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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
Japan’s futile model of atonement
    2018-08-06  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

Je Hoon Lee

mikalee98@gmail.com

OVER 60 years have passed since Japan signed the surrender documents that formally ended World War II, but vivid memories of Japanese belligerence and war crimes remain in East Asia.

In two of Japan’s closest neighbors — South Korea and China — public protests and criticisms targeting Japan’s past brutality have been widespread. Considering that Germany — another member of the Axis Powers during WWII — is today considered a world leader in diplomacy and fights alongside its European neighbors in NATO and U.N. operations, some might interpret the reaction of South Korea and China to Japan’s historical mistakes as hypersensitive. However, the truth is — it is not. South Korea and China have held a tenacious stance on Japan’s past atrocities because Japan’s model of atonement has been futile. In other words, Japan’s official apologies have been more insincere than genuine and even counterproductive at times. It is imperative that Japan recognizes the futility of its current model of atonement.

Apologies matter in international politics. They are not “cheap talk.” If Japan wishes to garner greater respect from its neighbors, the country needs to acknowledge its historical mistakes with good grace. Only then will Japan be able to take a greater role in bolstering economic and security cooperation in East Asia.

Since the end of World War II, Japan’s reaction to its past actions has evolved greatly. The Japanese Government initially whitewashed the country’s colonialist effort by remembering it as a force that advanced Asia’s development. It also emphasized Japan’s victimhood resulting from the United States’ bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many Japanese conservatives were concerned that negative coverage of Japan’s wartime aggression would lessen Japanese people’s patriotism. However, as Japan began establishing formal relations with its East Asian neighbors, the government offered token apologies. For example, then-Foreign Minister Etsusaburo Shiina called the period during which Japan annexed Korea an “unhappy period” in 1965. In 1972, then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka told the people of China that Japan was fully conscious of its past behavior and held itself responsible for the damage it inflicted on the country.

While the token apologies mentioned above were a step in the right direction, they were more than neutralized, and even rendered counterproductive by the actions of conservative figures and the government itself. In 2001, the Japanese Ministry of Education approved the New History Textbook, which was written by a group of conservative writers known as the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. The textbook offered a revisionist account of Japan’s war crimes, whitewashing the country’s war of aggression against China as well as Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910.

Counterproductive actions have not been limited to conservative scholars. Japanese prime ministers such as Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe have made publicized visits during their tenure to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead including WWII war criminals. As a result, the South Korean and Chinese governments have strongly opposed Japan’s official visits to the Yasukuni shrine because visiting the shrine is equivalent to paying respect to the Japanese war criminals convicted and executed by war tribunals following World War II.

Remembrance of past events and apologies matter because how countries deal with their history conveys their future foreign policy stance. A country acknowledging and apologizing for its past atrocities will be considered a more trustworthy member of international society. In East Asia — a region that has been and will continue to be pivotal in defining foreign and economic policies of many countries around the world — cooperation is critical. Cooperation cannot take place without mutual understanding between the three major countries in East Asia — Japan, South Korea and China. And for there to be mutual understanding, there must be trilateral reconciliation — the outcome of which will be defined by Japan’s model of atonement in the future. More than ever, Japan’s model of atonement needs to be unswervingly definitive. It only takes one mistake to counterbalance many decades of repentance efforts.

It is true that if Japan’s model of atonement undergoes a successful redevelopment, it will remove a significant barrier to sustained economic and political cooperation between Japan and South Korea and China. However, it is important to note that no one — especially the people of the three countries — should ever forget the war atrocities that Japan committed. Acknowledging the past and looking towards the future is very different from erasing the past from one’s memory. We must remember them so that we do not repeat the same mistakes or let similar mistakes take place in the future.

(The author is a student at Dartmouth College, the United States.)

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