Introduction to Japan’s History Wars
August 15th marks the 80th anniversary of the unconditional handover of Japan and the end of the Second World War, again focusing on settlement with the country’s past. The domestic debate in Japan about the design of stories about the Second World War is so tense that it is often referred to as "history wars". Japan’s actions during the war are also a painful place in international diplomacy. China and North and South Korea have bitter memories of life under Japanese rule and rarely miss the opportunity to remind their neighbors of the past.
Historical Denialism in Japan
In Japan, once right-wing extremists have been voted in recent years, which insisted on a story in which the brutality of imperial Japan was denied or minimized during the Second World War. Historical revisionist groups want the victims of imperial Japan to leave history in the past eight decades ago. The organization of Hiromichi Moteki tries to spread its message by translating Japanese nationalist works of historical revisionism into English. These groups have a characteristic method of historical writing, similar to the methods of Holocaust Denialism. They use historical documents that are often relatively dark and peck them for information that supports their cause.
Attempts to Make Japan a "Victim" of Foreign Conspiracies
At the same time, the group said that the United States had committed war crimes by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The denials claim that the hundreds of court proceedings that were carried out by the Allies who followed Japanese troops for war crimes were only "Victor’s Justice". These topics are embedded in a broader, all-encompassing view of the Japanese history of the 20th century: one that Japan represents as a victim and ascribes negative images of Japanese and war to international propaganda disadvantages. Historical revisionist lobby groups have also worked with diplomats on propaganda efforts abroad, including opposing monuments to comfort "women" in countries such as the USA and Germany.
Japan’s Story Seen Through the Eyes of the Victims
Yuji Hosaka is a professor of history and politics at the Sejong University in South Korea, who has long been criticized against Japan’s failure to honestly combat his past or to teach younger generations of Japanese about the time of war. Korean historians largely agree that after the annexation of the peninsula from 1910, Japan banned the Korean people to speak their own language, to suppress the indigenous culture and to take advantage of the country and its people. The intention was to make Korea part of the Japanese Empire, with thousands of Koreans serving in the Japanese military during the war. Hosaka says that the Japanese school books still gloss over the atrocities of the Japanese military without the massacre in Nanjing, in which hundreds of thousands of hundreds of thousands were killed, the abuse of civil workers and prisoners of war, or other crimes, for which Japanese were carried out after the war.
The Need for Japan to Learn from the Past
Those who forget the past will inevitably be back in a similar situation in the future. It is absolutely necessary for Japan to learn from the past. In the past, Germany and France have worked together to create common history books for their children. Japan should reach Korea and China and do the same. A guiding article in the issue of July 7th said: "It is time for Japan to face his war crimes and militaristic past". For China, the Nanjing massacre continues today. According to Chinese historians, 300,000 civilians and soldiers were killed in a six-week intoxication of murder, torture, rape, arson, and looting after the penetrating Japanese military had occurred on December 13, 1937, in Nanjing.
The Call to Stop Apologizing
Moteki and other right say that consecutive Japanese leaders have expressed real regrets for what happened almost a century ago, but that other countries always say that the apology is inadequate or incomprehensible. "It will never change," said Moteki, who was born in 1941. "Japan has to defend himself against these criticisms and verbal attacks. But it is time to stop Japan to apologize because it is now meaningless." On August 15, the anniversary of the emperor, who announced in a radio show that Japan had emerged, Moteki will go to the controversial Yasukuni shrine in a central-Tokyo in order to prove his respect. It will be surrounded by thousands who want to mark the anniversary, including the dwindling number of old soldiers, the relatives of men who fought, and right-wing extremists in uniforms. Yasukuni has been the final resting place of more than 2.4 million military and civilian war victims in Japan since 1869. However, Yasukuni is a controversial symbol to other nations, as it also honors more than 1,000 people who were convicted of war crimes.
