Japan's denial of past military aggression undermines world peace; intervention in SCS perverse, vicious

A Japanese right-winger captured in photo at Yasukuni Shrine on the 71st anniversary of Japans surrender in World War II on August 15, 2016. Yasukuni enshrines war criminals, and as such visits by Japanese politicians tend to provoke anger from neighbors China and Korea that suffered from Japans militarist past.

https://youtu.be/p57piVGcVqg

August 15 marked the 71st anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender during World War II. However, on this special day when Japan should spend time reflecting on its history of militaristic aggression, its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine.

The Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead from WWII, is regarded as a symbol of past Japanese militarism.

The honoring of war criminals, no matter what form it takes, only serves to further hurt those Asian neighbors that Japan once invaded. Such perverse acts to whitewash its crimes of military aggression runs contrary to the pursuit of peace in Asia and the world at large.

It's common knowledge that the Yasukuni Shrine is a source of spiritual inspiration for Japan to start another war of aggression. Yet, the country's new Defense Minister Tomomi Inada has tried to associate such a notorious place with the mourning of soldiers belonging to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.

She claimed at a recent seminar that “the Yasukuni Shirine is not the place to vow not to fight. It needs to become a place where we vow to desperately fight when our Motherland is at risk.” Her words shocked even the Kyodo News.

The 71-year-peace after WWII was hard-won. Born from the victory over fascism, this peace has been the foundation for post-war international order. This conclusion is not something that can be ignored, denied or overturned by any country.

World peace and the post-war order, which came at the cost of the blood and lives of the peoples of Allied countries, is closely tied to justice.

Last year, the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of the World Anti-Fascist War, but some countries, looking out for their own interests, have turned a blind eye to the wrongdoings of Japan and have even urged Japan to abandon its pacifist constitution. The world today is witnessing the negative impact brought about by this short-sighted strategy.

By erasing its invasion history, Japan is on one hand attempting to lock away memories of the war and on the other hand setting the stage for future action. In the House of Councillors election in July, lawmakers pushing for Constitution amendments won more than two-thirds of seats. This has led to forward-thinking people in Japan to also begin worrying about the “return of war.”

In order to strengthen military power and shake off the post-war order, the Abe administration usually uses the so-called “China threat” as an excuse to deceive the Japanese public and other parts of the world.

After Japan adopted its new security laws that lifted a decades-old ban on collective self-defense, the Abe administration has been making every effort to contain China by instigating disputes between China and other countries.

On the day when the so-called arbitral decision on the South China Sea dispute was announced in July, Japan, a non-party in the issue, immediately pressured China to accept the arbitration. At the following 11th Asia-Europe Summit and foreign ministers' meetings on East-Asia cooperation held in last month, Japan reiterated its stance again and again.

In the country’s annual defense white paper issued in early August, Japan pointed fingers at China over the South China Sea issue once again. The paper also made irresponsible remarks concerning China’s armament, military expense and transparency. These actions by the Abe administration has triggered alarm and concern throughout the international community.

Japan's tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine on Monday once again reminds us that world peace is not that should be taken for granted, it demands continual justice and also the capability to defend it.- People's Daily

Japan’s intervention in South China Sea perverse, vicious: expert

Chinese PLA Navy staged drills in the waters of South China Sea on July 8, 2016.

Japan’s efforts to muddle the waters of the South China Sea are perverse acts that turn back the wheel of history, a Chinese expert wrote on Monday in an article that marked the 71st anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II and called on the public to ponder Japan’s real intentions.

In the People’s Daily article, Hu Dekun, the president of China Association for History of WWII, pointed out that the war of aggression initiated by Japanese fascists during the 1930s and 1940s had brought tremendous disaster to people both in China and the Asia-Pacific region.

As an assailant country, Japan should be held accountable for its war crimes. However, in order to cement its global hegemony, the US, who then exclusively occupied Japanese territory, allied with the latter in the hopes of dominating the Asia-Pacific order.

But instead of repenting for its war crimes and improving ties with the victimized countries, Japanese right-wing politicians started bullying other countries under the support of the US, read the article, titled “Perverse Acts of Japanese Government.” Things got worse after the US adopted its “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” policy, Hu writes, citing the South China Sea issue as an example.

Hu noted that in a bid to contain China, Japan repeatedly instigated disputes between China and other countries around the South China Sea. Japan, a country not involved in the South China Sea issue, joined the US as another agitator in meddling the waters.

According to Hu, Japan is attempting to get rid of the post-war order by amending its constitution.

After Japan officially adopted the new security laws that lifted the decades-old ban on collective self-defense, the country is now planning a constitution amendment. But the biggest roadblock ahead is public support. The Abe administration is seeking that support by playing up the “China threat.”

What’s more, Tokyo hopes divert public’s attention from other domestic issues. The Abe administration has lost credibility after "Abenomics" failed to revive the Japan’s sluggish economy. By fanning the flames of the South China Sea issue, the administration hopes to route domestic conflicts and consolidate its power.

By poking its nose in the South China Sea, Japan wishes to buddy up to the US. Though the US tried to manipulate some counties to challenge China, its “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” policy suffered serious setbacks by China's diplomacy, friendships and policy of win-win cooperation, especially as the “Belt and Road” initiative aims to benefit most of its neighboring countries. Japan wants to take this chance to curb China so that it could pander to its alliance with the US.

“What’s Japan's real intention for interfering in the South China Sea issue? Is Japan going to repeat its mistakes? ”asked Hu. - People's Daily

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Japan, reverting to its history’s infamy !

The ghosts of Japan’s imperial past have returned to haunt the nation, its government, and the other countries in this region.

IF anyone still doubts the controversies about Japan’s current nationalistic urges, news reports and media commentaries in the region clearly confirm they persist.

Nations sometimes have leaders who shoot themselves in both feet and then promptly stuff them in their mouths. Japan’s current leaders have lately outdone all these others before.

Opinion leaders in the region have recently noted the excesses of right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, its various indiscretions, and the reactions to them.

Much in the simmering controversies, notably in South Korea and China, comes courtesy of Abe’s team in Tokyo’s establishment. He, his deputy Taro Aso and some of their appointees have actively stoked the embers of regional contention.

Abe, the nationalist grandson of imprisoned Nobosuke Kishi, a suspected “Class A” war criminal, had briefly served as prime minister before without much controversy.

But by courting contempt this time in trying to rewrite history and defiantly visiting Yasukuni War Shrine honouring war criminals to proclaim that Japan did nothing wrong in World War II, Abe got the trouble he risked getting.

Aso himself is a “veteran” in provoking controversy. As foreign minister before, he was even more defiant and unapologetic than Abe, and has lately called on Japan to learn from Nazi Germany.

Their appointees such as chairman Katsuto Momii and governor Naoki Hyakuta of public broadcaster NHK have likewise made outrageous comments about Imperial Japan’s atrocities.

Momii said the sex slaves that Japanese troops made of Korean women was a common occurrence of any country at war, earning a rebuke from the United States.

Hyakuta championed Imperial Japan, denying that the Nanjing Massacre ever happened.

Abe’s choice of other controversies at the same time included efforts to rewrite the post-war Constitution to make it less conciliatory, revising past apologies for the war, and hardening Japan’s claims to disputed maritime territories.

The result: aggravating relations with South Korea and China. Although China-Japan relations are often said to be fraught because of Japan’s horrific wartime incursions, Tokyo’s relations with Seoul are even worse.

Even at the height of activism against US imperialism decades ago, Japan remained the biggest sore point for Koreans.

Now Abe is even less popular among South Koreans than North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with two successive Presidents – and conservative ones at that – underscoring this position.

In a Korean press commentary on Thursday, Abe was described as having “become by far the most hated Japanese head of government for Koreans in recent decades”.

With 82% of Koreans convinced that Japan has not atoned for its sordid past, others have called Abe by worse names.

But have Abe and his inner circle learned anything from all this? They have offered retractions and apologies when pressed, but remained firmly set in their views.

Yet it need not be so. It was not like that for many years before.

In the 1990s, NHK invited me to give a seminar to regional news correspondents at its headquarters in Tokyo.

I was then holding a fellowship at a Japanese policy research institute to examine the prospects for regional cooperation, which happened to be a time of some regional ferment.

I introduced South-East Asia’s history and cultures without mentioning the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan, because there was no need to. Yet a young newsman later approached me to say he knew of Japanese war crimes despite all the denials.

A senior NHK staff who shared the taxi with me later explained that the common image of a constantly apologetic Japanese people was a misleading stereotype. Wherever these NHK people have gone today, they do not seem to be represented in its board.

Around that time, “maverick” Japanese historian Saburo Ienaga was entangled with the Japanese government in several court cases over an accurate depiction of Japan’s role during the war.

In Tokyo’s clumsy attempts to whitewash its wartime atrocities, the Education Ministry rejected Ienaga’s school textbooks. As he arrived at the courthouse to take on the authorities, he was cheered by a supportive Japanese public.

The Japanese public has repeatedly been more enlightened and liberal than any nationalistic government or self-proclaimed “liberal” party.

Commentators put this difference down to a flawed and dysfunctional political system, despite a mantle of democracy.

A recent commentary excused Japan in otherwise unfavourable comparisons with a contrite Germany because of “cultural” differences. However, while Germany assists in the international pursuit and prosecution of Nazi war criminals, Japan has the Yasukuni Shrine glorifying such criminals instead.

The commentary added that Germany was different in being offered full membership of a European community.

Actually, Japan was offered both membership and leadership of an East Asian Economic Grouping, when its economy was stronger and China’s ascendancy was still in its infancy, but Tokyo rejected it outright.

It was further said that like Germany, full atonement is best done in groups. But very much unlike Germany, there are groups in Japan that continue to deny wartime atrocities and – like Hyakuta and his ilk – insist that Imperial Japan had done Asia a favour with invasion and occupation.

Hardly anyone who has suffered Japanese wartime occupation would believe that tale. Japanese forces had never invaded North-East or South-East Asia only to grant independence to the countries there.

Among these reactionary and revisionist groups was a far-right party that had organised an international conference in Tokyo to argue these points some two decades ago.

As I entered the hall as an observer, I was swiftly introduced to a war veteran who had proudly published a book to “prove” that the Nanjing Massacre was a myth.

When former Malaysian foreign minister Tun Ghazali Shafie spotted me in the hall, he came over to assure me that everything was under control and that the Malaysian embassy had a staff present to take notes.

I looked around and saw a young Malaysian diplomat trying to make sense of the proceedings.

The organisers had invited foreign speakers like Ghazali to endorse their views, to which he hastened to reply that all he meant was that the region should look to the future together rather than dwell on the problems of the past. They did not seem to take note of the nuances.

Such extremist groups remain active in Japan, and have become even more vocal and visible than before. Observers note that they have lately moved from the margins to the mainstream of Japan’s body politic.

What is the sum total of their impact on Japanese officialdom? How far has their influence strayed beyond Tokyo?

Earlier this month, a Japanese diplomat based in Kuala Lumpur reviewed some of these issues with me in a private discussion.

He was a youngish, liberal-minded officer about the same age as the NHK news correspondent who confided in me in the 1990s.

In the course of our discussion I mentioned that although South Korea and China are often cited as griping about Japan’s militarist past, people in South-East Asia who had also suffered Japanese imperialism feel the same without necessarily announcing it to the world.

He expressed surprise, not knowing before that anyone in this region had suffered anything under Japan during the war.

Tokyo’s history deniers and revisionists seem to have scored some success after all.

Contributed by Behind The Headlines Bunn Nagara, The Star/ANN

• Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.
• The views expressed are entirely the writer's own 

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Japan glorifies war criminals in annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine!

Japan's frictions with neighbors have resurfaced after a group of 168 Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday paid their respects at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies war-dead including those guilty of atrocities. It was the first time in eight years that a group of over 100 Japanese politicians visited the shrine. On the same day, a fleet of Chinese marine surveillance vessels drove Japanese boats out of waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands, thwarting the provocative attempts of around 80 Japanese right wingers.

The South Korean government has issued a strongly worded complaint over the Japanese politicians' visit to the shrine. China and South Korea have shown their shared outrage over the Yasukuni Shrine issue, but Japan seems to have disregarded this.

There are not many extreme right wingers in Japan, but Japanese society has still been tilting further toward right-wing views.

These days, provocations have been coming from Japan's deputy prime minister, a group of over 100 lawmakers and the right wingers creating waves over the Diaoyu Islands issue.

The Chinese government is taking the lead in dealing with Japan. However, it has little leverage when dealing with various forces within Japan. This reality cannot be changed in the near future. This means the Chinese government's stance has to be tough. Chinese marine surveillance vessels have done a pretty good job on this occasion. Since the Diaoyu crisis broke out last year, the tough resistance of the Chinese government against Japan has made it the main force in safeguarding the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands.

The latest situation involving the Diaoyu Islands has demonstrated the contrast in terms of strength between China and Japan as well as the changing East Asia strategic arena.

The Yasukuni Shrine visits are evidence of Japan's reluctance to accept reality. Japanese society is becoming increasingly radical, but continues to take a careful approach in maritime conflicts with China.

Japan lacks a clear strategy in East Asia. Encountering China's rise, it hasn't formed a policy that helps it maximize its interests, and instead shows resentment and anxiety. Its alliance with the US cannot help it solve its own strategic dilemma.

The gradual decline in Japan's power is the reason for its lack of confidence.

Japan is like a marijuana smoker, who enjoys the excitement of the moment but is ultimately damaging itself at the same time. Japan will fall by itself. China doesn't need to launch fierce counterattacks. Instead, it can just express its firm stance to make Japan feel scared. 

China needs to create diplomatic leverage over Japan, which could help it express its determination when dealing with issues related to sovereignty and historical matters, and bring the Sino-Japanese conflict under control. - Global Times

Japan shrine visit angers South Korea

Taro Aso, Japan's deputy prime minister and finance minister, bows at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. Photograph: AFP/Getty

South Korea has abruptly cancelled a trip to Tokyo by its foreign minister in protest at visits to a controversial war shrine over the weekend by Japanese cabinet ministers, including the deputy prime minister.

Visits to the Yasukuni shrine – which honours 14 class-A war criminals among 2.5 million other Japanese war dead – have traditionally angered China and South Korea, which view the site as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

Four ministers in the conservative administration of Shinzo Abe paid visits to the shrine, including his finance minister, Taro Aso.

The separate visits, to mark the beginning of the shrine's annual spring festival, come amid tensions with China over a longstanding territorial dispute in the East China sea.

Beijing did not immediately respond but South Korea said on Monday that its foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, would not be making a two-day visit to Tokyo due to begin this Friday.

"Amid this kind of atmosphere our stance is that it will be difficult to hold a productive discussion and Yun decided not to visit to Japan this time," an unnamed South Korean official told the Yonhap news agency.

Abe did not visit the shrine but sent a decorative branch of a cypress tree as a ritual offering, with his name and title written beneath, according to media reports.

China is unlikely to overlook the visit while the two rivals continue to stake rival claims to the Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China.

For many in China and South Korea, visits to Yasukuni in central Tokyo are proof that Japan's modern leaders have yet to atone for their country's military misadventures on the Asian mainland in the first half of the 20th century.

Despite his nationalist leanings Abe did not visit during his previous year-long premiership from 2006 to avoid inflaming opinion in Beijing and Seoul.

He later said he regretted the decision and with his popularity ratings high at home speculation is mounting that he may be less willing to consider sensibilities in China and South Korea, particularly if his party wins key upper house elections in July, giving it control of both Diet chambers.

Aso, who also serves as deputy prime minister, has a reputation for angering Japan's neighbours; in 2003, he praised the country's 1910-1945 colonisation of the Korean peninsula and has refused to apologise for his family firm's past use of Korean forced labourers and allied prisoners of war.

Aso, a former prime minister, wants class-A war criminals "delisted" from Yasukuni, thereby removing the biggest obstacle to members of the imperial family resuming their annual visits.

On Sunday, he bowed in the Shinto shrine's worship hall and left without speaking to reporters.

The other visitors included Keiji Furuya, a state minister in charge of resolving the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea during the cold war. "It is natural for a lawmaker to offer heartfelt condolences for spirits of the war dead who sacrificed their lives for the nation," he said.

Abe visited the shrine in 2012 while leader of the then main opposition Liberal Democratic party, drawing criticism from China.

In late March, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the objections over Yasukuni centred on a desire for Japan to "face up to and reflect on its history of aggression and respect the feelings of people from the victimised countries, including China". -

Sources: