Source:
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4449005.stm
Published: 2005/04/16 11:04:22 GMT
-----------------
The row
over Japan's past and future
By William Horsley, BBC News, Tokyo
Japan's decision to approve new school textbooks, criticised by
some for glossing over the country's wartime record, have promoted
demonstrations in several Chinese cities. But as William Horsley
discovers the row between the two countries concerns the future as
well as the past.
The most striking thing about the Yasukuni Shrine is its massive
and forbidding black "torii" gate.
A distinctive symbol of the Shinto religion, a gaunt silhouette
beneath which, on a bright spring day, I watched men and women of
all ages streaming in to pay their respects to ancestors, or to
admire the enchanting display of cherry blossoms on the tree-lined
avenue.
Each family group would pause, shut their eyes and pray in front of
the open-plan wooden building where the souls of
two-and-a-half-million Japanese war dead are enshrined.
Those war dead include Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister
who was later hanged with a dozen other top leaders as a war
criminal.
Japan's present leader, Junichiro Koizumi has made regular visits
to Yasukuni Shrine in spite of furious complaints from China, South
Korea and other neighbouring countries that in doing so he was
condoning Japan's aggressive war in the 1930s and 1940s.
And now, the news from China is bad, very bad.
Demonstrations
Last weekend an angry crowd gathered in Beijing to throw stones at
the Japanese embassy.
In other cities young people have attacked Japanese shops and
businesses.
In Shanghai two Japanese students were badly beaten up in a
restaurant.
Chinese leaders say Japan will not deserve a permanent seat on the
UN Security Council until it faces up honestly to its wartime
misdeeds.
An e-mail doing the rounds in China calls for a mass boycott of
Japanese goods. "Send this on to other Chinese people", the message
says, "and we won't need to go to war!"
History
This stream of invective against the Japanese is not new.
Some Asia watchers see it largely as a device by Chinese leaders to
extract more Japanese aid or divert attention from their own
failings.
It is alarmingly reminiscent of the age of the Communist Red
Guards.
The Yasukuni Shrine remains a potent symbol of how the Japanese,
intoxicated by fascism and coerced by military rule, once
collectively lost their reason and were fed fantastic myths, of
racial superiority and the Emperor's divinity
But on this trip to Japan I could not avoid the conclusion that a
new mood of nationalism has also begun to take hold in this country
which has been publicly devoted to peace and economic prosperity
for so long.
One sign is the Japanese authorities' approval of several new
school history textbooks written by known right-wing
scholars.
One book which has angered the Chinese failed to make any
assessment of the number of Chinese civilians killed in the
infamous Rape of Nanjing.
The internationally accepted view is that hundreds of thousands
died in an orgy of sexual violence and killing by Japanese
troops.
And Japan's largest national newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, in
what I take to be blatant disregard for the known facts, has called
on its readers to celebrate, because the new textbooks have cut out
all mention of one of the greatest of all the humiliations
inflicted by Imperial Japan on its neighbours: the use of large
numbers of women in conquered Asian countries as sex slaves for the
Japanese army.
It was right to set the record straight, I read, because the
accusations "had been shown to be untrue".
Surely I thought modern Japan could not give in to the poison of
such deceit and hypocrisy ever again.
The Yasukuni Shrine remains a potent symbol of how the Japanese,
intoxicated by fascism and coerced by military rule, once
collectively lost their reason and were fed fantastic myths, of
racial superiority and the Emperor's divinity.
'Bitter dispute'
I had come to see the recently expanded Yasukuni museum of Japanese
history.
For 100 years Japan has been number one in Asia. Now China, with 10
times Japan's population, is in a hurry to take over that
role
I found that its 18 galleries of high-quality displays, maps and
texts amount to a lavish
and expensive re-write of the history of Japan's imperial age, to
show the Japanese as innocent victims of a conspiracy by the
Western colonial powers, to thwart Japan's ambition to lead East
Asia and force Japan into war.
By this account annexing Korea, setting up a puppet regime in
Manchukuo, the step by step takeover of China, each was done in
self-defence, aiming only to bring peace.
As for Nanjing, I found
no mention of Japanese soldiers killing civilians.
Instead, these words: "The Chinese were soundly defeated, suffering
heavy casualties. Inside the city, residents were once again able
to live their lives in peace."
However you look at it, that will not do as a record of what
happened.
By chance I came across this testimony of a Japanese army veteran
who was there.
"No matter how young or old, none of the
women we rounded up could escape being raped. Each one was
allocated to 15 or 20 soldiers for sexual intercourse and
abuse."
Afterwards "we always stabbed them and killed them. Because dead
bodies don't talk."
The bitter dispute now raging
between Japan and China is both about setting the record straight
and about a struggle for power.
For 100 years Japan has been number one in Asia.
Now China, with 10 times Japan's population, is in a hurry to take
over that role.
And as with highly-geared racing cars sharing the same circuit, it
is the moment of overtaking that brings the greatest risk of a
crash. [/size]
====================================
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 16 April, 2005
at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4.