Mass suicide in Okinawa
http://ianfu.blogspot.com/2007/12/mass-suicide-in-okinawa.html
Two years ago, a novelist Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Laureate, was sued by ex-Army officials that he falsely accused them as they ordered mass suicide that had resulted 600 people killed themselves in Okinawa at the end of WW2 in his book Okinawa Note………………….
Nanjing memorial lacks balance / Museum marking 1937 incident being used for political purposes
Takanori Kato / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080126TDY04304.htm
SHANGHAI–Concerns about a possible deterioration in delicate Japan-China relations were behind the Japanese government’s request last week that China tone down the contents of the Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.
Tokyo said the exhibits on display in the memorial hall, which reopened in December after a major expansion to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1937 Nanjing Incident, could “inspire anti-Japanese feeling and animosity” among Chinese citizens.
The hall’s floor space was expanded more than 10-fold to 9,000 square meters, and the museum now stands on a 7.4-hectare plot of land, which is three times larger than its previous precincts.
The number of photo exhibits, including those showing scenes of killing, was drastically increased to about 3,500. On the whole, they play up the brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army more than the previous exhibits.
For example, visual and audio devices have been installed to inform visitors that “300,000” Chinese were killed in the incident–a figure disputed even by Chinese scholars.
Also, controversial Japanese newspaper articles claiming two Japanese army officers competed to see how quickly they could kill 100 Chinese during the Imperial Japanese Army advance toward Nanjing were enlarged to life-size for the exhibition. The authenticity of the articles is contested.
Shanghai Consul General Yuji Kumamaru told senior officials of the city and the memorial hall that the exhibits “don’t provide sufficient coverage of Japan’s postwar development and the friendly relations between the two nations after the normalization of their diplomatic ties.”
Japan is disturbed by the nature of the exhibits, which it believes goes against mutual moves to improve bilateral relations. Once-chilly bilateral ties turned around in the past year enough to make Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declare, “Spring has come [to bilateral relations].”
Apparently out of consideration for Japan’s stance, the hall has an expanded exhibition on bilateral “friendship” that centers around Japan’s provision of official development assistance to China. Given the overwhelming “anti-Japanese” sentiment of the exhibits, however, the exhibition on the whole is clearly unbalanced, as Kumamaru pointed out.
The memorial hall has served as a pivot for nurturing patriotism among Chinese by stressing the brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army and the orthodoxy of the Chinese Communist Party that “defeated the invaders.”
The memorial hall was built to “record history on the soil of Nanjing with the blood shed in the massacre” in 1985, according to the hall, following a history textbook controversy in 1982. The controversy was ignited after Japanese media reported that the word “invasion” used in a history textbook to describe the Imperial Japanese Army’s move into northern China had been replaced with the word “advance.”
In 1997, the hall was designated as a “model base for patriotic education” in a bid to underpin the legitimacy of the Chinese government, which had been shaken in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
The exhibits reflect the fact that the hall repeatedly has been used for political ends. Patriotic education cannot be compromised as such education is essential if the Communist Party wants to garner public support for its monolithic rule at a time when social ills, such as economic gaps between haves and have-nots, and political corruption are ever proliferating.
When work to expand the hall was launched in 2005, bilateral relations deteriorated to one of the lowest levels over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine and other thorny issues. Also that year, large anti-Japanese demonstrations were held across China.
In some respects, anti-Japanese sentiment prevailing on Chinese Internet sites is preempting any moves toward “weak-kneed” diplomacy and making concessions with Japan difficult.
Meanwhile, another source of concern for Japan is that more and more Chinese people support submitting an application to have the hall registered as a World Heritage Site like the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps and the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
According to a Chinese newspaper, one obstacle standing in the way for the hall to be registered as a World Heritage Site had been the size of the plot of land on which the hall stands. Under UNESCO rules, a site must have at least 5.33 hectares in order to apply for registration, the paper said. The latest expansion project has made it possible for China to apply for the designation.
Moves to win international recognition for the hall as a form of “negative cultural heritage” are evident in the hall’s addition of a 3.2-hectare “peace square” with a goddess statue.
Zhou Chengshan, director of the memorial hall, said the exhibits “aren’t aimed at implanting grudges or hatred.”
But it appears the hall is trying to make the “history trump card” more effective, while at the same time managing anti-Japanese sentiment.
As long as the exhibits are a reflection of Chinese domestic politics, the Chinese government is unlikely to accept the Japanese government’s request to tone down the message sent by the museum. Moves to register the hall as a World Heritage Site could very well develop into a political morass.
China’s continuing use of historical issues for political purposes will inevitably hinder the healthy development of bilateral ties, especially at a time when a joint study of history by scholars of the two nations is under way.
The Japanese government should spare no effort in making its stances on those issues clear. Beijing, for its part, should refrain from manipulating public opinion by denouncing the Japanese government’s request as “negation of the historical events,” thereby fanning anti-Japanese sentiment.
(Jan. 26, 2008)
Okinawa mass suicide
Don’t allow politicization of textbook screening
The Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20071228dy01.htm
Based on its basic view of what occurred in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the Textbook Authorization Council on Wednesday recommended that Education, Science and Technology Minister Kisaburo Tokai approve applications from six textbook publishers to revise references to mass suicides that took place in the battle. The ministry immediately approved the applications.
The applications for revisions to high school textbooks on Japanese history to be used from the next academic year did not directly contradict the opinion on the Japanese military’s role in the Battle of Okinawa released this spring by the screening panel, based on which it made its recommendation to the ministry on textbook approval. But the latest move indicates that problematic revisions were made out of political motives.
The description, “People were driven to commit mass suicide,” written in line with the panel’s instructions after the spring screening, has been changed to “People were driven to commit mass suicide using hand grenades and other items that had been distributed to them with the involvement of the Japanese military.”
The newly revised description was justified on the claim that the mass suicides were prompted by education and propaganda that encouraged residents to commit suicide en masse rather than be taken as prisoners of war.
The initial revision applications contained the sentence “There were people who were coerced to commit mass suicide by the Japanese military.” But in line with the panel’s instruction, this sentence was toned down.
Revisions made too easily
To screen the revision applications, the Textbook Authorization Council heard opinions from nine experts and settled on the view that it “could not confirm” that the mass suicides were committed under orders of the Japanese military. It said there were “various factors” behind the suicides.
Litigation is continuing on the issue of whether the Japanese military ordered the mass suicides. Taking this into consideration, the panel admitted there was military “involvement,” but that it was unclear whether there was “coercion.” This observation did not deviate from spring’s opinion.
However, in the revision applications, a claim that the Japanese military gave hand grenades to residents saying, “Use these to commit suicide,” was approved. The approval was made based on testimonies of residents, although some experts have questioned the credibility of these witness accounts.
One of the textbooks also added the fact that the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly adopted a resolution to demand that the panel retract its spring screening opinion. This textbook was approved.
If revisions are allowed to be made to already authorized textbooks in such an easy manner, the school textbook screening system could be shaken by domestic and overseas political pressure.
Rally swayed govt decision
What pushed the government to accept the revision applications was a mass rally on Sept. 29 of Okinawa Prefecture residents demanding the withdrawal of the spring screening opinion.
The rally’s organizer put the number of participants at 110,000. However, a major Tokyo-based security company estimated the number at between 18,000 and 20,000 based on its analysis of an aerial photograph.
The curtain rose on the “drama of revision” when the organizer gave an estimate of the crowd size that was five times that of the security company, putting the government on its back foot.
The government should never repeat the stupidity of allowing political intervention in the textbook-screening process.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 27, 2007)
(Dec. 28, 2007)
A troubling position on ‘comfort women’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20071215TDY04305.htm
The Japanese government must lobby other governments to persuade them not to follow in the footsteps of the European Parliament in adopting a resolution that sullies Japan’s standing.
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution condemning Japan over the “comfort women” issue. The resolution calls for the government to apologize, saying the Imperial armed forces coerced young women in Asia to work as “sex slaves” before and during World War II.
The latest development resembles the resolution adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives over the comfort women issue in July. This matter has now spilled over to Europe. The parliaments of Canada and the Netherlands also have adopted similar resolutions.
However, interest in the comfort women issue has not necessarily been high in Europe. The European Parliament’s resolution was advocated by the minor Green Party and fewer than 10 percent of the members of parliament attended the voting.
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Moves behind the scenes
However, Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, has organized hearings of former comfort women, including Dutch women, at various places, and is lobbying many governments to adopt resolutions on the issue. Anti-Japanese organizations with ties to China and South Korea are orchestrating such moves behind the scenes.
When Japan controlled Indonesia during World War II after ousting the Dutch military, detained Dutch women were taken by Japanese soldiers and forced to become comfort women against their will. However, Japanese military headquarters in Jakarta closed down the comfort station immediately after learning of the incident, and released the women.
This was indeed an unfortunate incident, but the story provides “counterevidence” that sinks allegations that the Japanese military systematically coercively recruited women into sexual service.
Officers and soldiers involved in the incident were sentenced as Class-B and Class-C war criminals by a war tribunal in the Netherlands after the war.
The German military had more than 500 “comfort stations” in East Europe and other occupied areas, yet we rarely hear a peep about this. A number of documents verify this fact, including a report by an official of the Catholic Church to the then pope, saying Nazis took Jewish women to serve as prostitutes for German soldiers.
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Kono statement to blame
The Green Party that advocated the adoption of the latest resolution has many German members. We wonder if they intend to keep silent over what happened in their own country many years ago.
One reason why Japan has been repeatedly dragged over the coals regarding the comfort women issue is the 1993 statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono. The statement suggested that Japanese officials systematically and coercively recruited women to be comfort women.
However, there is not one single document or a shred of evidence that substantiates this. Nobuo Ishihara, deputy chief secretary at that time, later said the Kono statement was issued to deflect pressure from South Korea, which had been pressing Japan to acknowledge it had carted off comfort women.
The government must review the Kono statement, which has become a source of misunderstanding in the international community.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 15, 2007)
(Dec. 15, 2007)
Interesting interview with WW2 veteran Robert B. Stinnett
This is an interview from Antiwar.com radio. It gives a fascinating background of politicking in the lead up to America’s entry into WW2.
The main thrust of the interview was the discovery by Stinnett of the McCollum memo, in which it recommends that the US government put put into effect a number of policies that will provoke the Japanese into declaring war on the US to facilitate the US entry into WW2.
The policies are below –
Nanjing Incident merits deeper discussion, study
The Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20071211TDY04305.htm
Thursday will mark the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Incident. Already 70 years have passed since the controversial incident took place. This is a good time for both Japan and China to deepen a cool dialogue on history.
On Dec. 13, 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army occupied Nanjing, the then capital of China, a great many Chinese citizens became victims of the occupation.
In Nanjing on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of Nanjing, the Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre will reopen after completing a two-year large-scale expansion project. At the same time, a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the event will be held.
Japan-China relations have improved thanks to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to China last year and the visit paid to Japan in April by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. China has been avoiding blatant criticism of Japan, out of apparent consideration for the changing situation. China did not make any negative comments even when the Defense Agency was upgraded to a ministry in January.
At present, 70 years after the event, the Nanjing Incident is not on the bilateral political agenda.
However, there still is a deeply rooted anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese public. Surfing China-based Web sites reveals anti-Japanese opinions being expressed by Chinese youth across the country.
Taught to hate?
Since the mid-1990s the Chinese government has been reinforcing its anti-Japan patriotic education. At many memorial halls to the war of resistance against Japan in China, including the Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, the exhibitions and sizes of the halls have been repeatedly expanded.
At the same time, the Chinese government has repeatedly announced its view that patriotic education is for developing a sense of citizenship in young people for the future and that there is no anti-Japanese education. If that is true, there may be many things that China has to rethink.
At war of resistance memorial halls throughout the nation, photos and other materials that emphasize brutal acts by the Imperial Japanese Army have been displayed. It has been revealed by reexaminations of the incident by Japanese scholars that these exhibitions include quite a few fabricated photos made and used by the then ruling Chinese Nationalist Party for its resistance war campaign.
A suprapartisan association of Diet members formed to ask China to remove unfair photos from such memorial halls was launched in June and has already started its activities. The Japanese government, too, should urge China to review such exhibitions as they may invite misunderstanding.
Dispute over numbers
The Chinese government’s official tally of victims of the Nanjing Incident has not been revised from 300,000.
Indeed, when the Japanese forces wiped out the remaining Chinese soldiers hiding in the city, many executions and violence against civilians obviously took place, according to records and testimonies from the time.
However, there are theories that the number of victims was about 40,000 and that only a fraction of those deaths were murders that violated international law.
Recently, even some Chinese scholars say scholarly debate should be deepened on the number of victims. Such a flexible stance has been aired even in China.
The Nanjing Incident is an important area for bilateral joint studies on history conducted by Japanese and Chinese historians. It is necessary for Japan and China to jointly proceed with empirical research toward the final report to be compiled next year.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 11, 2007)
(Dec. 11, 2007)
“Nanking Massacre”
Documentary film “Nanking” part5 of 5
“Nanking Massacre”
Documentary film “Nanking” part4 of 5
“Nanking Massacre”
Documentary film “Nanking” part3 of 5
“Nanking Massacre”
Documentary film “Nanking” part2 of 5
Study of English 