Japan's leader says he will express remorse for World War II

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: AP

In a year that marks the 70th anniversary of World War II's end, a question weighs on the minds of policymakers in Asia and as far away as Washington, D.C.: What will Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe say about his country's role in the war?

At a year-opening news conference Monday, he sought to reassure the world that he wouldn't veer from past official statements on Japan's wartime responsibility. Many analysts have speculated that Abe, known for his nationalist views, might downplay Japan's responsibility for the war in a move that would roil relations with China and South Korea.

"The Abe Cabinet will uphold the general stance on history of successive prime ministers, including the Murayama statement," he said, referring to a 1995 apology made by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 50th anniversary of the war's end.

He said the government would draft a new statement "that includes Japan's remorse for the war," though he stopped short of saying it would again apologize. Abe spoke to reporters in the city of Ise after visiting an important Shinto shrine there.

Read more: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268780/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=tICJxOGH

[merrily]

1. Violence was not the answer. Not for them, not for us.

The Korean War (in South Korea: Hangeul: 한국전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭, "Korean War"; in North Korea: 조국해방전쟁, Joguk Haebang Jeonjaeng, "Fatherland Liberation War"; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953)[31][a][33] was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, also assisted by the Soviet Union. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards.

Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the closing days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and—by agreement with the United States—occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel. U.S. forces subsequently occupied the south. By 1948, two separate governments had been set up. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.[34] On that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire.[35] On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83 : Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation and dispatch of the U.N. Forces in Korea. The United States and other countries moved to defend South Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

And the beat goes on.

[7962]

2. Another example of the US being too nice after WW2. Giving Russia half of Korea

Instead of insisting it stay whole. And turning our backs on Vietnam, who was our ally during the war. Letting the French attempt to reclaim Vietnam resulted in their war and then ours. Had we supported Vietnam after WW2 there would likely have been no trouble. Likewise, if we'd insisted on keeping Korea one country, there would likely have been no trouble. Russia obviously only declared war at the very end just to try to seize more area, which they did.

As for Japan, I see no reason for some apology. They have shown over the years that they have left that old Japan behind and become good members of the world society.

[Kablooie]

3. I doubt it was being too nice.

All of the actions after WWII were political calculations intended to prevent the continuation of conflict.
They retained the Emperor of Japan in order to prevent a new right wing revolt, not to be nice.

Japan has become a productive member of world society but there is still a right wing faction with the same arrogant world views that created the WWII conflict. It has not been eliminated from Japanese society and could become a threat again if allowed to fester.
The best thing would be for Japan to openly admit that this right wing world view was wrong in the past and will remain wrong for the future.

[eggplant]

4. I suspect they'll do it before we do it. I'm not holding my breath. n/t

[merrily]

47. Pres. Wilson turned his back on Vietnam. Truman did begin financial aid in 1950.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_United_States_in_the_Vietnam_War

Believe it or not, $10 million was a very respectable sum in 1950.

Being nice is rarely the reason behind our realpolitik.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. This was our fault.

You can trace Japan's involvement in the war back to Commodore Perry. Japan was a feudal society, without imperialist goals. We put a gun to their heads and forced them to open up to external trade. What we did in the 1850's, after the resulting Meiji Reformation, japan turned around and did the same to it's neighbors.

We set them on the path of imperialism, by being imperialist ourselves.

Small wonder we clashed in the Pacific over resources, as each empire grew, and new own-able territory became scarce.

[Posteritatis]

7. Even by the usual "foreigners have no agency" standards that's impressive. (nt)

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Not sure I am correctly interpreting that. Can you elaborate?

[Posteritatis]

9. Standard dull, tired, bigoted "everything happens only because of the Americans" tripe. (nt)

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Except of course, it's true.

Commodore Perry's sortie is widely regarded as a primary factor in the change that Japan underwent, and the actions it took toward its neighbors mirrors what we did to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration#Motives

As I said, "We set them on the path of imperialism, by being imperialist ourselves."

Sorry if history bothers you.

[Posteritatis]

11. Which part? The part that Americans are the only people in the world who do anything?

The other ninety-five percent of us are puppets, slaves and robots, completely incapable of making decisions or having responsibilities of their own unless Uncle Sam comes by first to show them?

That political solipsism is just as aggravating here as it is in every other thread on DU where something abroad is discussed and people storm in to rant about how mere foreigners can't ever do or think or say or feel or plan anything on their own.

Fuck that.

"We're the only people who have real relevance" is not history. Even people who throw Wikipedia links around as arguments ought to know that much.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Let me know when you have an actual argument that can be backed up by facts.

[Posteritatis]

13. Yes, yes, how dare I suggest non-Americans have minds of their own. (nt)

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Which is, of course, nothing like what I said.

[JI7]

17. that is what is implied when you brought up perry

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Perry's sortie was the beginning of a pivotal reformation in Japan, and a series of events

along a clear pattern. 6 years after the 'visit', Japan produced it's first western-styled steam powered warships. They responded directly to an external action by entering an arms race, and replacing their former government with imperial proponents.

America was by no means alone in meddling, but we did start it. We returned along with the British, Dutch, and French 12 years later and attacked Shimonoseki to force more open trade with Japan.

In 16 years, the Japanese government became an entirely new thing, and industrialized war production became the primary objective.

Perry's sortie marks, in as clear a signpost as you can get in historical terms, a two century period of Japan remaining mostly aloof and isolationist, making an about-face and becoming very much like... us on the geopolitical world stage.

[Posteritatis]

19. It's precisely what you, and others making such simplistic claims, said.

Might not be honest enough to admit it to yourself, or even realize it, but it's what you're saying.

Ditto every other person here who bends over backwards to argue that, if someone's not an American, they can't really do anything unless an American pushes or inspires or provokes them into doing it. Especially if you have to go through such quarter-assed history as to claim people most of a century after the fact are just so many automatons inevitably doing whatever it is they're doing only because of the United States, rather than being sapient humans who hold thoughts in their heads other than their great-grandfathers'.

Because of course history is so simplistic, easy, and cut-and-dried, right?

While you're spending time on wikis, you should read up on agency, exceptionalism and historical determinism. Someone who denies one and clings to the other two doesn't really have any business lecturing about the past (or the present, for that matter).

[AtheistCrusader]

25. This change in Japan is one of those rare historical points where you can actually make a simplistic

conclusion. 2 centuries of isolationism, ended. A massive role reversal, within a VERY localized timeperiod.

There's no end to the number of history books that interpret those events the same way I do.

Japan had every opportunity to go a different path, but I stand by my earlier statement; we put them on that path. When you hold a gun to someone's head (and 12 years later, actually shoot at them), they react. One of those reactions, is an attempt to defend themselves. (armament)

[JI7]

30. that doesn't take away Japan's responsibility for ww2

[AtheistCrusader]

32. No, takes two to tango, sure.

But I seriously question whether Japan enters WWII at all without the leadup events of 1852-1890.

[JI7]

34. would you blame 9/11 for the war in Iraq ?

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Absolutely not.

[Posteritatis]

31. And if Perry hadn't shown up, then what?

Do you think that none of the other major powers rattling around East Asia at the time couldn't have done the same thing two or three or ten years later if the Americans hadn't?

Do you think the Japanese simply purchased a copy of Modernization For Dummies from the Susquehanna's gift shop? That they learned everything they did in and after the Restoration from the United States?

Do you think that if another country had ended Japanese isolation they would somehow magically have taken an entirely different path than pretty much all of the other rising powers of the late 19th century?

No end to the number of history books my entire ass. Not one competent historian views century-long timelines with that kind of mathematical precision, and they sure as hell don't push it so far as to claim the entirety of Japanese history since is exclusively the Americans' doing.

[AtheistCrusader]

38. Without Perry/us, i question the viability of the timeline for Japan to show up

To the WWII party. Sure, the French could have done it. But when?

On what timeline does France project power to force that issue, with all the irons they had in all those fires at the time?

At best, I could say 'maybe'. We can't restore from backup and try again.
There are useful parallels in the middle east from 1952 in the installation of the shah, and all the mayhem our two pillar strategy wrought, etc. When you force peoples hands, they react.

[Posteritatis]

41. A few years and a different party probably wouldn't have been that pivotal

It wouldn't take that much power to have forced an opening. Warships well beyond what Japanese fortifications or ships could deal with would have been adequate whatever the flag; the US was just the first one to wave them around. It could have been the French or the British around that time. Even outliers like the Prussians had ships more than adequate to the task all over the place.

Any seagoing power would have a big enough gulf between them and the Japanese to deliver much the same shock, which is part of why the Japanese made a point of studying from nearly all of them when they saw what the world had become.

If it had happened within a decade or two of Perry's time, that would be more than adequate for them to show up by the time of the Second World War. They adopted (on land) and invented (at sea) modern warfare in a generation. Well before the First World War they had an absolute first-rate military: by 1905 the European powers were taking notes on how to design a fleet from the Japanese.

Seriously (and somewhat more calmly; it's been a bit of a Monday), these were highly intelligent, very driven, and incredibly motivated people who did a lot more (for good and for ill) than most people know in a lot less time once they saw what the outside world was like. The opening itself is one thing, but it's at best grossly unfair to deny that they did a lot of what came afterwards on their own, or that they were able to choose and set their own course.

[AtheistCrusader]

42. Perry was just a turning point.

We agreed to carve up the pacific with Japan. 'You don't say anything about the Philippines, and we wont say anything about Korea'. France's biggest involvement was selling arms to Japan.

War machines cost money and resources. Hence the geopolitical struggle for resources.

Britain was probably the only naval force capable of the pressure we brought to bear, and they were crippled by debt at the time, were they not?


I will take a step back and acknowledge that I used language that may have suggested Japan had no responsibility for any of the horrors they perpetrated against a dozens n nations leading up to, and during the course of that war. That was not my intent, and while I said that wasn't the case earlier, I think its a good idea to more explicitly address that now. They own what they did. They could have gone a different path. But I maintain we bear responsibility for putting them on that path.

[Posteritatis]

44. People generally weren't getting too offended by land grabs at that point in time

There weren't agreements to look the other way about places like China or Africa; the attitude was more "ooh! Me too!" with the major players being more upset at not getting a big enough slice of the pie rather than the pie being carved up in the first place.

Also, I think you're overstating how much pressure was needed to do to Japan what Perry did. Perry's squadron consisted of four small ships with ten to eighteen guns apieces. The other major powers at the time each had indivudual ships, often a lot of them, which had greater firepower than the four combined, and that's before getting into their own collections of smaller ships. Everyone was in a lousy financial situation in the 1850s generally - this includes the United States a couple of years after the opening - but they were also cheerfully prosecuting a major war in the Crimea while that was happening. There were plenty of countries willing to throw their weight around then, several with global reach. Several were considerably more powerful than the US at the time as well.

The technological gulf between any of them and Japan pre-Restoration was huge. The big thing pushing the modernization was the realization that just about anyone could have just walked in on Japan if they so chose. The industrialization which followed was half "dude, we want in on this" and half "oh crap oh crap oh crap we need to catch up now."

It was Perry's ships that set that off, sure, but there's no reason - none whatsoever - it couldn't have been any of a number of others anytime in that whole half-century period. All the other major powers had more than enough of a lead in technology to make the same impression, and they all had the same general worldview regarding how a "modern" country should behave towards weaker neighbors. Whoever showed up with a few modern warships would have delivered the same shock, and would have sent the same general message about how nations behave; assuming they didn't just outright take the place, it's fairly likely they would have resulted in a Japan that took a broadly similar path to the one we've seen. The influence may have been there, but the domestic drive was as well.

[AtheistCrusader]

45. I will review my earlier conclusions, and find some more background on this.

I agree, there are other players that could have done what we did, but I can only really deal with what we DID do, not with what might have or might not have happened. I've run into this before on the Iran thing. 'If we didn't do it, the soviets were going to'. Certainly the soviets had the opportunity to accomplish it, but that doesn't require that they would have done so, had we not intervened in 1952. So, while I'll willingly grant that there were other nations that might have provoked Japan had we not got the ball rolling, I don't know that this absolves us of any responsibility for the following chain of events.

I would much rather that we'd had nothing at all to do with it. It was a terrible period in American foreign policy.

[ChazII]

16. Kind of makes me wonder

how the world functioned before the big, bad United States came on the scene. (I agree with you, btw.)

I guess the US is the epitome of evil and all that is wrong with our planet. Did the US ever do anything correctly or anything that actually benefited our planet?



Feeling a combination of emotions.

[JI7]

18. it's not just that

But it's offensive to other people also . As if they are mindless idiots .

[Posteritatis]

33. Dreadfully common around here too

This is one of the silliest extremes I've seen it taken to, but it's really, really popular on DU to assume everything that happens abroad, from elections and revolutions to science and technology, is entirely at the behest of the United States.

Every time someone starts flinging it around, what they're really saying is "nineteen out of twenty people are incapable of doing anything on their own." (Actually, since they're usually talking about bad things and blaming them entirely on Republicans, they're actually claiming more like thirty-nine out of forty people. Which, y'know, isn't an improvement.)

[Posteritatis]

20. It didn't! It sprang forth, fully-formed, from Washington's forehead in the 1770s! (nt)

[ChazII]

35. Common sense prevails

thank you, Posteritatis. It is good to see that someone knows that in order for our continent to be called the NEW World there had to be an OLD World.

[Posteritatis]

36. Cartography was more punishment than career before that glorious day. (nt)

[Jesus Malverde]

39. Interesting perspective.

Thought provoking.

Thanks!

[Ash_F]

22. Your uneducated drivel is tripe

Read the history and stop speaking in right wing sound bites.

[Posteritatis]

23. Nice, "the US isn't the only relevant country" is a rightwing sound bite now. (nt)

[Ash_F]

24. The poster did not say that.

Nor did they imply it. That's your first problem.

Is that due to a lack of reading comprehension, or a political agenda?

[JI7]

27. The OP is abOut Japan's actions during ww2?

[Posteritatis]

28. The poster denies Japanese responsibility for their actions in the Pacific War.

The one with a lack of comprehension is the one saying that was exclusively the Americans' doing because of Perry (because, of course, if he hadn't shown up nothing would have changed), rather than because people born fifty years later had their own brains and thoughts and motives.

Is it a political agenda to argue, and argue correctly, that the fusion of an aggressively insular American exceptionalism with a hopelessly tunnel-visioned historical determinism is, at its very best, paternalistic, racist bullshit? If it is, then I suppose I do have a political agenda, and it's one I'm very fond of.

[Ash_F]

29. No they did not. /nt

[JI7]

26. that's the same place

Where we got "Asians just copy but aren't creative"

[JI7]

15. yup

As if there is no history , relations with others and anything else apart from the US.

[Bonobo]

46. Without a doubt, it set up dynamics that led to the imperial behavior of Japan.

Simply, Japan was trying to avoid being carved up like China. They saw and learned the lesson that military power gave people the right to do as they please. That lesson was forced upon them when Perry used his impressive cannon in Edo bay.

Following that, Japan swiftly went from backwards nation to a modern nation and proceeded to defeat China and then Russia in war.

East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere? Look at it from their perspective. Better that an Asian country should take China and Asia as an imperial power than a Western imperial power. Remember, might makes right.

Dealing with the shock of Perry forcing them to trade and open up against their war was very much as you say, a turning point.

This excuses nothing but it explains a lot.

[Grins]

6. I'd rather hear his comments on "Unbroken"

That movie is sure to come to Japan; and China, and Korea. And when it does....

The Japanese have been in denial about WWII for decades. It is not even mentioned in most school history books. I think this may re-ignite some barely suppressed hatreds.

[handmade34]

37. Ah, remorse....

so difficult becoming human and recognizing each other

[Third Doctor]

43. He regrets not winning and

his country damned near being destroyed.