice is sometimes organized by the local authorities as a means to limit "collateral damage" to civilian populaces.

at times the practice is organized along the lines of opportunistic commerce by locals who wish to curry favor with the conquering authorities.

women forced into organized prostitution to service invading armies were sometimes gang pressed into slavery, or sometimes purchased from their families. Bear in mind that the idea of women having any rights at all is very recent, all the more so in societies where a daughter is a financial liablity (dowry must be paid, etc).

Again this is not intended to support or "justify" the practice of sexual slavery in any form. I just want to illustrate that the incident is not in any way confined to the invasion of East Asia by the Imperial Army in the 1930s.


nev: I agree with you. For both sides it comes down to if you dont know history you are doomed to repeat it.

Chris_B: yeah, I understand. Sorry, I think I got too carried away with the whole Non-ge's story. As a Korean woman, I feel quite sensitive about this issue. Thank you for your thoughtful response! :)

jaz: no hard feelings! And after all, that woman was indeed a national heroine.

The Chinese leaders are apparently miffed at the US-Japan joint communiqué labeling China as a growing menace to regional peace and stability, i.e., the Taiwan issue.

Japan needs a domestically controlled nuclear armed deterrence w/global reach, thereby ensuring China's, and other nations, good will towards it. That so called 'Nuclear Umbrella' provided & controlled by the Zionist/JUDEO-Christian occupied US government is full of holes.

This from Sun Tzu's 'Art of War':

"If I am able to determine the enemy's dispositions while, at the
same time, I conceal my own, then I can concentrate my forces and his
must be divided. And if I concentrate while he divides, I can use my
entire strength to attack a fraction of his. Therefore, I will be
numerically superior. Then, if I am able to use many to strike few at
the selected point, those I deal with will fall into hopeless straits.
The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle. For if he does
not know where I intend to give battle, he must prepare in a great many
places. And when he prepares in a great many places, those I have to
fight in will be few. For if he prepares to the front, his rear will be
weak, and if to the rear, his front will be fragile. If he strengthens
his left, his right will be vulnerable, and if his right, there will be
few troops on his left. And when he sends troops everywhere, he will be
weak everywhere. Numerical weakness comes from having to guard against
possible attacks; numerical strength from forcing the enemy to make
these preparations against us."

The Chinese are employing a diversionary maneuver, attacking Japan's weak battlefield positions, i.e., alleged wartime atrocities, and text books, as a defensive measure to any Taiwan sovereignty initiatives.

Well,we are all human,not Man of God,and we all get our brain turned easily.

Take me as an example,my great grand father and great grand mother were killed in Nanjing massacre in WWII,my grand father luckly survived,but he had to sold himself to the rich as knd of slave in orther to feed himself.
If anyone had such a family history,and heard that Japanese said it to be just a "nanjing affair",I think joining an anti-Japan protest is one of the most reasonable thing in the world.And what`s more ,my case is not the minorty in China.

I knows many People in Japan also had their closest relatves killed in that war,but i have to say,they are not victim of the mlitary.They might be innocent individualy,but guilty as a group.

oops,I definitely missed my point.And i think i should say,no one could make any changes in Japan if Japanese did`nt do any thing at all.We just express our anger against Japan`s denial on history and attemp to enter the S.C. before a complete penitence like Germans did.

Well,we are all human,not Man of God,and we all get our brain turned easily.

Take me as an example,my great grand father and great grand mother were killed in Nanjing massacre in WWII,my grand father luckly survived,but he had to sold himself to the rich as kind of slave in orther to feed himself.
If anyone had such a family history,and heard that Japanese said it to be just a "nanjing affair",I think joining an anti-Japan protest is one of the most reasonable thing in the world.And what`s more ,my case is not the minority in China.

I knows many People in Japan also had their closest relatives killed in that war,but I had to say,they are not victim of the mlitary.They might be innocent individualy,but guilty as a group.

oops,I definitely missed my point.

And i think i should say,no one could make any changes in Japan if Japanese did`nt do any thing at all.We just express our anger against Japan`s denial on history and attemp to enter the S.C. before a complete penitence like Germans did.

why did I always missed the "I"?

After reading all these rantankerous guess on Chinese government,I really disappointed if these are the major idea of the Japanese.You really don`t know what happend in China during WWII.Welcome to nanjing,i will show you what Japan did.

And one more addition,I am sure that the number of protesters would leap if our government didn`t do any thing like blocking most communication channel of the protesters.

The UN In-Security Council is really a non-issue.

Any country whom possesses a nuclear armed deterrence, with a capacity to deliver them globally, has a de facto front row seat on every 'security council', UN or other wise.

No formal recognition by some silly In-Security Council is required or need be sought.

I wonder if all the westerners consider the Japanese invasion of China like Chris_B, that it's "just like every other war everwhere at any time in history", This is exactly why the Chinese people are acting everywhere to make themselves heard. No war is "just like very other war" in history, especially not this one, in which thousands of civilians, little kids, women, your great-grand-parents get killed and raped as if their lives were nothing. The Japanese army used everything, gas chambers, biological warfare, the only other historical event comparable in cruelty and loss was the Holocaust. Now imagine the Nazi officials going to the shrines to honour their "war heros" and re-write their history books.

It was true that historically most wars were waged to conquer land, and when we talk about the people who died in them we think "collateral damage", this was not one of them. Let's get this straight before we start with the "but the chinese government killed their own people too" arguement. And no I don't even want to make that kind of comparision.

dotann,
With all due respect, this position is just silly. Can you quantify cruelty in war in some fashion that would allow this ranking system of yours to withstand any sort of meaningful intellectual scrutiny?

The moment anyone says "lets get this straight" in a context like this its sort of obvious they need to think a little more deeply. History has precious few straightaways where we can "get this straight."

And thuggish behavior is thuggish behavior. A sense of victimization has been the propellant for nearly every brute force in history (study, for example, the entire modus operandi of the Roman empire).

Peter - I think dotann has a point, though you are passing in the night...

The thing about Japan's prosecution of WWII is that by that time, most of the western powers had begun to decry some of the worst atrocities of war. I think this had something to do with the mustard gas and other horrible aspects of WWI. Also with Christianity and the resultant views of women, etc. - but I am by no means an expert on military history.

If you look back to Roman times you'll clearly see that rape and pillage were accepted parts of waging war, but by the time of WWII, well, I think we had started to think of ourselves as above that. The Japanese, however, seem to still have had (for the most part) their traditional view of war as a no-holds-barred clash of power... You may be right that the western powers were no slouchers in the atrocities department, but I don't recall episodes (outside of Nazi stuff) of things like taking commoners and hacking them up for sword practice...

Well,I think Japanese is a short-sighted people.If they continue to educate their youth with distorted history,not only those asian neighbors r being hurted,Japan will hurt themselves either. I'm afraid Japan would commit the same crimes as they did in WWII.

In the early days of 1980s,when China was eager to find a foreign car company to invest,they first turned to Japanese car companies.However,those japanese companies r so arrogant and short-sighted that they miss that big chance.And that how Volkswagen became the first foreign car company to invest China,and in the last twenty years look how much Volkswagen earn in China.

Yes,"the BBC reports only 18 schools will use the textbook, as most of the others rejected it as too biased. I think the others amount to 42,000 schools.",as a common Chinese ,I'm not so ignorant to fail to know that truth.But this is because the textbook is just coming out,who knows how many schools in Japan would take it next year??Can you imagine such a textbook be used in just one school in German??????

Tha't true either,some Japanese or Japanese politicians did apologize,but what the Japanese goverment do today(so many things to tell) tell all Chinese that the Japanese never apologize sincerely,never apologize from the bottom of there heart.Maybe that's true ,japanese people is a hypocritical people.

I know some Japanese r kind and know the truth,but sorry to say,the Japanese as a people,I think, is a short-sighted,hypocritical,cruel,cold-blooded people.They a good at find excuses,and,good at killing other nation's people.

1.
"A sense of victimization has been the propellant for nearly every brute force in history "That`s a good point,and that`s also the reason why Japan always blame on "China`s bluff" or "China`s oppress".

2.
Many westerners say that Chinese should get over the past like what is done all over the world,they ignored Japan`s position on their atrocities.
Let`s see http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本の戦争謝罪発言一覧
Throughout all these 34 apologies in 33 years,did Japan ever use the regular word "apologize"? The Japanese government even play paronomasia in this aspect,how can Chinese believe that they are really repented for their deed?

3.
Clearly can tell you guys,Chinese government never drive their people to this protese.You can ask anyone of your friends in china.cause holding or joining an uncalled protest is penal crime in China,all these a hundred thousand people who joined this protest was sticking their chin out.
Western media shown their hypocrisy once again,they are calling for a suppress on protesters from a goverment who was blamed on a suppress on protesters years ago.

4.
Traveling the issue to Tiananmen or cultural revolution is totally nonsense,do japan`s atrocity becomes a little bit excusable if China killed their own people due to a horrible wrong policy?Let`s get t divided.

Trevor,
I do understand what you are saying, but I'm less persuaded that we have long behaved in some sense that the Japanese did not. A few examples:
a. Christianity has a mixed track record as a moral break. See for example the persecution of Catholic/protestants in protestant/Catholic areas, the suppression of rival Christian sects (eg the Cathars), the horrific violence against Muslims from the Spanish re-conquest onward. Or, more recently, the disastrous consequences for Catholics of the protestant ascendancy in 19th century Ireland, etc.
b. In more recent history, a full reading of, for instance, the US military's (and yes: the appalingly scary thing is that by and large the US military has indeed been *compartively* speaking a paragon in terms of adhering to some king of "rules of war") suppression of the Indians. Read about things like the Sandy Creek massacre, Wounded Knee, etc. that were pretty much part and parcel to a larger suppression strategy.
c. In war Stalin was nearly as brutal with his own troops as the Germans or Japanese were with the "enemy"
d. The Turkish slaughter of Armenians, USSR of Kulaks, etc. etc.
e. Any of the more recent work on WWI suggesting that it was essentially a political decision to continue the unbelievable and pointless slaughter of WWI. Here Joi's point about collective responsibility becomes interesting. Britain was a democracy of sorts, but what does collective responsibility mean when lower class troops from places like Aus/New Zea were being slaughtered at Gallipoli? (Many US states have a concept of "depraved indifference" homicide)
f. Sherman's march, or the later strategic bombing campaigns by the US airforce that that march presupposed. The whole idea was basically to break the enemy's will to fight by breaking enemy civilian population.
g. moving away from war, the large literature on the appalling famines that accompanied 19th and 20th century European colonialism due to official indifference/profiteering/etc.
h. along that vein, the Belgians in the Congo, French in the rubber plantations of Indochine, etc. etc.
i. The strategies and tactics used to suppress anti-colonial uprisings. Read about the French in N. Africa (in the 1950s), the Dutch in Indonesia (in the 1940s) etc. etc. The only difference with the Japanese was one of scale.
j. the US military suppression of the Philippines independence movement/"kill every tenth..." (I'm not trying to pick on the US, but as an American I know best US military history)
k. the counter revolutionary tactics of the S. Africans, Rohdesians, etc. in sub-Saharan Africa. I have heard one particularly revolting story out of Rhodesia about a black girl who died essentially from septic shock after she was basically sexually assaulted by White (ie children of the European cultural experience) troops using scalding hot food. There was more to the story than that, and her treatment was as awful as anything you will find in one of Iris Chang's works. And it happened in the 1970s. For that matter read a good source about the treatment of the blacks by UK or Boer forces during the Boer war.

I could go on but the alphabet does not have enough letters.

I guess you can say the following in terms of progress. The Romans used crucifixion (one of the most brutal methods of execution ever developed) as a tool of their rule. My understanding is that modern Western forces essentially never used that practice (for that matter, the Romans quit using it at the time of Constantine). I have heard scattered reports that the Japanese did use it during WWII.

But that is about as much moral difference as I can confidently identify.

lamlam: I have been to China. Many times. The idea that the Chinese gov't isn't complicit in this is simply absurd. Have *you* ever read a newspaper (tightly controlled by the state, as you would point out)? It is just hysterical anti-Japanese bile.

And, by the way, I am not on some anti-Chinese crusade here: I loved visiting China, my wife has Chinese ethnic heritage, etc.

And neither am I on some revisionist history relativist binge designed to cloud the waters. For instance, I supported the Iraq war (and still do!). But I'm not going to claim that my country is somehow pure in a way Japan isn't. It is equally absurd for Chinese citizens to do so.

I think Ito san has made some good points, but i think however you did downplay a bit the responsibilities of Japanese during WWII, I am from Hong Kong and I have been living in Japan(among many other countries) for a total of 18months over a period of 4 years. I can get a feel of Japanese culture, what i say might surprise lot of people here, but after living in Korea for 3 months, Egypt for 2 months, Russia for a month, Germany for 3 months, Thailand for a month, Vietnam for a month....etc. I find most of my culture shock in this culturally similar and geographically proximal neighbour- JAPAN. You go to any bookstore, yes, just ANY bookstore, no matter how big KUNOKUNIYA or small it is, or even the KIOSK in the subway, you will never fail to find sick SM novels which i believe cant even be found in adult bookstore elsewhere. from a look at the title of the novels, it talks about bundling, rape, SM teachers, incest with sister, mothers, grandma...etc. the vast availability of literature like this together with other TORTURE and EROTIC culture indicate a big demand for this.

OK, you said the Japanese government was taken over by the military, Japanese citizens were forced to go to war, but dont tell me that they were also forced to rape and torture people for fun. the other year i had a fight with a German friend, I said Nazis was not as evil as Japanese, Nazi set up gas chamber to kill people quick while Japanese rape and kill for fun. (rape and torture for fun are common theme of japanese adult video and novels), She got very angry for she thought Nazis is the most evil. With similar speech, some japanese decided that they are offended too as they dont consider Japanese to be that evil.

There is something not so right about the japanese culture that need to be fixed. Hiding everything inside one's mind and commit suicide once it reached boiling point simply isnt a good way to solve problem.

世界を平和に

Here's a quick gloss of Shanghai Boy's post - he copied in a post he did to a Chinese site after explaining this in Japanese...

Isaac, you can't avoid the fact that the Chinese media has completely ignored reality here. If you want to point out that Japanese or Japanese society is thus and so, you absolutely have to touch on how the chinese media and how your political speech has been blocked, otherwise it's just too unfair.

I think that/recognize that the recent series of violent demonstrations in china originate in the deep pain of the past in chinese people. of course, one example is when the "great nippon empire" [what it was called in WWII] committed great massacres of innocent people, and another is from the great leap forward and cultural revolution era, when chinese people harmed each other, with the result that a huge number of people died.

The most important point is that these two things have a very close relationship. But if you do in-depth research into this, you'll likely come to face with some myths about the establishment of some political groups, and this sort of act is very dangerous in mainland china. i trust that you understand what i'm saying here.

under these sorts of restrictions, based on the group consciousness of chinese people, in order to protect oneself you had to express the most intense emotions, so this concept of revenge has passed down through a number of events that have concentrated it through the years.

when people all of a sudden are given freedom, the desire to take revenge is very difficult to control. What's more, young people today, whether japanese or chinese, lack a true understanding of history, with the result that we must watch these violent comedies, using sony camcorders to take these "boycott japanese goods" marches, and destruction of chinese owners' japanese restaurants.

To think back on history: very easy to say, but hard to do.

Hong Kong guy:
I have noticed what you are talking about-the porn in Japan is shocking b/c it does involve so much twisted shit *and* is so out in the open. But are the Japanese really sicker? Have you ever looked at all of the fetish categories at easily accessible American porn sites? Have you ever heard the "legends of Thailand" that you hear from fucked up ex pats? I've watched some German guys in HK try to pick up girls that looked to be about 10. For that matter, I've had to sit through many looooong and upleasant flights back from Japan where I had to listen to some demented asshole countryman of mine talk about the ingenious way he degraded some Japanese hooker (or ordinary Japanese girl) while out on the town. I've heard tons of jokes in Hawaii by Americans and others about what an easy mark Japanese tourist girls are. We might be more discrete about it, but what lies behind Japanese porn is universal human sickness.

Every society has it extremers,speicially for the victimed one.I also heard that Japan`s Chinese embassy received several death threat,someone even drive a car and clash in it ,can i say all Japanese are just the same extreme for this?

Anty-Japaneseism is popular in China,and the news paper you read is just consistent to it,but can you just ascribe it to the Chinese gorvenment?

My previous words mght be harsh,sorry for that,sushi is also my favourite :).

Peter -

Yes, your points are well-taken. I am not really conversant enough to that level of history to say whether Japan has been on the whole worse in terms of wartime behavior...

But from what I do know about western vs. Japanese culture, I have to think that there was a difference at least in attitude, because of the historical place they were in at the time. Japan moved out of feudalism with the Meiji restoration, around 1908(?) I believe, whereas the U.S. was founded with freedom of the press and all sorts of equitable doctrines floating around before 1800. In comparing the U.S. and Japan, the west had at _least_ a few hundred years' head start on moving away from brutal torture and lack of respect towards human life.

It's amazing to read accounts about how, for instance, a British delegation to Japan in the late 1800's or thereabouts had someone walk across the train tracks unaware that a Daimyo was on his way to that station. A samurai who saw him do so cut off his head immediately, as it was a grave offense to cross the path of the Daimyo. I really don't think the Japanese had moved _too_ far beyond these attitudes by the beginning of WWII, and certainly the military buffs hadn't. Maybe they even felt nostalgia for the days before Meiji...

To give another sense of time, Ueshiba Morihei founded the martial art of Aikido after studying other arts including Aiki-Jujutsu. He was born in Taisho and lived until 1969 when he was about 85, I think, so he lived through the whole WWII ramp up and disaster...

Anyway, one of his teachers was Takeda Sokaku. Takeda was one of the last people to give up wearing his katana in public - he was fined for it a number of times, I believe. Once, he was berated by a group of construction workers for wearing his sword - I guess they thought he was a fuddy duddy at that point, maybe in the 20's or 30's... He summarily whipped out his sword and killed most of them...

These are the sorts of things that make you realize that the feudal mentality was still intact in the years leading up to WWII... I think this became further corrupted by the government through state shinto (not real shinto) and a lust for colonial conquests to feel equal to western powers...

Here is a site dedicated to preserve the truth of the Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945). If Japanese and other people really want to understand, to have a look may help.

http://www.sjwar.org/

It's neccessary for Japanese to face the history.\
Just I write a lot about the problems,but my PC....
All right, as a Chinese,I can't forget the history.
I think your opinions are very nice.
Japan should stand in our side to think!!!!!

lamlam wrote @51: 1. A sense of victimization has been the propellant for nearly every brute force in history "That`s a good point,and that`s also the reason why Japan always blame on "China`s bluff" or "China`s oppress".

I don't think that in this particular case, protesting against physical violence against Japanese persons and properties is a symptom of unjustified victimization feelings...

2. Many westerners say that Chinese should get over the past like what is done all over the world,they ignored Japan`s position on their atrocities. Let`s see http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本の戦争謝罪発言一覧 Throughout all these 34 apologies in 33 years,did Japan ever use the regular word "apologize"?

Well, what are your Japanese language credentials ? Can you actually read and understand these quotes ?

中山太郎外務大臣: “[..] 心から済まなかったという気持ちを持っております”

海部俊樹首相: “[..] 率直にお詫びの気持を申し述べたいと存じますv

宮澤喜一首相: “[..] 反省の意とお詫びの気持ちを表明いたします”

加藤紘一内閣官房長官: “[..] 改めて衷心よりお詫びと反省の気持ちを申し上げたい”

河野洋平内閣官房長官: “[..] 心からお詫びと反省の気持ちを申し上げる”

etc. etc.

3.Clearly can tell you guys,Chinese government never drive their people to this protese.You can ask anyone of your friends in china.cause holding or joining an uncalled protest is penal crime in China,all these a hundred thousand people who joined this protest was sticking their chin out. Western media shown their hypocrisy once again,they are calling for a suppress on protesters from a goverment who was blamed on a suppress on protesters years ago.

You need more flexibility in your thinking. Even when protests, like the latest ones, get violent and degenerate into physical violence, surely there are other means than gunning down the protesters to control the crowd ? Do you seriously think that Japan, or any other country for that matter, is advocating the use of brutality to “suppress” these (somewhat misguided) expressions of public opinion ?

4.Traveling the issue to Tiananmen or cultural revolution is totally nonsense,do japan`s atrocity becomes a little bit excusable if China killed their own people due to a horrible wrong policy?Let`s get t divided.

Huh, nobody said that. However, the fact remains that today's Japanese mentality as well as its government and policies are totally different from the militarist government of yore (a fact that a lot of Chinese can't seem to understand). In China, on the other hand, we still have very much the same political system in control today as in the (Tien An Men & Tibet) eighties.

Hong Kong guy wrote @54: The other year i had a fight with a German friend, I said Nazis was not as evil as Japanese, Nazi set up gas chamber to kill people quick while Japanese rape and kill for fun. (rape and torture for fun are common theme of japanese adult video and novels), She got very angry for she thought Nazis is the most evil. With similar speech, some japanese decided that they are offended too as they dont consider Japanese to be that evil.

My general impression is that criticism of the Japanese government's policies, its apologies, or the state of Japanese history education or the editorial policies of one second-rate Japanese textbook publisher would be more credible if it was actually based on facts and correct understanding, instead of uninformed impressions gleaned from superficial reports.

The same thing can be said for Germany, I suppose. People, especially in Asia, who like to contrast Germany's good relations with its neighbours seem to overlook the geopolitical needs in Europe to:

• on the eastern side, legitimate the ex-RDA communist regime by presenting it as a totally antithetic, clean government that bears no responsibility for Nazi exactions

• on the western side, prevent a reoccurence of German economic hardship caused by misguided war reparation policies, and integrate Germany as a solid member of the western bloc, facing the Warsaw pact.

Germany sharing a common Christian heritage with its neighbors also helped its re-integration. Let's not forget that the (fundamentally anti-communist) Catholic church didn't do as much as it could to prevent the Shoah. Antisemitism was also a deeply ingrained cultural trait shared by many other European nations (witness e.g. the pogroms in Poland, Russia, the Dreyfus affair in France, the Shylock character in the Merchant of Venice). In an European psyche shaped by that continent's tumultuous history, wars and the accompanying massacres also seem to have been considered as almost inevitable events, parts of a destiny.

lamlam wrote @57:Every society has it extremers,speicially for the victimed one.I also heard that Japan`s Chinese embassy received several death threat,someone even drive a car and clash in it

Would you start to wonder how (un)reliable your information and understanding about Japan is, if there actually was no such event as a car crashing into a building, as you've “heard” ?

What do you think about this?

MostlyVowels:
http://news.searchina.ne.jp/2004/0423/politics_0423_001.shtml

I think this will help you understanding my position,:)

http://www.sjwar.org/htm/germany.html

I just got it in 2ch :)
http://news19.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/news/1113696430

http://tmp.2ch.net/asia/kako/1021/10210/1021002054.html

http://news18.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/news4plus/1113569660

Wow, lots of good comments. Thanks for keeping this thoughtful an civilized. A few thoughts from me...

I think that making generalizations about the cultures of a country are dangerous. Social norms are easily swayed. Our racist Governor of Tokyo talks about the "Criminal DNA" of the Chinese and some Chinese are talking about the basic evil nature of the Japanese. These sorts of stereotypes are corrosive and not constructive. Every culture has good behavior and bad behavior. It's better to amplify the good behavior than to focus on the bad behavior.

I would like to clarify my use of the word "victimized" in my post. I agree that the Japanese people were not victimized in any way that is similar to the way that the Chinese and others were victimized by Japanese soldiers. I was just trying to express how people feel in Japan.

I agree that many of the soldiers who went to China engaged in activity which was unnatural and quite disgusting. However, I tend to blame the leadership than the people in these cases. For example, I believe that it is the leadership of the US should be blamed for Abu Ghraib more than the soldiers. There are many psychology experiments that show that normal people end up doing atrocious things when put in unusual situations. Please don't blame the acts of the Japanese soldiers on some kind of basic cruelty of the Japanese people.

It would be interesting for me to find out what the real priorities, if there are any, are for the Chinese people. Is it the islands? Is it the apologies? Is it the texts? What would make the most impact? I think that if we focused on one issue at a time, maybe we can get some of the liberal people in Japanese society to focus and try to sort some of this out. Some of it may just be a matter of fixing stuff that is lost in translation. Other stuff may be an issue of mounting media efforts to raise awareness in Japan to put pressure on Japanese government. But I would like to reiterate on of the points in my original post. I think we can change Japan from within if we clear the communication channel for constructive dialog instead of throwing hate at each other. We have to build trust. Even if Japan apologizes and changes texts based on pressure from China, if the Chinese continue to teach each other that Japanese are somehow genetically evil or sick, I think you'll be teaching young Chinese that the Japanese are sick, but they can be beaten with violence. I don't think that is the correct message.

I think for the time being, we have to ignore racist comments from both sides because these people can never be part of the correct solution. It may be a thin bridge, but we have to build the first bridge with people who have mutual respect and who know better than to paint whole societies with broad brushes of stereotypes and hate.

Well, perhaps you might consider this again to be racist comments of no value. OK, i will try to sound less misleading, but i experienced all those first hand, afterall, i lived in japan for 18 months over a period of 4 years. (i was never 'brainwashed by my govt' or something as you might think.)

伊藤さん、you might not be aware of this, but what you have just said got the air of the very attitude against which the Chinese are protesting. One of the reasons for the protest against the textbook is a sentence like this 'In all the wars ever happened in mankind history, rape, atrocities and killing of innocence always played an inevitable part, Japan was no exception.'-ー新しい歴史教科書 I got to know your website from Pheonix TV, days before they mentioned your website, the host of the show was criticizing the above sentence for downplaying the crime of the war and responsiblities of Japanese. You can not say normal people will also behave like that under the war, or killing of innocence, raping , looting happens everytime while japan is no exception, then the whole thing can be justified.

I believe in a way that we are all born human being, sometimes we just can not be ourselves and we are moulded by the culture. I believe that had those angry protestors in China and Japan been born across the sea, they might have believed and behaved totally different. Right wing japanese would have been right wing China, being radical is a character trait.

The reason for my post was not to condemn every single Japanese as sick perverted because of their vast availability of sick literature. 5 years ago, There was a post by some Japanese online that i think really make sense. They say 'we have done wrong, you(to right wing) can not say we just went in your home while you were weak, but we didnt kill your whole family, i only raped one daughter out of 3, stole two pigs instead of a dozen cows, killed your father but not grandpa. there was only 50000 dead instead of 300,000 in nanking. Wrong is wrong.' Another Japanese post said something which might answer some of your replys to mine: it said:'I keep hearing Colleague talking about buying women in Thailand with all kindof sick stuff. I can imagine what would happen 60years ago in a city where they can do whatever they want.'. Therefore, by refering to the vast availability of SM novel and stuff, i was trying to see if his line of logic might manifest better, most of us weren't there during the war, it is fruitless of arguing what should have actually happened by looking at old documents. By projecting the current situation and deduce what have happened, it might serve as a better proof.

I do have a lot of Japanese friend, and as long as they don't bring up this topic, i seldom talk to them about history, the younger generation got nothing much from that either. but knowing the history well is the responsibility of everyone. At the very least, 2005 is the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, Germany held lot of activities commerorating it, while Japan government act as if nothing happened.

I will apologize should I offend anyone, and i think all wrong-doers should do this.

COMPARISON between GERMANY and JAPAN
ON RACISM.

Well, there is some point that i want to add, I think there is one reason that most people left out while comparing Japan and Germany, Germany might feel better about themselves as Hitler himself can be considered as foreigner, He was born in Austria and got German citizenship only months before he became the chancellor.

My comments and some of the protests really make Japanese get personal as the criminals that we were talking about are their grandfathers.

I had a very good japanese friend, she just ended this 4 year friendship with me because of historical issues. She said I mentioned too much about history which bothers her.
HOW CAN THAT BE? I swear, i never mentioned anything related to war to any Japanese unless he/she brings it up. She did bring it up herself first, as her parents are from Japanese communist party, they are more pro-china than regular Japanese, i felt we had more bonding here. 4 years later which was last month when i was in Tokyo, we had this conversation in a isagaya, as another Japanese friend told me his grandfather didnt go to China because of health problem, out of curiosity, i asked if her grandpa went to war in the most innocent manner, we had a nice chat on war and everythign else(love,life, study, career, my busines with Japan...etc. btw she is going to marry a Chinese). Days later, i got an email from her saying that she was very bothered and dont want to see me again. i also have similar experience with other Japanese. they brought up the topic themselves, not with an intention to apologize or open discussion, just for the sake of seeing if they can hit the jackpot by hearing me saying 'I love Japanese, they are all nice people, what happened just happened. '. When i mentioned my opinion, some got offended.
This is quite opposite to my experience in Germany. When i was in a school in Egypt, and i was in the same group with lot of other German. we were asked by the teacher to sing a song, as I dont think thye can sing chinese and I knew only one German song which is their naitonal anthem, they show a face of digust and said they dont want to sing it. (I am talking about the official German national anthem, NOT the nazist one.) (nowadays, japanese army flag, 君の代songs are still in use).

The least pleasant thing to know and admit is that one's grandfather is a criminal. both Austria and Germany disown Hitler as foreigners. However, japnaese have no way out, it is also human nature not to frame the court verdict of one's grandpa's criminal sentence and put it in the living room. I also admit that if Japan is not such a big economic, pop culture and technology power, should it be a 3rd world country and remained as it was right after WWII, few people will care about how it behaves, Ghiskhan of Mongolia might have done things worse than Japan and Ghiskhan was also worshipped like a hero in Mongolia(more so than in Yasukuni).

HOWEVER! without letting everything out, make issues like this visible to everyone, what happen between China and Japan will be like what happened between me and my japanese friend - broke up overnight for god knows why. 何となく絶交した。

Behind the Anti-Japan
One of the most controversial news in Far East is the Anti-Japan riots happen in China.
The alleged reasons of China side are, first, Japan’s Government amended the history textbooks and China said that Japan Government intends to cover up some truths about their brutal intrusion to China during WWII.
Second, the attempt by Japan to become a permanent member of the UNSC(United Nations Security Council) and China disagreed with Japan and wants to block Japan’s move.

In fact, Sino-Japanese relation is such complicated.
If we retrieve back to Chin-Dynasty, they were enemies and China lost in a war then ceded Formosa and the Pescadores (Taiwan and Peng-hu). Therefore Taiwan became Japan’s colony.
During WWII, Japan reached out its tentacles into Mainland China again and slain thousands and thousands of people of China.
As we all knew, Japan finally surrendered after U.S. dropped two atomic bombs onto Japan homeland. And those Japanese who conspired to start the war and conduct the brutal slaughters were brought to International Court Justice because of their unforgiven commitments.
And this is completely a smoke that blaming Japan amended its history textbooks. We can open China’s history textbooks. Do they mention that 30 millions of people in China were starved to death during “The Great Leap Forward” (1958~1961) under its Communist governing? Do they mention anything about China’s bloody slaughter in India in 1962? Do they mention anything about China intruded Vietnam in 1979? Do they say any sorry to those victims were killed by China Communist at Tiananmen Square in 1989? So how can China accuse Japan hasn’t written the whole true story about WWII in the textbooks?

After several decades of striving, Japan recovered from the recession of the War. Japan seemed recall its interests in China. But this time, Japan took other actions instead of the force intrusion. Japan started its ODA (Official Development Assistance) plans in China from 1979. Then the following 80s, Japan and China had a really close-up relationship and enjoyed their honeymoon period very much.
As a matter of fact, since 80s, Japan really helped out China a lot, including loans, technology transfers, infrastructure constructions…
However, China never appreciated and seemed to take everything for granted. And beyond this, Japan helped China getting thrived and China used the money took from Japan to buy more weapons. Japan then figured out those weapons can threaten not only itself but the whole world.

In the meanwhile, after decades of Communism practicing, China Government could no long sugarcoat its failure in convincing people to trust the Communist regime. Therefore, China Government intendedly redirected people’s focus to “outside” and appealed to Nationalism. China had to find scapegoats. Thus those Anti-America, Anti-Japan shows are kept putting on the stage, and by means of proclaiming the “oneness of realm” which lately reflected upon the enacted “Anti-Secession” Law, China wants to threaten those, such as Taiwan and Tibet, who intend to declare their independences and stop them from secession.
What China Government uses is a very simple theory, as a leverage to aggregate the loyalty of Chinese people, Nationalism is definitely not only the miracle drug, an antidote to prevent the thoughts of freedom from flooding into China, but also a decoy to distract people’s complaints, dissatisfactions about China Communist regime.
So, no matter what are the reasons they’re proclaiming, behind the Anti-Japan incidents, actually exists a Nationalism and Great China ideology. And this first results in the tensive Taiwan-China relation. In the a latest meeting between China Foreign Minister Li and Japanese Foreign Minister Machimura on 2005 April 17th, the words were slipped out from Li’s mouth, “the most concerned issue for China is Taiwan.”

Yes, that’s right! The reason why China is so overreacted, is Taiwan issue.
At the very end of WWII, Japan signed up the San Francisco Peace Treaty. In the Treaty, Chapter 2 Territory, Article 2, Japan renounces all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores(Taiwan and Peng-hu), and that’s all. There’re no further words saying that who’s going to take over Taiwan or anything about Taiwan’s future.
And recently, in 2005 February, Japan and U.S. renewed their Joint Declaration on Security (U.S. Japan Guideline for Defence Cooperation). They include Korea and Taiwan as their new defence areas. In addition, Japan announced in 2004 December, that it will adopt a new defense policy guideline, officially called the new National Defense Program Outline. In this very new outline, Japan clearly points out it will shift its focus from Russia (used to be Soviet Union, when Japan first issued the old National Defense Program Outline in 1976.) to the south: the new guideline seems also to aim at strengthen its rivalry with China.
It’s so obvious these two powerful countries, Japan and America, are setting the barrier to block China.
The last sparkle was that Japan showed his strong attempt to the new permanent member of UN Security Council. This means Japan can gain an absolute power to intervene the international conflicts, especially if China launches a military attack against Taiwan.
China surely pisses off.

From the first minute China revealed its intention to enact a ridiculous Anti-Secession Law, almost all the global society denounced China’s tyranny and overbearing attitude, Japan was one of them. And not only the accusations from all over the world, America and Japan also reaffirmed their roles as peacemaker to keep Taiwan in safe and peace.

After Americans accidentally bombed China Embassy in Yugoslavia (in 2001), Chinese almost tore down and burned up the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Lots of media and observers implicated that China Government secretly encouraged behind those so-called “patriot-youths” who conducted the riots. This time, more patriot-youths are standing on the street to Anti-Japan. How could we don’t make any connections that China Government is not behind them? Especially while Japanese Foreigner Minister asked Chinese Foreigner Minister Li do something to stop the Anti-Japan incidents and related violence, Li answered him right away: “China Government has not done anything sorry to Japan.”

So, what is the next step China would take? Anti-America? Because the Americans interfere China’s internal affairs too much? Anti-Vatican? Because Vatican wants to appoint Bishop and China doesn’t allow so? And anti those who stop China from expanding its military force, anti those who want to bring democracy and true freedom into China? We will see.

Hong Kong Guy: I don't think I made my point clearly. I don't think that people who commit crimes should be forgiven or excused. I'm just saying that mob behavior, especially under bad leadership can be cruel and inhumane regardless of your race or creed. I think the Japanese should take responsibilities for their crimes, but I don't think the fact that some Japanese committed war crimes should reflect on some kind of genetic or "basic nature" of Japanese. This may be too nuanced to be useful to discuss, but among racists in every country I have encountered them, there is a basic undertone of thinking the other race is inferior or basically evil. When you have this kind of emotional bias, all dialog leads to conflict. Until you dive into the core issue of racism and get beyond that, you can not reach consensus. Without consensus, you will not get sincere apologies. Forced apologies are not true apologies and will lead to further fighting in the future.

Nodoubt,both Chn and Jpn media filtered information for political purpose.

Joi:
I think the most important issue is the attitude of the government,included the text and official apologies.Yeah,the island is strategically important,but it`s more beneficial to have one more allies than to have one more island.

I wanna say that Japan gov. handle those things like a kid and Japan's diplomatism like a kid!

The Massacre of Nanking is another war propaganda. Period.

http://jpn.dyndns.ws/~nanking/index2.html

You got that right, Yamamoto. As is a great deal of politically correct his-story taught in public/private indoctrination camps (schools) around the world.

Japan needs a nuclear armed deterrence. Say around a thousand/two-thousand warheads with a reliable and redundant delivery platforms in place - ICMBs, SLBMs, Cruise Missiles, etc.

That'll get the Chinese, and others for that matter, to pipe down and hold their peace.

Nukes are the telepathic international language of 'diplomacy' everyone understands and respects. It's the silent friend and partner that speaks volumes. Clears up any confusion entering the little minds of dip-shit national leaders.

Japan: Nukes are a force of GOOD! Get 'em now. Get 'em while they're hot!

Yamamoto,
Regardless of how I feel about current Chinese actions, your post is way out of line. That site you direct us to essentially rests on debunking Iris Chang. And Chang was, in my view, a sloppy scholar. I feel very badly about what happened to her, but I thought she set a new low for scholarship for the masses.

But that only proves she was sloppy in the context of her own work: it does absolutely nothing to disprove that the Rape of Nanjing occurred. Overwhelming credible evidence suggests that it did.

I hate the mob mentality that you are currently witnessing in China (no good will ever come from a mob), but at the same time this revisionism is a big part of what sows ill will between nations.

For instance, I will not accept the violence like groups like AIM (the American Indian Movement). For instance, if Leonard Pelletier did kill FBI agents, then he is right where he belongs. But at the same time I am not going to claim that Wounded Knee and Sandy Creek never happened. They did, and they are a moral stain on my nation. That does not justify violence by the descendants of the victims, but it happened.

Hi Joi:

Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. Actually, I was reluctant to touch on the issue, mainly because I fear receiving a lot of attacks from others. But I saw your post which captures my feelings. Scares kept me from any thinking on the issue. But I wonder if Chinese people are also scared and frustrated because they cannot even see what Japanese think.

I cannot understand why textbooks need to be revised in such a disgusting way. I believe that many Japanese want to know what we did and what we didn't during WW2. And I'm surprised to see many Japanese don't know anything about what's wrong with the revised textbooks. So I plan to translate the articles from Japantimes.

I would like to have a meeting and know how others think about Japanese textbooks and education.

all: concerning textbooks: in a country with a free press, any sort of foolishness may be published as a "textbook". Governments may approve a range of opinions to be taught and whichever national or local authorities select the texts may vary. The key thing here is freedom. Just as some fool is free to write a book of historical distortion, a school board may also be free to choose it or not.

Hong Kong Guy: Its great that you've spent time visiting here and you encoutered what alot of visitors encouter in that attitudes towards relationships may differ. By way of my own experience I've noticed that sometimes people terminate relationships because they became too close, or too uncomfortable. There are people I've known for almost 10 years who I would not ask about their family because they have never volunteered any information about it and so I assume they consider such matters to be too personal to discuss. Fine by me.

lamlam: 2ch is not a considered a credible source of information.

peter: nice to see that a few people can dust off the old history texts.

Joi: you are right about forced apologies.

lamlam & HongKong Guy: I cant think of a good way to say this so I'll just say it. One reason that some people have a hard time taking statements about the historical suffering of the Chinese people as seriously as you might want is that overall China is viewed as a world power and so when people from a very large nuclear armed world power with a permanant seat on the UNSC repeat statements about how they are really "victims" its just not believable and in fact looks childish. I just cant think of a more diplomatic word, sorry. No matter where I've been people take complaints more seriously when they are not accompanied by temper tantrums. I'm not trying to insult you deliberately, just to say that if you want to be taken seriously, engage people in a way that they will respect and listen to you.

CHRIS B:
So, you are a GAIJIN having lived in Japan for 10 years?

well, here are some of my thoughts towards your statement below:
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One reason that some people have a hard time taking statements about the historical suffering of the Chinese people as seriously as you might want is that overall China is viewed as a world power and so when people from a very large nuclear armed world power with a permanant seat on the UNSC repeat statements about how they are really "victims" its just not believable and in fact looks childish. I just cant think of a more diplomatic word, sorry.
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Like most Japanese and pro-Japan foreigners, you are again using double standards, It is PR China, as a country that got nuclear power, seat in UN, a big world power. The victims were the citizens of China (then ROC) in the 30s and early 40s.

and we were told that we should protest not against regular Japanese citizen, but only the right wing Japanese or the government?

Well, I think CHILDISH better be used to describe someone else.

lamlam wrote #63:
MostlyVowels: http://news.searchina.ne.jp/2004/0423/politics_0423_001.shtml

Apologies. I thought we were talking about that Molotov cocktail thrown by a clusmy right-winger in Tokyo against a Chinese bank... It indeed seems that some right-wing moron drove a car into the Chinese consulate's gates at Osaka. Due to timezone differences, I hadn't been informed of that occurence yet. Especially as the article is dated — and speaks of — an event that took place on April 23 (it's still April 21 where I live ;-)

I think this will help you understanding my position,:)
http://www.sjwar.org/htm/germany.html

Sums up the Chinese “truth” and worldview quite well, I guess. There is the usual disturbing disingenuity, lack of critical thinking and misinformation that permeates every single item of the list. For example:

• it makes it sound as if revisionist textbooks are used in most, if not all of the Japanese schools

• it glosses over the fact that in Japan, war reparation payments amounted to about 30% of the state's budget in the fifties

• there's still that amazing contention that paying respect to war deads — the hundreds of thousands of conscripts — at Yasukuni is tantamount to worshipping war criminals. I have an extremely low opinion of Japanese politicians, but when a Japanese PM goes to pay his respects to the war dead, and pledges before the hundreds of thousands of souls enshrined there that such barbaric misdeeds as had happened in the past century will not be repeated, I will not assume that what he's doing is honoring war criminals. OTOH, I'm sympathetic to the contention that Japan should build a new war memorial totally cleansed of any connection with the militarists and the war criminals, to end once and for all these misguided insinuations.

Hong Kong Guy wrote#67:
(I am talking about the official German national anthem, NOT the nazist one.) (nowadays, japanese army flag, 君の代songs are still in use).

君が代 is controversial in Japan, too, and a large segment of the population understandably is against e.g. Tokyo Governor Ishihara's detestable policy to make it obligatory for school staff and pupils to sing it at school graduation ceremonies. OTOH, for those who understand it, the Japanese national anthem's lyrics are much more innocuous than the semantically laden “Deutschland über alles”, which was sung even before WW2...

Hi all,
Being of overseas Chinese descent, who was born in Malaysia and grew up in Germany with a pretty much Anglo-Saxon education, I have followed this debate with great, but silent interest until now and feel compel to inject some perspectives.

My personal contact with Japan’s war past were from digging through my grandparents’ belongings that included extremely disturbing photographs of the Nanjing ‘incident’ in Life magazines which they were trying to shield me from when I was eight years old. The rest was through my later studies and research in Germany.

Firstly, while undoubtedly there was certain degree of PRC government involvement in either organising or allowing these protests, just as democratic governments too will consent, refuse or control demonstrations, it is equally undeniable that most if not all Asians and Chinese, whether mainland or overseas, are genuinely emotive about the Japanese’ government’s continuous spinning, distortion and outright denial of its war crimes, irrespective of their feelings towards the Chinese Communist Party.

Secondly, while Japanese government officials individually have in the past voiced their 'regrets' over the war or the many 'incidents', these were not regarded by other Asian governments as officially representing the Japanese government and thereby of the Japanese nation and its people, precisely because of the wording and the capacity in which it was given. These are matters of agreed international diplomatic protocols.

Thirdly, while such Japanese 'regrets' were given on many occasions, their value and sincerity is worthless when over the last 50 years, successive Japanese government continue to allow privately sponsored revisionist history books on to the officially approved reading list and successive Japanese Prime Ministers continues to visit Yasukuni.

Sometimes apologies after the fact are simply not enough when what is truly required is for the Japanese government, at the minimum, to desist from such repetitive provocative and unproductive acts, that serve no purpose other than pandering to Koizumi’s right wing supporters to show how ‘patriotic’ he is. Otherwise such apologies are simply hollow and cynical platitudes that fools nobody except for the politically unsophisticated, making Japanese governments no better than the Chinese Communists in hijacking history to serve their own narrow political purpose.

Furthermore, should any readers doubt the veracity of the Nanjing ‘incident’ t