Time for everyone’s favorite subject: Sino-Japan relations!
Chinese Vice Premier Wu arrived in Tokyo a few days ago with the plan to meet PM Koizumi—but decided to cancel the meeting at the last minute. She cites “sudden duties.” Does that mean she leaves? Nope, she went on to deliver a speech to a local Japanese business group, saying “the relationship between the two countries is not satisfactory or benign.” And we will turn Tokyo into a sea of fire!
Japan was first frustrated,
then outraged, then decided to ignore Wu, although Koizumi was appropriately miffed about having his afternoon scheduled . “It was their request to hold a meeting and I thought it would have been a good opportunity. I don’t understand why they are canceling it now,” he told reporters Monday. “If they don’t want to meet, there is no need to.”
Preach it. Since the CCP crooks planned this from the getgo, why make the fuss about having the meeting in the first place only to spit in your hosts faces? What are you, children? Cut out the Pyongyang diplomacy, learn some %&#ing manners already, and get out of my city.
On a related note, a journalist acquaintence just brought Korea and China’s selective memory to my attention on the subject of war crimes. As in Germany, the allies set up three broad categories of war criminals, A, B, and C. The infamous class A war criminals—brought up on vague charges of “crimes against peace”—targeted those in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, and Shanghai who directed the war from their offices. Class B and C criminals, which could be leveled at Japanese of any rank, covered “conventional war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” respectively. In other words, the people who were on site when Nanjing, Bataan, and Singapore occurred.
Now for the numbers. Over 300,000 Japanese were charged as B and C Class criminals, and over 5,700 were brought to trial with sentencings ranging from prison terms to executions. Twenty-five A Class criminals were convicted and sentenced, only seven A Class criminals were put to death (four due to their treatment of POWs) and sixteen got life sentences. Five thousand seven hundred-plus B and C Class criminals were brought to trials, about 3,000 were convicted and sentenced, 920 were executed.
So the A class criminals—predominately brought up on charges of POW mistreatment, not massacres of East Asian civilians—were the large scale planners. But the B and C class criminals were the lieutenants and majors on the ground implenting the policy. Why have neither China nor the Koreas criticized Japan’s decision to enshrine the Class B and C “war criminals” at Yasukuni Shrine. Mysterious… until you read that more than 800 of those charged were Korean and approximately 160 were Chinese.
In related news, Machimura says Japan’s copious foreign aid is more than enough for reparations—just like welfare is reparations for slavery, right!?
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Comments to this entry
Saru
May 26, 2005
4:23 pm
I know the Japanese sometimes say hate the crime not the man, but since when did the GOJ start selling penance for dead relatives?
Koizumi for his part brushed off Morioka's comments in his typically terse style.
RichL
May 27, 2005
12:39 am
While Chinese diplomats acting in the manner of 13 year olds isn't helpful, there IS a problem with Japanese behavior. Whatever the problem, it is getting in the way of the future.
Is Shinto philosophy (or ancestor worship, where the oldies can do no wrong) the source of the problem??
Plunge
May 27, 2005
12:44 am
Plunge
May 27, 2005
12:48 am
Fukumoto criticized the premier's repeated visits during an upper house Budget Committee session last Friday, saying, "It's just like offering prayers at a grave of Hitler."
Curzon
May 27, 2005
12:53 am
Give the English press a few hours perhaps...
Also, the guys in that article are all part of the New Koumeitou/Soukagakkai religious cult, so they're against anything Shinto.
Simon World
May 27, 2005
1:29 am
* Keep your (made in China) shirt on. * David Webb discusses the adjustments to Hong Kong's currency arrangements: Yam's Thick Peg. A "gratuitous job support" scheme for bankers? More interesting is the gradual move away from a currency board syste...
Dan
May 27, 2005
3:40 am
Fascinating. Thanks!
Saru
May 27, 2005
3:49 am
Curzon -- Thanks for doing that.
RichL -- With regard to your question about Shinto, there is a saying that I have heard a number of times recently from Japanese when the subject of Yasukuni and Class A War Criminals comes up in discussion. 罪㔚'æ” Žã”š“ãÂ?§äººã”š'æ” ŽãÂ?¾ãÂ?Å¡ It means, "hate the crime, not the person." Without taking too much liberty in interpreting what these Japanese meant by this, in the case of Class A War Criminals, the argument seems to be that these men are dead, and in their deaths have been absolved of whatever crimes they committed.
Perhpas someone with more knowledge of Japanese historical thought (YH, you up for this one?) might provide us with more detail on this, but I think this expression might be most visibly embodied in the practice of seppuku.
Finally, I don't think all the blame can be laid at the feet of the Japanese here. This has been hashed and rehashed here and elsewhere, but suffice it to say that the Chinese have changed their tune not only in shifting educational emphasis away from communist ideology and onto nationalist ideology, specifically with an anti-Japanese bent. But, the leadership has also shifted away from at least a limited willingness to move beyond the history problem, to
bringing it up when convenient.
(I don't know if any of his work has been translated into English, but the Chinese journalist Ma Licheng has written quite a bit about this subject. Roy over at "MutantFrog":http://www.mutantfrog.com has promised a translation of excerpts of Li's work as published in the March 2004 issue of the Japanese journal _Bungei Shunju_. Let's hope he follows through with it...)
Not to say that the Japanese have wasted many opportunities to provoke the Chinese however.
Mutantfrog
May 27, 2005
5:32 am
As for the relationship between seppuku and post-mortem guilt, as I understand it the act of the [extremely painful] suicide is the penance, so just dying may not be enough. Remember, the class A war criminals were all executed, without having admitted their guilt (if they pled guilty would they have only served life imprisonment?) so I don't know if they would necessarily be absolved under that theory.
Jing
May 27, 2005
8:42 am
As for the last comment, Japanese postwar ODA towards China are leagues and away different things than the U.S. Welfare system, if you can't understand that basic fact I don't think any explanation will change your perceptions.
With that being said, your comment smacks of the insidious nature of the dialogue of likeminded holocuast revisionaries. By shifting the blame from the perpetrators to the victims. A near identical parallel can be drawn by those who seek to dissassociate the Jews from the holocaust by noting that a number of Soviet gulag guards were Jewish in origin and oversaw the deaths of countless political prisoners and pow's. I understand you are a Japanophile and covet the image of your beloved nation, but such disingenuous logic is disgusting.
Curzon
May 27, 2005
10:31 am
1.) I think the height of my shrillness and obnoxious attitude was "Apples and Oranges.":http://www.cominganarchy.com/2005/04/10/apples-and-oranges/
2.) Speaking of famous war criminals, what about Mr. Mao?
3.) What's wrong with the "my town" comment?
4.) I find it very possible -- even likely -- that Ms. Wu planned this fake-out diplomacy from the get go. "As noted two months ago, Chinese national identity/pride is heavily based on xenophobia and resentment of Japan,":http://www.cominganarchy.com/2005/04/11/weve-created-a-monster/ and the incumbent CCP has their preservation at stake when it comes to fueling the flames. (To a similar stake so does Japan's LDP, but at least there's less brinksmanship.)
Dan
May 27, 2005
12:11 pm
If historical proximity is correlated to relevancy, post-surrender acts are certainly at least just as serious as pre-surrender acts.
(Information from Embracing Defeat.)
Eddie Beaver
May 27, 2005
1:07 pm
Its almost as bad as the US getting lectured on human rights and religious tolerance from Islamic fundamentalists across the world who use fear, violence and ignorance to ruin the lives and futures of all unfortunate enough to be stuck with them.
Actually, considering Japan's considerable effort to atone for its war crimes in WW2 by helping tens of millions around the world fight poverty, famine, disease and hopelessness with the generosity of its foreign assistance budget, I think the petty character assassination of the Japanese government and people by a belligerent and oppressive China to be a more pathetic case of BS than America's troubles with the ignorant Muslim fundamentalist mobs.
Dan
May 27, 2005
1:31 pm
In the hate ful and racist Korean movie 2009: Lost Memories, we learn that Japanese foreign aid is just a way to recolonize the old Empire.
Kushibo
May 27, 2005
4:13 pm
BTW, I agree with Jing's take on it that the prominence of the Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni is a big part of the problem. And while not all Koreans know that x hundred Koreans were convicted of war crimes and y dozen were executed, they are aware that there were "collaborators" in the Imperial Army.
This is not a smoking gun of any kind.
Grendel
May 27, 2005
5:18 pm
Not really my place to answer, but after reading your website's motto below the title one might think you got it the other way round this time.
"This post":http://www.cominganarchy.com/2005/05/17/403/ was very different in comparison (and a pleasure to read, too)
p.s.: I'm looking forward to your posting about Iraq and international laws
Jing
May 27, 2005
7:05 pm
Heres a summary of a harvard conference dedicated to the discussion of the Northern front of the Sino-Japanese war. I'll quote something interesting for you.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/sino-japanese/session5.htm
Inoue responded to the comments as a whole, saying that what he reported was based upon the documents from various sources and on interviews with Japanese who were there and participated. He did interview Nosaka before he passed away 10 years ago. With regard to the Japanese army's policy toward being captured, they educated soldiers to take death before capture. However, injured soldiers were easily captured, and they made up the bulk of the CCP's POWs. They believed that they would be killed after becoming POWs. But they found that, instead of being killed, they were fed and clothed; they were surprised by this treatment, and gradually they began to form rapport and trust with the parties that caught them. That was the process through which the anti-war activists emerged. This is not to say that every POW became an activist.
Perhaps Dan, you should check a history book for the facts before you begin inventing it from a book you obviouslly didn't read carefully enough.
Kushibo
May 28, 2005
12:23 am
What are the numbers for those convicted? It suddenly occurred to me that a great many of those 800 might have been doing something they really had little say in, and thus may not have been convicted.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that other liberal nonsense, you know.