Japanese PM denies wartime 'comfort women' were forced

That is a big influence. My mom told me of the image of a Japanese soldier impaling a pregnant woman with his bayonet. Notwithstanding the truth of the matter, several other people could and have easily believe(d) those second hand accounts without seeing the image itself. It could be taken as several soldiers committing the act.

It's hard to hold the accuracy of the atrocities spreading around in aggrieved nations like China and the Koreas when Japan fails to officially acknowledge a good faith account on their own.

Should Japan decide to militarize, a lot of countries in Asia won't look at them as favorably.

 

To give you some historical perspective, Jews and Japanese have been buddy buddy since the beginning of the last century.

Jewish bankers provided Japan with much needed financial assistance during the Russo-Japanese War. To return the favor, Japan allowed many Jewish refugees to have asylum in Shanghai, China, after the Jews fled Nazi Germany and much of the Europe during the WWII.

 

According to your logic then, despite the witness' accounts and victims' testimonies, a criminal suspect can never be convicted if he doesn't confess the crime?

 

I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you trying to say the Jews are responsible for helping the Japanese in the rape of Nanking?

A quick search of wikipedia indicates that it wasn't exactly all the Jews and Japanese against the Chinese.

for instance:

Here's one jew who fought the Japanese.

Here's another.

Also, I'm not sure of the validity but wikipedia claims that the reason the Jews went to Shanghai had nothing to do with the Japanese, but the fact that it didn't require passports, and the only Japanese involvement was to not try and stop the Jews as a way to avoid angering the United States anymore before they were ready to do so.

 

I am not sure why you would reach that conclusion. I am not sure why your two isolated examples would lend much credence to your conclusion, either. It's like citing Schindler's List as an example to prove Germans and Jews were eternal friends during the WWII.

 

Not requiring passport to enter China is merely a condition that facilitated the massive Jewish emigration to Shanghai. Further, if the Japanese had slight concern for the West and/or the U.S. regarding those Jewish refugees, they had none whatsoever when the Pacific War broke out.

 

You go to pains to indicate how close the Jews were with the Japanese. In the context of the thread, and it's discussion of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese, I'm not sure why else one would want to point out a closer than normal relationship between anybody and the Japanese.

The other reason this might be brought up would be if you were making a statement about the relationship between Jews and Japansese, vs. Chinese and Germans. In this instance, it doesn't seem particularly important to make clear how close a relationship existed, only that they weren't adversaries.

I guess you could be saying that if the Jews were not in bed with the Japanese they would hate them just like the Chinese, whereas the lack of Chinese hatred for Germans is just natural... I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just can't think of very many good reasons to bring that particular point up if it is not to disparage 'The Jews' as a monolithic entity...

 

now that makes sense to me

thanks for stating it in a way that is easily understood by someone not that familiar with japan's domestic issues.

my main confusion seemed to be that the article mentioned potential damage to their international reputation, which I thought was difficult to do considering what they did in WW2 (which, btw, contrary to opinions about americans, I *do* know my history thank you very much)

that was all, I wasnt tryin to make excuses or anything stupid like that, just confused about how their internationl rep could get worse than it already is (when referring to wartime actions)

just wanted to clarify that since it appeared some were confused by my question.


now, on to the rest of the thread.

 

My logic is more like using third hand accounts to fuel paranoia about witches. It's like how a lot of people claimed they saw Wilt Chamberlain's 100pt game when less than 6,000 people attended it and the game wasn't televised. Whether or not I believed my mother's account isn't the problem. It's a matter of what I or similar people do with it.

That paranoia and confusion is Japan's fault for not agreeing to an official historical account with other nations. The gravity of WWII will always turn up rumors and true yet unofficial accounts, but its credibility would be under more scrutiny.

 

The reason that Japan is viewed as having a positive effect by most countries is that outside of a few east asian countries, no one is still hung up on what they did in WWII, apology or no. Japan now is fairly pacifistic (constitutionally), does tons of trade, is known mostly for cars and consumer electronics. If you look at modern Japan, it would be hard to say they are negatively affecting the world. Of course they SHOULD own up to what they did in WWII, but that has very little effect on the world today.

 

Out of curiosity, how do you feel about the Holocaust?

 

they don't buy japanese because they don't like them personally for something they did, not out of principle over something they don't agree with. I don't like Burger King because I found a roach in my burger last year, however does that mean I need to stop going to all fast food places?

My read from Carl's opinion is that he's casting those Chinese in Nanjing as hypocrites because they refuse to buy Japanese but will buy German. Nothing could be further from the truth, it's personal especially when you still have survivors of the massacre in China.

I personally don't thnk a apology is needed, what's done is done, but when you start denying things happened, that's just being dumb. How could you ever hope for true reconciliation when you insist on using revisionist history to deny any wrongdoing?

 

I feel that the rampage Japan and Germany committed are horrors on the scale beyond the imagination of a person who hasn't lived through it.

If anyone, like pirc1, thinks that I'm saying that the massacres and horrors the Japanese Army committed are not "that bad", then they're mistaken.

My point is that the facts will speak for itself. The photos like the ones in his link doesn't need to be exaggerated to prove the gravity of Japanese crimes during WW2. I'm not saying that exaggerations are intentional. It's very easy to create more emotions upon hate, and that's why some accounts can be very persuasive.

In the aftermath of WW2, Germany and France set up a history commission to lay down the events in their bloody 80 year rivalry, which went back to the Franco-Prussian war and the billion dollar indemnities the loser paid after each war. This also set up an official account of Germany's actions during WW2, such as the Holocaust and the number of people they slaughtered.

Maybe this doesn't matter to the Holocaust victims, nor would the apologies from any German official. But on an official capacity, this admission laid groundwork that fostered alliances and partnerships with France and Israel.

 

I won't press you on what you feel those exaggerations are from WW2 since that's not my main focus.

I believe most of the anger towards Japan from China and South Korea comes from the fact that they are rewriting their history books to pretend that none of those war atrocities happened. I dont think anyoe really cares for an apology, but it would be appreciated if Japan did not work so hard at denying their actions. If Japan wants to have good relations with its two most powerful neighbors, they need to stop pandering to the denial crowd because all it does is rile up the nationalism in Korea and China

 

My point was Jews and Japanese have never been adversaries, rather, they looked after one another -- their interests as well as survivorship -- in two extremely critical historical events. There is no thrust for a Holocaust survivor to express outrage at Japanese on behalf of Chinese.

Germans were not exactly saints in the eyes of Chinese. I can guarantee you the memory of the brutality by Germany-led Expeditionary Force of the Eight-Nation Alliance in the suppressing of Boxer Movement is still refreshing in China. However, unlike Japan, Germany has undergone fundamental changes since the end of WWII, posed no threat to PRC, and has not messed with Taiwan, among other things. The attitude of average Chinese towards Germany reflects all those realities.

 

Whether you have problem with your mother's account with regard to Japan's atrocity in WWII is of no interest to me. However, your characterization of the grievances of the victims' and their indignation at Japan's whitewashing of its history as paranoia and witch hunting is troubling to me. I don't know what you are seeking to prove and/or disprove here, in the face of overwhelming evidences by eyewitnesses from more than just the East Asians.

 

I can tell you that the comfort women issue is pretty huge over here in Korea. Also, the whole Sea of Japan vs East Sea conflict is always in the news, as well as the Dokdo Islands controversy. My businessmen students are always getting worked up over these issues.

 

The Chinese victims of WWII probably did not take part in the violent anti-Japanese demonstrations that spilled out from the textbook protests in 2005. My focus is not to marginalize the victims or what they went through but rather to bring attention to this generation who has assumed the duty to bring justice to Japanese history denial.

As the WWII generation is slowly passing away, we're losing a crucial resource in eyewitness character testimony. Photo and documentation will have to make due, yet in the digital age, it has become easy to spread misinformation to promote slanted causes.

This does not marginalize the indignation of Asian nations, but the current climate makes it likely that violent reprisals in the name of the horrors that happened 50 years ago will occur again.

I agree. The apology would have to be followed with aggressive reconciliation. I'm not apologizing for Japan. This situation can get bloody far sooner than people expect.

 

They might have been there too if they were not all like 100 years old and sitting in wheelchairs in the nursing homes.

I don't know whether you have reading comprehension problem or you are just trying to ignore something that you cannot argue against. A few persons in this thread have already explained to you that the anger of the Chinese and the Korean is not primarily from the photos on the internet. The photos do help to make the whole issue more bitter. But the core of the problem is the cowardness of the current Japanese Government to try to deny history and rewrite their school textbooks in order to fool their next generation that nothing horrible has happened 60 years ago. And I find it interesting that you have been using the terms like 'exaggerations' and 'misinformation' to make the WWII Japanese atrocities sound like a hoax. Would you bother to explain in more details what has been exaggerated?

I pray to God too that what happened 60 years ago will never occur again. But who do you think has caused the current climate? The current Japanese Government which tries to deny and whitewash its history or the Chinese and the Korean who complain about the denial?