Abe is taking Japan down a dangerous path
By Han Dongping (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2013-01-17 14:39
The newly elected Japanese LDP Government is adopting many new policies less than one month after its formation. On the military front, Abe has openly proposed amending the country's peace constitution, threatening to upgrade its Self-Defense forces into an all-encompassing military. The Japanese Government also took steps to significantly increase its military spending, the first time in over ten years.
Diplomatically, the Japanese Prime Minister has talked about establishing an ideologically oriented arch of friendly countries to contain China, attempting to take advantage of tensions arising from the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Abe also talked about changing Japan's position with regards its war crimes including the so-called comfort women who were forced into providing sexual services for invading Japanese soldiers during war-time. The Japanese deputy prime minister visiting Burma recently made a very public visit to a Japanese cemetery to honor the war dead there.
All these actions suggest that the newly elected Japanese Government is openly challenging the verdict imposed on Japan by the winners of WWII, China, the US, and other allied nations as a condition for peace. These Japanese actions have tremendous implications for Asian people as well as for the United States.
The Abe Government represents the right wing of Japanese society, which refuses to accept the verdict of WWII because they believe in the racial superiority of the Japanese nation.
Historically, the Japanese empire benefited tremendously from the numerous wars it launched against China, Korea and other nations, taking in large sums of money as war indemnities. As a result of the Cold War, the Japanese Government's war crimes against the Asian people, particularly the Chinese people, were not fully prosecuted.
That is one of the reasons why the Japanese elite, unlike its German counterpart, has been ambiguous about the verdict of WWII, refusing to apologize for the harms that Japanese war crimes brought about to its Asian neighbors. As a result, the Japanese public knows very little about Japanese war crimes during WWII. Many young Japanese today know nothing about the many atrocities caused by the Japanese government during WWII.
Former Japanese Ambassador Uichiro Niwa once resented that Japanese soldiers were portrayed as devils in the Chinese movies. Apparently, the Ambassador did not know that the Japanese aggressors were portrayed as devils against the Chinese people for a good reason.
Because the Japanese Government failed to educate the Japanese Youth about the country's war crimes against the Chinese and other people during the War, Japanese young people demonstrate utter ignorance about their nation's history during that period.
