Ronald Reagan visted a German war shrine in 1985 that had over a dozen SS officers buried there convicted of war crimes. Let's remember, there were 2.5 million Japanese buried at this shrine...and amongst them, 15 were convicted of war crimes by a foriegn tribunal - not by the Japanese. The Japanese have apologized for their past, as have the Germans...they have a right to honor their dead. Clearly, we know Hitler should not be honored, and nor anyone individually who could be considered to have wrecked massive amounts of evil and suffering upon the world... But we honor Genghis Khan....he would no doubt be considered a war criminal by today's standards.....
Check the fact about the first bolded part again, please. I totally agree with the second bolded part, so do so many posters here. Nobody ever questioned Japanese right to horor those 2.5 soldier, although many of them carried out direct war crimes. But Chinese and most Asians are willing to forgive them. The problem was, is and will be honoring those "individually who could be considered to have wrecked massive amounts of evil and suffering upon the world", as you said yourself the best. I don't understand what we are still arguing about. As for Genghis Khan, I don't remember any honoring by Chinese officials or mass Chinese civilians or anywhere in the world. Please forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken. BTW, to save some of your time for research, here is the harshest critic on Japanese war crimes by Japanese officials: "We regret that we caused some inconvenience to other Asian countries by entering them".
Why do some people here fail to realize after 16 pages, that hornoring 2.5 mil war deads is not the problem. The problem is the 14 class A war criminals who many consider equavelent to Hitler. The problem is how Japanese teaching in the shrine museum and in their high schools that the war they waged on Asian countries were an attempt to "save" them. I cannot help thinking that posters like NewYorker, StupidMonkey, and Lil may be Japanese decedents who hope to go back to their ancestors' militialism past. Not all Japanese are like that, but some are.
if only you'd do a little research. India attacked China first; the battle took place in China's territory. also, u need to use the dictionary, as you don't seem to understand what "invade" means. read your history books, as ignorance kills. had you done a little research, u'd have learned tha Tibet had been part of China some 300+ years before the birth of the USA. in the 1300s, the Mongols conquered Tibet and China, who became part of the Mongol empire, the Yuan Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, The Mongols ruled the Hans, Tibetan, and 50+ other ethnic groups in China. some 100 years later, The Mongolian-led Yuan dyanasty was supplanted by the Han-dominated Ming dynasty, who ruled China for ~ 300 years, before being supplanted by the Manchu-dominated Qing dynasty, who ruled for ~200 yrs. When Dr. Sun Yen Sen and his followers overthrew the Manchu rulers, in the early 1900s, the KMT-dominated ROC became the ruling party of modern China for ~40+ yrs. In the Civil War, in the late 1940s, the KMT was defeated by the CCP, who became the new ruling party of China. And if you have been keeping abreast of the current event, which i doubt, you'd have know that the Dali Lama, the former CIA operative, publically declared (in 2005) that Tibet is part of China. Facts contradict your baseless claim. Japan spents more on defense budget, even w the US providing it military support, than China. Japan's population is about 1/8 of China; it territory size is about 1/20 of China. Japan is an island nation, not surrounded by nation w arms capability China is surrounded by nations with arms capability---India, Russia, Taiwan, SK, etc. If only you keep abreast of the current events
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-prc_1962.htm Clearly states that China attacked India and invaded and captured terrority away from Indian forces. That's an invasion pal. And Chinese forces of Mao era invade Tibet...the Dali Lama worked for the CIA? You're getting ridiculous now. What are you reading man? Who is telling you this non-sense??? Don't believe your government. You also fail to mention that Japan's defense spending is mostly a check to the U.S. to pay for it's bases there to protect the Japanese from China. And Japan pays an inflated rate, so really that has to be taken into stock...and also that Japan's defense spending is less then 1% of GDP...and finally that China underreports its defense spending. So nice try, but no cigar.
If Japan wants to bury the past and teach their kids lies...well that's sad, but hey, who can stop them? But I'm talking about the shrine...and it's just a shrine....so the Japanese didn't label those guys war criminals, the allied forces did...and they are just 14 out of 2.5 million, so what is everone going crazy?
Because 1)the 14 are worshiped in the shrine and Japanese refuse to move them out of the shrine 2)the museum in the shrine bury the past and teach their kids lies. You have no problem with Japanese doing these, but then you have problem with people criticize Japanese? We aren't shouting "kill all Japanese" and who is going crazy? Even if we were, it is sad but who is gonna stop us and what is your going crazy, right?
Another nice spin. Are you referring to the Bitburg visit that was probably the biggest fiasco of Mr. Reagan's Presidency as White House aides have acknowledged? Time magazine called it The Bitburg Fiasco. Yet, it's no shrine. It's a simple cemetery. And none of the members of SS buried there were of magnitude of those Class A war criminals in Japanese Shrine.
I agree here with you that it is a big difference. In the latter half of the war the Waffen-SS divisions were drafting soldiers, so without knowing specifics about the individuals it is impossible to truly say that they were definitely war criminals. Though the Waffen-SS was a bunch of fanatical nut-jobs they were not all guilty of war crimes (see Günter Grass). The super-evil SS were the Totenkopf-SS, who were responsible for all of the mass killings. Paying homage at a cemetary that contains some unknown SS members is very different from paying homage to individuals who are known to be particularly nasty.
I don't understand what the big deal is. China teaches its people that it "liberated" Tibet - I mean, now talk about revisionist history. Don't you think it's a bit of a double standard to cry about Japan lying about it's past when China does the same????
So you go ahead criticizing China, like every american administration has, but decides to turn a blind eye on Japan? It is very fair.
Hey NewYorker, this thread is now 16 pages long and you are basically just repeating yourself in every single post. It's getting boring. Your argument can be summaried in one sentence which is: China shouldn't complain about what Japan has done in WWII because China has also make mistakes after the war. Let me tell you this. In the course of history, every nation has her own mistakes. So are you going to argue that Americans shoud not complain about the 911 incident because of the mistakes committed on the native Indians? Or that the British shouldn't complain about the terrorist attack in London because of how they have treated the native people during the era of colonialism? Or that The Russisns have no right to complain about the German because of what Stalin has done after the war? (luckily we don't have to get into this topic because, unlike the Japanese, the Germans are man enough to face the history) I guess in your perfect world, no one can complain about anything because no one nation is perfect, right? It's moronic to argue that A should not complain about something terrible that B has done because A has also been wrong in another unrelated incident. There is a reason why we have a different thread for each topic. If you want to talk about Tibet, start another thread on it. Don't try to keep derailing this thread. This thread is about Chinese, Koreans and other Asians against the visit of the Japanese prime minister to the war shrine because of the war crimes that the Japanese have committed in WWII. Do you have the ability to stay on the topic?
How can you compare visiting a war shrine to 9/11? It's not the same thing - one is symbolic, another was the killing of thousands of people. You really need to think about that.
I am not comparing the 9/11 incident to the shrine visits. I was giving you examples to show how moronic it is to argue that A should not complain about something B has done because A has been wrong in another unrelated incident. According to the logic of your arguments in this thread, no one can complain about anyone else because no one is perfect. Wrong?
NewYorker has no logic. He just said that Japan has a military spending comparable to Korea or Taiwan. He's proven himself nothing but a moron.
No, like I said, the two aren't comparable. COmplaining about a guy visiting a shrine is completely different then complaining about being blown to smitherines. One results in a loss of nothing. The other results in a loss of life. China is complaining about nothing. It's complaining about what a head of state does in his own country. If Japan nukes Beijing, then sure we'd all expect China to complain. Obviously. Your comparison makes no sense. It's completely non-sequitar. I'm just saying why on earth is China so wrapped up about a war shrine from a country that has espoused peace for 60 years when China has been conquering and oppressing people in the same time span? It's a double standard that needs redress. And if it's boring to you - then don't post....or even better - don't read!!!!!
Now I've found out either you can't read or you just choose not to read it right. I feel like I am talking to a stone wall here. Anyway, I will try to make it concise and easy for you here. Your logic: 'A' should not complain about what 'B' has done because 'A' has also been wrong in another unrelated incident. My question: So according to your logic, no one can complain about whatever anyone else has done because everyone has make mistake before. Correct? Let's just focus on the theme of this thread. Don't derail it.
That site unfortunately doesn't tell the whole story. Yes the PLA did attack Indian positions, but that was after India and China had been skirmishing for a while with India often itself initiating small offensive operations and after India forward deployed forced to laid claim to land that can hardly be conclusively claimed to be Indian land. India deployed forces to try to claim disputed land by force why is it wrong for China not do the same? India wasn't about to let China claim all of the disputed land so why should one expect China to do so? I got most of this info from the book by Neville Maxwell called India's China War. He is neither Chinese nor Indian but a respected objective historian. It hardly paints India as some kind of peaceful nation ruthlessly attacked by China. Rather it paints the fact that India and China both had a border despite over a poorly defined border and both prepared for war and India lost. It also clearly states that China despite winning overwhelmingly on the field took far less territory than it could have. India and China disputed territories. They both skirmished and prepared for war and war eventually broke out. India lost. Its that simple. The only thing I have to say about this is that Chinese forces invaded a territory recognized as Chinese by all govt of China from the Qing dynasty to the ROC to the PRC as well as the world community at large. Tibet was not and has never been recognized as an independent nation when it was invaded. If this fact doesn't matter then that's fine and you can still condemn the invasion regardless but under international law, China did have a legitimate right to establish its sovereignty over all recognized Chinese territories even though you may argue the morality of it if you wish.
But what about that fact that (from wikipedia): For the Japanese PM to visit a shrine that esponses such beliefs can only signal that he sympathesize with these views and that the govt he heads is far from being contrite and taking accountability for its WWII aggression and suffering that it cause.
