Many thanks for the insightful analysis of the dark and reactionary beginnings of Chinese nationalism. It has made sense of a lot confusing issues for me ... Especially the tenacious hate and resentment of the Japanese among the Chinese. I wonder how much different it would have been if Japan had been forced to confront their atrocities after the war and make reparations.
As for confronting the history, in my experience (very unscientific) it falls into three groups: (1) totally ignorant of what happened, (2) resentful that their sins must be constantly acknowledged when all are guilty and (3) aware of and think it was terrible.
Perhaps I should have been clearer ... I was following Robert's lead by implying that the Japanese did not make the same level of reparations as the Germans. German reparations went beyond the financial and cut deep into the social and cultural.
I think the Jewish community in particular have been (rightfully) persistent to make sure Germany and the Germans are forced to confront the atrocities the they (Nazis and complicit citizens) committed. Germans to this day are still self-conscious and ashamed of the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. The Japanese, on the other hand, are markedly less sensitive and knowledgeable about the atrocities the Japanese committed in China and other parts of Asia. This is partly due to the fact that massacres and war crimes were not committed on Japanese soil, but the more importantly, the Japanese did not face the same level of scrutiny and public examination as the Germans did, at the Nuremberg Trials right after the war and subsequently in the popular media with research, art and movies largely funded by the Jewish community. The Americans and Allies did not rake Japan across the same coals.
Mainland Chinese and Koreans, like the Jews, have not forgotten and should not forget Japan's despicable wartime behavior. But perhaps due to complicated post World War II domestic and international politics, neither China nor Korea were able to demand the same level of reparations. And so, the resentment and hatred still seethes. The question is, can anything be done to sublimate this hatred if it is so intimately tied to Chinese modern national conscious as Robert insightfully suggests?
Yes they should forgive as those responsible and those who suffered are almost all gone. Also,it was nothing like the Jews. It was a legitimately brutal war but it was nothing like what the Jews faced. If you want to compare it to Eastern Europe, that I would buy. I've never seen a riot in Israel, Eastern Europe against Germany yet the first time I visited Shanghai there were straight up riots against the Japanese. They are holding on to hate.
Reparations are negotiated through arbitration by a non-biased independent body. A small part of a tiny amount of $160,000.00 (estimated by USA, already busy recruiting Japanese war criminals) dished out worn out manufacturing equipment, some of which was originally stolen from China, Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia... It's so American it is to laugh.
I know the major wars/genocides were not settled in this fashion because I already know how settlements, if any, were reached. International law is not a pretty thing from an operational perspective and I have some experience in the field although not relating to settlements of wars.
Bottom-line, your statement was overreaching and not based in reality.
Yes, the killing of a 10 year-old Japanese schoolchild is morally bankrupt and the perpetrator should most definitely be prosecuted to the fullest extent. Your article asks the question of whether Chinese authorities have a role to play in toning down the legacy of Japanese hatred. I would suggest that this question should be posed to the Japanese authorities instead. One cannot change the facts of history, but it is possible to make peace and understanding for future generations through a process of truth and reconciliation. This is not an easy process, but genuine efforts made by many nations globally have already embarked on this challenge to varying degrees of success.
Since the post-WW2 trials, Japanese atrocities during the last century have been swept under the rug by both the Japanese and U.S. governments. Despite vociferous protests from a host of Asian victims and their families, the Japanese have only issued bland apologies, but have failed to address the issue head-on through a concerted attempt to be transparent regarding all the facts and reach out to affected communities with offers to achieve genuine reconciliation. The continual denial of Comfort Woman claims is just one visible example.
Moreover, to add insult to injury, visits to Yasukuni Shrine by leading politicians to promote Japanese nationalism act to enforce the perception among Asians that the Japanese are stubbornly headed in the opposite direction to reconciliation. As a result, historical hatred of the Japanese will persist among Asians for further generations so long as the perpetrator of the atrocities does not face up to its need to undertake meaningful reconciliation.
What we Southeast Asian diaspora Chinese went through at the hands of the Japanese, while horrific, is in no way comparable to what happened in the old country, and subsequent/successor SEA governments took official, pragmatic paths of mutual recognition and diplomatic relations despite the deep antagonisms that still live on in that war generation. In fact, so many young Southeast Asians are now weebs and otakus that it beggars imagination. Maybe one day we can find some kind of middle ground, but only if we remember that the seeds of past brutality still remain in the form of ultra-nationalists, and remain committed to promoting peace and reconciliation.
I think the societal reaction to condemn this action is appropriate. But I also think that to ask for zero hate crime is an over-reaction. You are a nation of 1.5 billion people. How many of these people have committed such heinous hate crimes in the last decade? To completely stop any crazy person at all from acting on their hate would require itself a crazy level of thought policing and surveillance that would erode and destroy society more than the occasional crime. And to ask China to stop teaching about the Sino-Japanese war is the equivalent of telling the UK to not teach about the Napoleonic wars, the Battle of Flanders or the German bombing raids on the UK in its English history classes, or the French to ignore the German invasion of France in WWII in its French history classes. To deracinate yourselves from your history is to rape yourself and worse, turn yourself into a tool for globalist elites to manipulate you into destroying your own country.
This is not to say that such acts should be ignored or worse, receive the stamp of societal approval. What your friend, Bob, said is wonderful. As a non-PRC citizen, it is absolutely not for me to say what your country should do. I would tentatively suggest that one possible approach to think about is to equip parents and teachers with the tools and ability to frame lessons on the Sino-Japanese war by discussing with their young charges how committing acts of hate against others who have committed acts of hate against you in the past only perpetuates the cycle of destruction. The benefit is that there are plenty of wuxia stories in Chinese popular culture that China can call on for that. I also suggest that what it will also take is societal reactions praising and highlighting those who condemn these acts and who have gone to lay flowers. Emphasizing the positive in this itself goes a long way towards building a solid culture that promotes peace and reconciliation. Dealing openly with the trauma of the past is unfortunately a necessary process that China needs to go through and deal with and it will sadly include both the terrible reactions and the positive reactions.
.... Will our “Japan problem” ever be solved? I don’t think so. The best we can do is to hope for our political system to be stable so that the brewing demon of hate among the people can be contained and channeled elsewhere......
Your country has achieved such miracles within the living generations, that it can address this problem with confidence and aiming at a results that would be nothing short of exemplary.
But "will the "Japan problem" ever be solved?" These words reveal a second deep problem, that is perhaps even more serious.
Will the problem of corruption ever be solved? Can one ever solve the problem of 'natural-born' psychopaths? Can nature ever be completely stopped from taking away the lives of innocents? To my mind, these questions are all of the same kind as yours. Each of them reveals a deep, underlying issue. It presents a conflation between worldly excellence on one hand, and the potential to create a perfection, 'a paradise' on the other. It is a conflation that leads to despair that can eat away our minds and sanity.
Is this something to which East Asian cultures are more susceptible to? Or is it more associated with youth, universally?
The answer to these questions is for another time.
Maybe China could institute something like Israel’s Birthright program, a free trip once in a lifetime for every Japanese citizen to go to either Harbin or Nanjing (or both) as part of a tour group, where they also meet and interact with similarly-aged Chinese accompanying them and seeing the same things during their tour. They’d see the great sites and have fun, and different tour companies could tailor activities differently, but all tours would necessarily include Unit 731 and/or Rape of Nanking. More dialogue and mutual understanding.
Yasakuni Shrine would be burnt to the ground by Japan's government the very day the USA ordered it so done, even if it was made to look like a mistake, or to better, (to suit a purpose of empire) blamed on China. Mimizuka has it's near equivalent in Ukraine, where parks built built during the Soviet Union to commemorate the OUN and Nazi genocide of Jews and Roma along with the streets leading to these mass burial sites are being renamed after men in the OUN/OUN-B lead the slaughters while the statues of the victims are torn down. Both of these events are done under the approving watchful eye of the US State Department, while the US Mass Media suppresses reporting.
There is a lot of anti-Asian violence that occurs daily in the USA that goes on unreported by the MSM while both Blue and Red chant anti-China propaganda which is all part of the state system of control in the USA. USA occupied Germany, now united, is turning up both anti-Chinese as well as anti-Russian retoric as official policy. Germany, Japan, and Ukraine are all tools of USA Inc. Perhaps we need to look past Japan itself to understand Japan's failure to modernize it's mindset.
Race based quotas are still a thing in American Immigration. Some of the laws and executive orders in this book are still in force. It's not because the ruling elite are extreme racist when it comes to exploitation; rather it helps with the divide and conquer aspect of controlling a poorly hidden empire. https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/how-to-hide-an-empire
Important correction: in the original post I mentioned Helmut Kohl, but in fact it was Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Many thanks for the insightful analysis of the dark and reactionary beginnings of Chinese nationalism. It has made sense of a lot confusing issues for me ... Especially the tenacious hate and resentment of the Japanese among the Chinese. I wonder how much different it would have been if Japan had been forced to confront their atrocities after the war and make reparations.
They did pay reparations. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs13/
As for confronting the history, in my experience (very unscientific) it falls into three groups: (1) totally ignorant of what happened, (2) resentful that their sins must be constantly acknowledged when all are guilty and (3) aware of and think it was terrible.
Perhaps I should have been clearer ... I was following Robert's lead by implying that the Japanese did not make the same level of reparations as the Germans. German reparations went beyond the financial and cut deep into the social and cultural.
I think the Jewish community in particular have been (rightfully) persistent to make sure Germany and the Germans are forced to confront the atrocities the they (Nazis and complicit citizens) committed. Germans to this day are still self-conscious and ashamed of the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. The Japanese, on the other hand, are markedly less sensitive and knowledgeable about the atrocities the Japanese committed in China and other parts of Asia. This is partly due to the fact that massacres and war crimes were not committed on Japanese soil, but the more importantly, the Japanese did not face the same level of scrutiny and public examination as the Germans did, at the Nuremberg Trials right after the war and subsequently in the popular media with research, art and movies largely funded by the Jewish community. The Americans and Allies did not rake Japan across the same coals.
Mainland Chinese and Koreans, like the Jews, have not forgotten and should not forget Japan's despicable wartime behavior. But perhaps due to complicated post World War II domestic and international politics, neither China nor Korea were able to demand the same level of reparations. And so, the resentment and hatred still seethes. The question is, can anything be done to sublimate this hatred if it is so intimately tied to Chinese modern national conscious as Robert insightfully suggests?
Yes they should forgive as those responsible and those who suffered are almost all gone. Also,it was nothing like the Jews. It was a legitimately brutal war but it was nothing like what the Jews faced. If you want to compare it to Eastern Europe, that I would buy. I've never seen a riot in Israel, Eastern Europe against Germany yet the first time I visited Shanghai there were straight up riots against the Japanese. They are holding on to hate.
Reparations are negotiated through arbitration by a non-biased independent body. A small part of a tiny amount of $160,000.00 (estimated by USA, already busy recruiting Japanese war criminals) dished out worn out manufacturing equipment, some of which was originally stolen from China, Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia... It's so American it is to laugh.
Name an instance where this arbitration council you talk about was used.
There is this thing called an internet search engine, I've found several but I'm not going to do your work for you, work you should do before posting.
I know the major wars/genocides were not settled in this fashion because I already know how settlements, if any, were reached. International law is not a pretty thing from an operational perspective and I have some experience in the field although not relating to settlements of wars.
Bottom-line, your statement was overreaching and not based in reality.
Yes, the killing of a 10 year-old Japanese schoolchild is morally bankrupt and the perpetrator should most definitely be prosecuted to the fullest extent. Your article asks the question of whether Chinese authorities have a role to play in toning down the legacy of Japanese hatred. I would suggest that this question should be posed to the Japanese authorities instead. One cannot change the facts of history, but it is possible to make peace and understanding for future generations through a process of truth and reconciliation. This is not an easy process, but genuine efforts made by many nations globally have already embarked on this challenge to varying degrees of success.
Since the post-WW2 trials, Japanese atrocities during the last century have been swept under the rug by both the Japanese and U.S. governments. Despite vociferous protests from a host of Asian victims and their families, the Japanese have only issued bland apologies, but have failed to address the issue head-on through a concerted attempt to be transparent regarding all the facts and reach out to affected communities with offers to achieve genuine reconciliation. The continual denial of Comfort Woman claims is just one visible example.
Moreover, to add insult to injury, visits to Yasukuni Shrine by leading politicians to promote Japanese nationalism act to enforce the perception among Asians that the Japanese are stubbornly headed in the opposite direction to reconciliation. As a result, historical hatred of the Japanese will persist among Asians for further generations so long as the perpetrator of the atrocities does not face up to its need to undertake meaningful reconciliation.
What we Southeast Asian diaspora Chinese went through at the hands of the Japanese, while horrific, is in no way comparable to what happened in the old country, and subsequent/successor SEA governments took official, pragmatic paths of mutual recognition and diplomatic relations despite the deep antagonisms that still live on in that war generation. In fact, so many young Southeast Asians are now weebs and otakus that it beggars imagination. Maybe one day we can find some kind of middle ground, but only if we remember that the seeds of past brutality still remain in the form of ultra-nationalists, and remain committed to promoting peace and reconciliation.
I think the societal reaction to condemn this action is appropriate. But I also think that to ask for zero hate crime is an over-reaction. You are a nation of 1.5 billion people. How many of these people have committed such heinous hate crimes in the last decade? To completely stop any crazy person at all from acting on their hate would require itself a crazy level of thought policing and surveillance that would erode and destroy society more than the occasional crime. And to ask China to stop teaching about the Sino-Japanese war is the equivalent of telling the UK to not teach about the Napoleonic wars, the Battle of Flanders or the German bombing raids on the UK in its English history classes, or the French to ignore the German invasion of France in WWII in its French history classes. To deracinate yourselves from your history is to rape yourself and worse, turn yourself into a tool for globalist elites to manipulate you into destroying your own country.
This is not to say that such acts should be ignored or worse, receive the stamp of societal approval. What your friend, Bob, said is wonderful. As a non-PRC citizen, it is absolutely not for me to say what your country should do. I would tentatively suggest that one possible approach to think about is to equip parents and teachers with the tools and ability to frame lessons on the Sino-Japanese war by discussing with their young charges how committing acts of hate against others who have committed acts of hate against you in the past only perpetuates the cycle of destruction. The benefit is that there are plenty of wuxia stories in Chinese popular culture that China can call on for that. I also suggest that what it will also take is societal reactions praising and highlighting those who condemn these acts and who have gone to lay flowers. Emphasizing the positive in this itself goes a long way towards building a solid culture that promotes peace and reconciliation. Dealing openly with the trauma of the past is unfortunately a necessary process that China needs to go through and deal with and it will sadly include both the terrible reactions and the positive reactions.
Even today, the Japanese murder far more Chinese than vice versa. This year alone,
a Chinese tourist was murdered in Osaka, a Chinese student was murderd in Hamana lake, and last month a Chinese student was stabbed to death there.
Humanity always has the opportunity to show what it's capable of - the good and the bad.
China and its people, along with Japan and its people, should work together in this healing process.
For the greater Chinese diaspora, this injury is deep and yet we all know that wallowing in the past is no way to live life.
We must all look forward.
.... Will our “Japan problem” ever be solved? I don’t think so. The best we can do is to hope for our political system to be stable so that the brewing demon of hate among the people can be contained and channeled elsewhere......
Your country has achieved such miracles within the living generations, that it can address this problem with confidence and aiming at a results that would be nothing short of exemplary.
But "will the "Japan problem" ever be solved?" These words reveal a second deep problem, that is perhaps even more serious.
Will the problem of corruption ever be solved? Can one ever solve the problem of 'natural-born' psychopaths? Can nature ever be completely stopped from taking away the lives of innocents? To my mind, these questions are all of the same kind as yours. Each of them reveals a deep, underlying issue. It presents a conflation between worldly excellence on one hand, and the potential to create a perfection, 'a paradise' on the other. It is a conflation that leads to despair that can eat away our minds and sanity.
Is this something to which East Asian cultures are more susceptible to? Or is it more associated with youth, universally?
The answer to these questions is for another time.
Maybe China could institute something like Israel’s Birthright program, a free trip once in a lifetime for every Japanese citizen to go to either Harbin or Nanjing (or both) as part of a tour group, where they also meet and interact with similarly-aged Chinese accompanying them and seeing the same things during their tour. They’d see the great sites and have fun, and different tour companies could tailor activities differently, but all tours would necessarily include Unit 731 and/or Rape of Nanking. More dialogue and mutual understanding.
Hi Robert:
I hope this US DOD document provides some fodder for further thoughts upon this issue.
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Litigation_Release/Litigation%20Release%20-%20The%20Strategic%20Consequences%20of%20Chinese%20Racism%20%20201301.pdf
Yasakuni Shrine would be burnt to the ground by Japan's government the very day the USA ordered it so done, even if it was made to look like a mistake, or to better, (to suit a purpose of empire) blamed on China. Mimizuka has it's near equivalent in Ukraine, where parks built built during the Soviet Union to commemorate the OUN and Nazi genocide of Jews and Roma along with the streets leading to these mass burial sites are being renamed after men in the OUN/OUN-B lead the slaughters while the statues of the victims are torn down. Both of these events are done under the approving watchful eye of the US State Department, while the US Mass Media suppresses reporting.
https://banderalobby.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
There is a lot of anti-Asian violence that occurs daily in the USA that goes on unreported by the MSM while both Blue and Red chant anti-China propaganda which is all part of the state system of control in the USA. USA occupied Germany, now united, is turning up both anti-Chinese as well as anti-Russian retoric as official policy. Germany, Japan, and Ukraine are all tools of USA Inc. Perhaps we need to look past Japan itself to understand Japan's failure to modernize it's mindset.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/cold-war-us-congress-china-propaganda
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/hitler-s-american-model
Race based quotas are still a thing in American Immigration. Some of the laws and executive orders in this book are still in force. It's not because the ruling elite are extreme racist when it comes to exploitation; rather it helps with the divide and conquer aspect of controlling a poorly hidden empire. https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/how-to-hide-an-empire