I'm pretty sure the Chinese gov't would be just as happy if Japanese gov't officials stopped their annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where the names of 14 A-class war criminals are listed.
I'm of the belief that unless a war crime was committed, no apology is required. Although, it was a very nice gesture from Obama to visit Hiroshima.
Do you have any idea what Japan did to the Pacific nations prior to the US putting a stop to them?
Japan simply hasn't done enough to acknowledge the atrocities they committed in WWII. Until they do, no president should visit Hiroshima. The combined casualties from both A-bombs was about 200k, but the Japanese killed 25+ million civilians in the surrounding Asian countries.
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No doubt the U.S. was putting the economic screws to Japan prior to the war. But that doesn't invalidate the facts that:
A) In 1931, Japan invaded China without any provocation and waged a brutal war of domination to secure resources.
B) IN 1941, Japan attacked American and European forces in the Pacific without any declaration of war.
That makes them the aggressor. It doesn't make one a racist or jingoist to recognize that sometimes the other guys really were the bad guys.
This is immaterial to the question you posed.
The Japanese head of state visited a pearl harbour memorial 22 years ago. You can get semantical that it wasn't the Prime Minister or that they aren't doing a tour regions they brutalized during the second world war, but diplomacy doesn't always require reciprocation.
Visiting the Hiroshima site is a good first step in those relations.
I don't really think apologies are necessary on either side. It was war. Terrible things were done. I just think that showing up there and taking in what happened is a sign of continued peace and forgiveness for both parties.
I don't really think apologies are necessary on either side. It was war. Terrible things were done. I just think that showing up there and taking in what happened is a sign of continued peace and forgiveness for both parties.
Realistically a lot of what the Japanese Imperial Army did wasn't war.
Their conduct and the conduct of their government in terms of setting their Rules of Conduct was far beyond disgraceful.
They made the Nazi's look like gentlemen in terms of how civillians under their "care" were treated. While the Japanese talked about their honor code, they had very little honor in what they did.
Frankly when the Chinese built their first nuclear weapons I still stand amazed that they didn't test fire them on Tokyo, and I wouldn't have blamed them and still don't blame China for their ingrained bitterness at the Japanese, as well the other nations that the Imperial Army marched on.
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Do you have any idea what Japan did to the Pacific nations prior to the US putting a stop to them?
Japan simply hasn't done enough to acknowledge the atrocities they committed in WWII. Until they do, no president should visit Hiroshima. The combined casualties from both A-bombs was about 200k, but the Japanese killed 25+ million civilians in the surrounding Asian countries.
Cool your jets. I'm well aware that Japan committed war crimes, which they should openly admit to, and apologize for. I'm just saying that a meaningful first step would be for them to stop their annual visit to Yasukuni. They do this every year, and every year the Chinese and Korean gov'ts formally protest it.
The scientific fire-bombing of Tokyo is a concurrent event that escapes notice. As a Christian is hard not to see both acts as technically-inspired, pragmatic war crimes in a conflict replete with similar horrors. I am not equivocating the brutal Japanese tyranny with a free American republic, but many of those vaporized by the bomb were pure innocents. Man’s sin is never justified even in a so-called good war.
The scientific fire-bombing of Tokyo is a concurrent event that escapes notice. As a Christian is hard not to see both acts as technically-inspired, pragmatic war crimes in a conflict replete with similar horrors. I am not equivocating the brutal Japanese tyranny with a free American republic, but many of those vaporized by the bomb were pure innocents. Man’s sin is never justified even in a so-called good war.
I wonder if it is better to be vaporized or interned as a civilian under horrible conditions.
I actually met a man that was interned in a Japanese Camp as a child. Horrible stories.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
The important distinction is whether there is significant moral difference between technologically vaporizing civilians in order to win a war, and butchering innocent civilians because you won a war.
I am of course talking about say Dresden/Tokyo/Hamburg/Hiroshima/Nagasaki vs Nanking/Auschwitz/Dachau/Death March etc...
It seems to me that there is a significant difference, but that it is still much more narrow than we want to believe at this point in time. Make no mistake, all of the former incidences were brutal, purposeful demonstrations of Western technical superiority on an alter made out of human innocence. That said, so was the Holocaust.
The Japanese were doing something a little bit different.
I think there is a bit of a distinction, but its a line that you really want to think about before you cross it.
I believe that nobody on the American side truly believed that Japan would surrender without multiple brutal demonstration of what would happen if the war continued.
On top of that throughout the war the Japanese demonstrated the use of false surrenders to bring their enemy in closer and relax them and then kill them. I think that there was a bit of an idea floating around that a Japanese surrender would be insincere and used to draw in the American Fleet at a lowered alert level then hammer them.
There were several radio intercepts where the Japanese government was extorting their people to pick up rakes and shovels and fight to the last man woman or child.
At the same time, there was no only a feeling that the Japanese had to be punished, but their whole culture had to be torn down and rebuilt.
As well you had Stalin in the East making massive moves and you needed to demonstrate to him that you had the capability to stop him because as soon as the war ended there was a potential for a new one to ignite right away.
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[QUOTE=blankall;5769562]Do you have any idea what Japan did to the Pacific nations prior to the US putting a stop to them?
Japan simply hasn't done enough to acknowledge the atrocities they committed in WWII. Until they do, no president should visit Hiroshima. The combined casualties from both A-bombs was about 200k, but the Japanese killed 25+ million civilians in the surrounding Asian countries.[/QUOTE]
Japan took forever to make reparations for using Korean women as comfort women. Japan was a monster in WW2 like has been said here, and they certainly have revisionist history when it comes to the war.
Japan took forever to make reparations for using Korean women as comfort women. Japan was a monster in WW2 like has been said here, and they certainly have revisionist history when it comes to the war.
I believe that the Chinese looked at how the Japanese talked about and structured their apology for what they did to the woman of China and went, "Yeah next time a bit of sincerity would help"
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Realistically as soon as the Emperor of Japan ratified the "Three Alls" dictate in 1941 he should have been tried and hung as a war criminal.
Japan tried to portray him as an innocent who wasn't involved and didn't know what was going on, but he was a key factor in establishing unit 731, he personally signed the orders allowing for the use of chemical weapons in China and it was in his name that the Imperial Army ransacked and raped and brutally murdered because he defined the honor that they were fighting for.
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Japan took forever to make reparations for using Korean women as comfort women. Japan was a monster in WW2 like has been said here, and they certainly have revisionist history when it comes to the war.
Did Japan make reparations? If I remember correctly, it all hinged on the Koreans taking down the comfort woman statue. Which I don't think they have.
World War II Japan[edit]
According to Article 14 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan (1951): "Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war. Japan will promptly enter into negotiations with Allied Powers". War reparations made pursuant to the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan (1951) include: reparations amounting to US$550 million (198 billion yen 1956) were made to the United States, and US$39 million (14.04 billion yen 1959) to Viet Nam; payment to the International Committee of the Red Cross to compensate prisoners of war (POW) of 4.5 million pounds sterling (4.54109 billion yen) was made; and Japan relinquished all overseas assets approximately US$23.681 billion (379.499 billion yen).
Japan signed the peace treaty with 49 nations in 1952 and concluded 54 bilateral agreements that included those with Burma (US$20 million 1954,1963), the Republic of Korea (US$300 million 1965), Indonesia (US$223.08 million 1958), United States (525 million US dollars/52.94 billion yen 1967), Malaysia (25 million Malaysian dollars/2.94 billion Yen 1967), Thailand (5.4 billion Yen 1955), Micronesia (1969), Laos (1958), Cambodia (1959), Mongolia (1977), Spain ($5.5 million 1957), Switzerland, Netherlands ($10 million 1956), Sweden and Denmark. Payments of reparations started in 1955, lasted for 23 years and ended in 1977. For countries that renounced any reparations from Japan, it agreed to pay indemnity and/or grants in accordance with bilateral agreements. In the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China (1972), People's Republic of China renounces its demand for war reparation from Japan. In the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, the Soviet Union waived its rights to reparations from Japan, and both Japan and the Soviet Union waived all reparations claims arising from war.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Corporal Jean-Marc H. BECHARD, 6 Aug 1993
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Just ignore me...I'm in a mood today.
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Are people angry that he's there? Or do they feel it's about time a US president came to the site?
He was very well received, in an opinion pool done by NHK, most people are happy to have him visit and most of them also accepted and appreciated what he had to say (not necessarily an outright 'apology')
