Entry details

Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

January 28th, 2006

Tags

, ,

Comments

52 Comments so far.
Add yours.

Scary China, Part 1: Chirol on the Sino-Japanese War and “Saving Face”

While searching through print.google, I came across this little gem: the firsthand impressions of Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol (the real one, not the blogger by that alias here) from China after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, in which Japan defeated China and took control of Taiwan and asserted hegemony over Korea.

Nowhere in Peking could the faintest indication be detected of a desire to apply, or even of a capacity to understand, the lessons of the recent war… [It was] a more hopeless spectacle of fatuous imbecility, made up in equal parts of arrogance and helplessness… In and above all things the central Government had to ‘save its face,’ —i.e., to maintain those immutable forms and appearances which, in the private as well as in the public life of the Chinese, having nothing to do with realities, but entirely overshadow them.

(See “Reasons for the Qing Defeat” in this Wikipedia article for more.)

The “saving face” remains an important issue even today. The Running Dog site says it another way: the Chinese don’t like apologizing. This article also notes that while China says Japan has never apologized, Japan has… many times. But in the end, it gets down to what Chirol identified more than a hundred years ago: saving face. From Running Dog:

If apologizing is generally regarded as craven and subservient, and as a mechanism to determine status rather than to acknowledge error or crime, then the unspoken implication of the article is that above all else, China wants Japan to lose face, and that saying sorry is far from enough.

An apology is not what it’s all about. More to come tomorrow.

Comments to this entry

darin
January 28, 2006
4:54 am
"An apology is not what it's all about."... it's about money, and revenge.
Lie to your people, get more money, lie about it, get more money, use the money to build up your army, lie some more, get more money, build the army up more, and then it's time for payback. Then lie about it afterwards so that no one every goes for revenge on you.
Admiral
January 28, 2006
7:41 am
Ermm... well, at the risk of getting more flaming hot letters from Chinese and Japanese, I think this is remarkably on point. It costs China very, very little to act like a petulant child over the apologies. I think China has found out that this strategy is leading to diminishing and more and more unsympathetic returns, however.
Chirol
January 28, 2006
10:34 am
Glad I could be of service my good Sir!
Jing
January 28, 2006
2:52 pm
Allow me to channel Howard Dean for a moment, but "ARGGGGGGGGGGGGH". Now with that out of the way, I have to say I absolutely hate hate hate "saving face" as an explanation of anything. Why individuals do not like apologizing is simple, it is a matter of stubborness and pride in refusing to admit they were wrong. Why this universal failing is always charachterized as "saving face" when concerning Asia is beyond me. Well actually no, there is an explanation (channeling Said).
Plunge
January 28, 2006
3:19 pm
Great article except for the fact that "Japan" itself has never apologized, many individuals have, some sincerely, some not.
Thes Quid
January 28, 2006
3:42 pm
At the risk of contradicting esteemed members, but in China it's a whole different ballgame when it comes to "apologizing". The face thing for them is almost life-and-death. I live it every day. I've had a brutal education these past years in China (I'm sitting listining to one of their atrocious New Years Extravaganzas right now), but was considerably helped by a book called "Chinese Characteristics" by one Arthur Henderson Smith. Written over 100 years ago, the book is still 90% spot-on in it's analysis of the Chinese mind. I see verification every day. It's remarkable.
It's out of print now, but not too hard to find copies.
Dan tdaxp
January 28, 2006
5:07 pm
Great article except for the fact that "Japan"Â? itself has never apologized, many individuals have, some sincerely, some not.


It's surprising to me why some Chinese nationalists focus so much on Japan, when almost all of the ill China has experienced in, say, the past 200 years is the result of various Chinese men and movements (Heavenly Peace, Fistism, Warlordism, and Maoism).

Compared to them, Japan was a Godsend.

Of course, that fascist Imperial Japan could be described as positive just shows how vile Gap China had become.
Jing
January 28, 2006
6:09 pm
Dan, you do realize that Plunge is not a Chinese nationalist don't you? I agree, a lot of China's political problems during the last century and a half were the result of internal factors stemming from the Chinese body politic (political decentralization, rebel movements). However, some of the examples you cite are the direct results of foreign powers. Suffice it to say, without the 2nd sino-Japanese war, China's socio-political environment would not have been destabilized enough to allow Mao and the communists to come to power. If one can attribute (wrongfully I might add) Japan as a cause of the economic success of Korea or Taiwan, then should Japan also not be attributed as to the cause of communisms rise in China?

Also mr. Quid, I also watched the New Years craptacular on CCTV-4 (can't say no to tradition) but I would caution on using 100 year old books as any sort of behavioural guide. This goes without saying, but sociology has become much more nuanced and sophisticated since then and even in the last 50 years what was regarded as conventional wisdom has become painfully outdated (see Chrysanthemum and the Sword).
Dan
January 28, 2006
11:09 pm
Jing,

Considering the Mao-level Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace was able to operate just a century before, blaming Mao soley on Japan seems a stretch.

Now, Japanese policy from the 30s to the end of the war was particularly idiotic and destructive. Just as Wilhelmine and Nazi Germany may be rightfully blamed for the fall of the European empires and the blights that fell on Africa, early Showa Japan should be blamed for shrinking the core in East Asia.

Indeed, one of the tragedies of the first two Showa decades is that they undid many of the good works Japan had previously accomplished. The modernization of Korea and Manchuria, international cooperation to put down the Boxers, etc, were all done with Japanese assistance.
darin
January 29, 2006
12:17 am
Plunge.. Plunge.. Plunge... Numerous Prime ministers have apologized on Personal and Public levels. Being as they are the representative of the nation, that counts as the nation apologizing when the PM does it on a public level correct? Or does the PM's actions only represent the country when it could be interpreted as something bad? Because if the PM doesn't represent the country, then people who say a PM can't visit Yasukuni because he represents the country need to cut out their double standards.
Jing
January 29, 2006
12:40 am
"Mao-level Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace"? Huh, you've lost me there. Are you referring to the Taiping rebellion? What does this have to do with either Mao or Japan?

I never solely blamed Japan for Mao's rise, I don't believe in such theories myself, but what I was attempting to show was that the simple manner with which people attribute Taiwan's or Korea's present success to the Japanese occupation could also in turn be reformulated vis-a-vis the Communists in China. Playing what if with history is a risky endeavour, but it would not be too risky to venture that barring the Japanese invasion, the flag that flies above Beijing (well Nanjing) would be KMT blue rather than Communist red.

P.S. thats the first time that I've heard the Japanese annexation of Manchuria or the imperialist intervention following the Boxer rebellion as "good works".
Jing
January 29, 2006
12:44 am
I think Darin, that the unacceptance or unwillingness to believe in a Japanese apology stems from this issue. What good is an apology if it is delivered with a backhand slap to the face (e.g. Yasukuni visits)
Dan
January 29, 2006
1:38 am
What does this have to do with either Mao or Japan?


Just a pattern of domestic Chinese hyper-democides. In the long list of folks who should be spurned by Chinese, early Showa Japan is far down the list.

barring the Japanese invasion, the flag that flies above Beijing (well Nanjing) would be KMT blue rather than Communist red.


Well, barring Pearl Harboy the flag in Nanjiang would have been KMT blue. Which faction is a different story.

the imperialist intervention following the Boxer rebellion


Responsible countries quell terrorist uprisings. Irresponsible ones defend them.
Dan
January 29, 2006
1:39 am
PS: The Core-wide response to the Boxer Rebellion is a model for modern internationalism.
Jing
January 29, 2006
1:45 am
Another first; the Boxer rebellion described as a "terrorist uprising".
darin
January 29, 2006
2:01 am
Jing, okay fair enough... But then the issue is "we don't believe the apology for said reason", not, "there has never been an apology", yet many people continue to ignore the fact that their have been numerous apologies.
Curzon
January 29, 2006
3:15 am
Darin: yes, spot on. Plunge cannot be reasoned with in this matter (or, really, in anything regarding Japan -- compare his and your blog posts on whaling.)

Jing: Your description of Yasukuni visits while stating apologies and reflections of WWII as "a backhand slap in the face" is, forgive me, exactly what we mean by Chinese face saving. No country would let another tell it how to manage such a domestic affair. Koizumi's statement last week -- "the only two countries to criticize my prayer at Yasukuni are China and Korea" -- should let you know how isolated China is on this matter. Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, the US, and other opponents/victims of Japan during WWII are silent because they see it for what it is, a domestic matter.

As for Yasukuni, I was there today with Miss Curzon; for those of you who know the geography of Tokyo, we took a subway to "little Moscow" at Ochanomizu, wandered through the old book stores at Jinbocho, and ended up in Kudanshita, where the shrine is. It's my second favorite shrine in Tokyo (after Hie Jinja in Akasaka), and we walked through before jumping on a subway to Shinjuku. Yasukuni is a nice place to go, a religious site memoriailizing all who died in Japan's modern wars, including Chinese and Korean soldiers who fought for Japan (including many convicted of war crimes).

There are two types of nationalism: Yasukuni promotes a self-agrandizing view of the nation that focuses on national accomplishments. By comparison, the Nanjing Massacre memorial, a hatemongering memorial of resentment, is the opposite phenomon, promoting resentment and xenophobia and how China was "screwed over" by foreign powers. More on this in part 2...
darin
January 29, 2006
3:45 am
I would recommend a visit to Yasukuni to anyone for a few reasons. One it is a really beautiful place, and definitely has some of the best sakura viewing in Tokyo. When I first went, I was all physiqued up to get pissed at Japan and Yasukuni in general, yes, I used to be against Yasukuni and the Japanese government on the issue. But when I actually went for myself, I found that a majority of the stuff people had told me about Yasukuni, was wrong. You can't believe everything you read, especially in blogs, and even in the "BBC":http://www.imbermedia.net/users/darintenb/blog/?p=107 -- you need to confirm facts for yourself whenever possible. The first time I went, I went with probably my best friend, who is Chinese, and we both left thinking, "well, that certainly wasn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is." We don't completely agree on the issue, but we agree much more then I do with most people.
Jing
January 29, 2006
3:57 am
Curzon, I'll be blunt, I think your last paragraph is complete and utter bullshit and I am perplexed at how you can even write what you did with a straight face. Yasukuni shrine, as you describe it is "a self-aggrandizing view of the nation that focuses on national accomplishments". The moaning about the unfairness of others not recognizing their claims to Asia, the resentment of the atomic bombings, the whitewash of the comfort women issue, the resentment about the allied tribunal, the self-serving focus on allied "atrocities", obviouslly all of these are symptoms of a memorial that in your words "focus on national accomplishment" rather than being a manifestation of simple resentment at having lost the war.

P.S. I am aware of the number of Koreans interned at Yasukuni but am unaware of any significant number of Chinese interned there or any at all (Chinese) that were "war criminals". There is an ongoeing issue of Taiwanese soldiers interned there and attempts by family to have them removed (so far unsuccessful). If you are going to make bold claims, you had better be able to back them up.
Curzon
January 29, 2006
12:38 pm
Darin: my experiences are remarkably similar to yours, albeit Yasukuni was the end of that road; the Nanjing Massacre memorial was the first step.

Jing: I've seen harder figures in print; this is the "best source I can find online,":http://www.wufi.org.tw/dbsql/jshowmsg.php?id=354 which puts the figures at 28,000 Taiwanese and 23,000 Koreans. Non-nationals account for "approximately 1% of those interred.":http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88:%E9%9D%96%E5%9B%BD%E7%A5%9E%E7%A4%BE Sorry it's only in Japanese.

One more tidbit from "the Yasukuni web page":http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english/main.html#3 :

When His Majesty the Emperor as well as the Prime Minister pay an official visit to other countries they will always visit the national cemeteries of those countries, where those who have given their lives for that country are laid to rest, or a memorial or shrine and pay their respects by offering a wreath. This is truly a national ceremony held in the country of their visit. A similar ceremony is not held in our country for visiting heads of state. It is regrettable that our country does not fulfill its duties as a nation. To bring an end to war is the earnest wish of mankind.


Time for part 2.
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Scary China, Part 2: Rationality will not save us
January 29, 2006
12:53 pm
[...] Scary China, Part 1: Chirol on the Sino-Japanese War and “Saving Face”Pending Water Wars in Central AsiaGod save the Queen!China sends riot police to HaitiChinese Peacekeepers in HAITI?!? [...]
Plunge
January 29, 2006
4:17 pm
Ah Darin, that is where you are wrong. All you would have to do is poll the Diet and see how many agree with the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister apologizes, it is a PERSONAL apology and depending on the man and his actions shows the sincerety of it. The Prime Minister only represents his entire nation when, in the end, his words are signed off on by the Diet.

Please remember Japan has tried ONCE and only ONCE to have an actual apology, one representative of the people and signed by the Diet. It was an abismal failure. Go ahead and actually read the link I gave you and you can see why.

Curzon understands this, he just trys to ignore it for the 'great good' that Japan has done over the years.
darin
January 29, 2006
10:31 pm
"When the Prime Minister apologizes, it is a PERSONAL apology"

Plunge officially gives up his right to claim that Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni are public then okay?
Kelvin
January 30, 2006
3:06 am
Dare I suggest a contrarian argument in favour of the Chinese position:

When both countries in question, China and Japan, value "face" so feverishly, does it not make sense for that to be the final metric as to whether Japan has made a sincere turn-about from the Showa days?

I mean, we're all debating here about how China unreasonably insists that Japan needs to lose face for it to show remorse.

What I'm saying here is that since Japanese culture values face to a certain extent as well, then it can issues apologies ad nauseum as long as it won't lose face and it won't do squat to its internal perceptions as to its role in the war.

I'm just throwing that as an idea. But it's based on a few anecdotal observations:
Coming from HK, where there's a certain extent of Western cultural influence, I've found that a lot of people from there find "not liking to apologize" (as Running Dog puts it is) is a rather alien and pathological concept.
And yet people in HK will get just as riled up about the perceived wishy-washy attitude taken by Japan towards its history.
It seems a bit contradictory, if the hypothesis that Curzon and Running Dog is advancing is correct.

As for Yasukuni, all I know is that it is *operated* (not necessarily _visited_) by people who have no hesitation to embrace historical revisionism. How to judge politicians that visit it, despite this knowledge, I suppose, is a matter of opinion.
Elizabeth
January 30, 2006
4:11 am
Curzon wrote: "No country would let another tell it how to manage such a domestic affair."

That's not true. Many Isrealis and Jews get offended when heads of states or politicians of countries other than the ones they live in salute the holocaust, and sometimes they demand an apology.

It's not only the Chinese that are still bristling over WWII offenses, it's many thousands upon thousands of victims and descendants of victims.

Regarding "saving face": As I recall, all of the Japanese apologies amounted to nothing more than sympathy. "We're sorry it happened," "We're sorry you suffered," and not, "We're sorry we did it, because it was wrong."

That does not constitute an apology. Imagine if the Germans kept up a bunch of Nazi revisionist museums and said to the Jews, "Hey, look, we're sorry it happened". And imagine if this were defended by people who said, "It's not the German culture to apologize like that. Germans are proud, and the Jews are just being spiteful. They want the Germans to feel ashamed."

There are differences in scale but surely slaughter of thousands is just as deserving of a real, guilt-bearing apology as the slaughter of millions!
Mi-Hwa
January 30, 2006
5:46 am
Dan wrote: "Responsible countries quell terrorist uprisings. Irresponsible ones defend them."

The Boxers were not terrorists like al-Qaeda, which launch attacks in other countries. The Boxers fought for the independence of China from Western domination. They were supported by members of the Chinese Imperial Army and the Qing court. The Boxers could be regarded as Chinese patriots fighting for their nation's sovereignty. (However, their attacks against Christians and foreign diplomats were uncivilized.)

Dan wrote: "The Core-wide response to the Boxer Rebellion is a model for modern internationalism."

The suppression of the Boxer Rebellion is actually a model of racist colonialism, instead of good internationalism. According to Wikipedia, "Troops from all nations (in the Eight-Nation Alliance) engaged in plunder, looting and rape."
Mi-Hwa
January 30, 2006
7:57 am
Curzon wrote: "Koizumi's statement last week"”?"the only two countries to criticize my prayer at Yasukuni are China and Korea"Â?"”?should let you know how isolated China is on this matter."

Curzon should know better than to believe Koizumi's absurd propaganda.
According to an article in Japan Focus:
" The Vietnamese and Filipino governments also issued statements expressing concern and regret. There was also criticism from Filipino comfort women, Australian veterans and others. And major newspapers throughout Asia, the US and Europe have openly criticized each visit."

"Singapore's Senior Minister ... told visiting Japanese politician ... that he hopes Japan 's next prime minister will refrain from visiting Yasukuni."

"Ex-prime ministers, such as Mr Kiichi Miyazawa and Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone, have counselled Mr Koizumi to stay away from Yasukuni, but their efforts are in vain.
Scholars and foreign policy experts also do not back him on Yasukuni."

The article concludes that Japan is actually the one that is at risk of being isolated in Asia.
US Congressman Henry Hyde also wrote a letter protesting the Yasukuni visits.

Curzon wrote: "Yasukuni is a nice place to go"
For many Asians, that's like saying Auschwitz is a nice place to go.

Curzon wrote: "the Nanjing Massacre memorial, a hatemongering memorial of resentment ..."
Shame on the Chinese for having hate and resentment just because 300,000 civilians were brutally slaughtered.
BillyBob
January 30, 2006
9:13 am
The 300,000 figure is outdated Mihwa, current CCP estimates have inflated the figure to 340,000. How they get that is a myustery, as it's a big jump from the 110,000 figure estimated at the 1946 trials (9 years after the fact(.

How is Yasukuni like Auschiwitz? No one was killed there; it memorilizes the dead... but silly me, all the matters it that we bash Japan. Logic and facts be damedn.
Dan
January 30, 2006
1:42 pm
Elizabeth,

There are differences in scale but surely slaughter of thousands is just as deserving of a real, guilt-bearing apology as the slaughter of millions!


Agreed -- yet China has yet to apologize for the murder for tens, if not a hundred, thousand civlian Japanese deaths after the end of the war. Why not?

Mi Hiwa,

The Boxers were not terrorists like al-Qaeda, which launch attacks in other countries.


Agreed, they were terrorists like al Qaeda in Iraq.

They were supported by members of the Chinese Imperial Army and the Qing court.


Just as aQiI is supported by members of the former Ba'ath government?

The suppression of the Boxer Rebellion is actually a model of racist colonialism, instead of good internationalism.


The race card is way, way, way overplayed. The Boxers murdered Chinese Christians because they were Christians, just as the Interational Force put down the Boxers because they were anti-connectivity terrorists, not because they were Chinese.
Mi-Hwa
January 30, 2006
4:21 pm
Dan: Racism and colonialism go hand in hand. Just ask the hundreds of African, Asian, and native cultures that experienced oppressive colonialism first hand. The Boxer Rebellion happened at the end of the 19th Century, which was a period of rampant colonialism.

According to the Wikipedia article I mentioned before:
" Troops from all nations engaged in plunder, looting and rape. German troops in particular were criticized for their enthusiasm in carrying out Kaiser Wilhelm II's July 27 order to "make the name German remembered in China for a thousand years so that no Chinaman will ever again dare to even squint at a German". "
Denouncing that as racism is not overplaying the race card.

Dan wrote: "the Interational Force put down the Boxers because they were anti-connectivity terrorists"
The 7 Western nations and Japan put down the Boxers mainly to advance their own greedy interests. According to Wikipedia:
"The Boxer uprising was concentrated in northern China where the European powers had begun to demand territorial, railroad and mining concessions. Imperial Germany responded ... by seizing the port of Qingdao. The next month, a Russian squadron took possession of Lushun, ... Britain and France followed, taking possession of Weihai and Zhanjiang respectively."

The Boxers resorted to violence because the Qing government was too weak to ward off foreign invaders.
"Boxer activity developed in Shandong province in March 1898 in response to both foreign penetration and the failure of the Imperial court ... whose shortcomings had been shown graphically in China's defeat by Japan in 1895."

The Boxers were motivated by self-defense of China. They were totally different from al-Qaeda, whose aim is to carry out Jihad against selected non-Muslim targets anywhere in the world.
Jing
January 30, 2006
4:31 pm
Dan, read my lips. What hundred thousand Japanese civilians murdered after the war? I think this has been the second time you have made this queer claim with no explanation whatsoever. Certainly there were reprisals against Japanese in occupied regions of China after the war, but most of them had been repatriated in the immediate years after the war. Nationalist held POW's were I believe all repatriated prior to the Communists taking power. The few Communist held POW's were released by the Korean war. As far as I know, the only significant post-war Japanese casualties were the tens of thousands of Japanese POW's that died in Soviet gulags.
Dan
January 30, 2006
4:58 pm
Mi-Hwa

Dan: Racism and colonialism go hand in hand. Just ask the hundreds of African, Asian, and native cultures that experienced oppressive colonialism first hand.


You mean the millions of Africans who saw their standard of living improve under administration by European powers, or the millions of Africans who died prematurely after the fall of those empires?

Re: your criticism of the International Force, are you arguing that only perfect interventions are worth making?

The 7 Western nations and Japan put down the Boxers mainly to advance their own greedy interests. According to Wikipedia:
"The Boxer uprising was concentrated in northern China where the European powers had begun to demand territorial, railroad and mining concessions. Imperial Germany responded "¦ by seizing the port of Qingdao. The next month, a Russian squadron took possession of Lushun, ... Britain and France followed, taking possession of Weihai and Zhanjiang respectively."�


Again, I'm not sure of the argument. The Qing Government was unable to maintain order, so the International Force stepped in. Are you advocating a globalization where only detrimenal actions may be taken, and those that coincide with economic goals are forbidden?

The Boxers resorted to violence because the Qing government was too weak to ward off foreign invaders.


... or local terrorists, for that matter. In the same way, al Qaeda in Iraq resorted to violecne beacuse the Ba'ath remnants were too weak to ward off foreign invaders.

The Boxers were motivated by self-defense of China. They were totally different from al-Qaeda, whose aim is to carry out Jihad against selected non-Muslim targets anywhere in the world.


True. Which is why they are like al Qaeda in Iraq, whose aim is to carry out holy war against globalization and non-True-Believers in specific countries.

Jing,

From Embracing Defeat, around page 50

Coming Home... Perhaps

In the wake of defeat, approximately 6.5 million Japanese were stranged in Asia, Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean Area. Roughly 3.5 million of them were soldiers and sailers. The remainder were civilians, including many women and children -- a huge and generally forgotten cadre of middle-and lower-class individuals who had been sent out to help develop the imperium. ....

For these millions of individuals, surrender merely marked the beginninf of a new stage in lives of escalating uncertainly and brutalization....

In Manchuria alone, it is estimated that 179,000 Japanese civilians and 66,000 military personnel perished int eh confusion and the harsh winter that followed caputilation. Uprooted civilians in Manchuria and elsewhere in northern China usually were able to bring with them only what they could carry, which commonly meant little more than their smallest children and paltry, soon-to-be-exhausted quantities of food....

Many of these refugees wre also driven to leave their youngest children...

The total number of Japanese who surrendered to Chineseforces and were forced to work or fight for either side in the Chinese civil war is unknown. More than a year after surrender, it was reported that some sixty-eight thousand Japanese taken prisoner in Manchuria were stil being employed by Chinese forces, mosly on the communist side....


You are right that the worst murders were conducted by the Soviets, though the death toll was in the hundred thousands.
larry
January 30, 2006
5:15 pm
The time for the world to expect Japan to apologise has passed. Like compromise, (Braveheart the movie) apologies are best given from a position of strength not when you are in a potential for conflict. While, I believe it is still true, Japan is the second greatest economy of the world, its status of a nation is only assured by the military of the USA. At least this is what the PM of Japan said recently. The USA military is now fighting a conflict that is badly depleting her wealth and the ability to deploy forces. While this was the stated strategy of Osama bin Laden, I am not so sure this is cause by him or just by our "amoral" company's policies of business as usual. It is hard to fight a war against people you are giving huge sums of money to.

As our status of warrior nation increases, our ability to project force anywhere specific, will be diminished, except of course nuclear.

Exponentially, Japans status as a nation decreases, as the USA becomes a warrior state, with very little manufacturing of consumer goods or technology.

While the conditions in the USA are not that dire yet, we are at a place in our history that has not been reached before. An unprecedented attack by political forces to end the separation of powers and the possibility of a nation becoming more powerful than we are. These conflicts, both internally and externally, are keeping us from acting as we have in the past, conservativly. Our liberal policies, of trade and political power, have temporally weaken us. Much depends on, if this will simply be a temporary condition or not, the outcome.

So if it is true that Japan depends on the USA military might, Japan's outcome as a nation might be diminishing.
Jing
January 30, 2006
5:25 pm
I think you need to read more carefully Dan.

You said "Agreed"”?yet China has yet to apologize for the murder for tens, if not a hundred, thousand civlian Japanese deaths after the end of the war. Why not?"

The book said "In Manchuria alone, it is estimated that 179,000 Japanese civilians and 66,000 military personnel perished in the confusion and the harsh winter that followed caputilation.."

On the issue of Japanese prisoners in Soviet gulags "About 575,000 Japanese prisoners of war were sent to the Siberian camps after the war ended in August 1945. 473,000 of them later returned home, and about 55,000 died in Russia, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. It is unknown what happened to the remaining 47,000 people and Japanese authorities have repeatedly said that they might have been sent to North Korea or the Manchurian region of China.
Dan
January 31, 2006
12:19 am
Jing,

Ultimately, the word "murder" is troublesome in war and even in the post-war. Were Japanese civilians, looted of their positions by Chinese guerrillas, murdered by their hosts? Were Chinese civilians, shot as part of counter-insurgent warfare, murdered by their vanquishers? The best solution would seem to avoid "murder" and instead go with "kill." In the future I will attempt to do this.

As to the Soviets (pg 52)...

In the spring of 1949, after repeated prodding by occupation authorities, the U.S.S.R. announced that only ninete-five thousand prisoners remained, all of whom would be returned by the end of the year. According to American and Japanese calculations, the actual number should have been around four hundred thousand. Suddenly, more than three hundred thousand Japanese were unaccointed for. Over four decades later, the Soviet Union finally released the names of some forty-six thousnad Japanese known to be buried in Siberia. The overall numbers never jibed.

The chaos of these numbers -- hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and civilians simply disappearing overseas -- suggests how essentially meaningless the formal dating of "war's end" was for many Japanese. Year after year, wives children, and parents waited for kin to return -- often learning, like Aihara Yu, that they had been bereaved all the while; or, even worse, never learning anything at all. In 1950, Sazae-san the country's most popular family-oriented comic strip, could still play on the theme of a boy pathetically waiting his father's return from "Soren," the Soviet Union
lirelou
January 31, 2006
8:36 am
At the risk of sending this discussion off track, I will throw in my understanding of the Sino-Japanese War and the forces it unleashed. Ironically, its pretext was a force very similar to the Boxers, the Korean "Tong Hak"Â? or Eastern Learning movement, and the Righteous Armies, both of these latter upset with the landlord class' exploitation of tenant farmers, and the opening of Korea to foreign influences, which included Japan. One foreign influence that especially infuriated the Tonghaks was Christianity. When the Korean royal family appealed to China for military assistance, the Japanese intervened to first defeat the Tonghaks, and then served an ultimatum upon the Chinese to vacate Korea, which they refused to do on the grounds that Korea was a vassal state, and that Chinese troops had been sent in response to a legitimate request by the Korean sovereign. My readings suggest that the Japanese state of the period was greatly admired by modern Asian nationalists (as opposed to Asian traditionalists, i.e., Boxers and Tonghaks), primarily for the way in which Japan had managed to modernize, while retaining its essential Japanese character. The war should have given these modernist-nationalists reason for pause, particularly in light of the fact that Japan kept six and a half modern battalions in Korea after the war had ended. But one fact is undeniable. The war sent shock waves throughout China, thereby exacerbating conditions which were already giving rise to the Boxer phenomenon. To declare the Boxers to be terrorists is, I believe, over-simplification. More likely they were both reformist and traditionalist, seeking to force the Qing government to reform, while striking down those icons of Chinese inferiority within China itself, the foreign communities, Christian missionaries, and Chinese Christians. The methods they used appear to be no different than those later employed by both the Nationalist and Communist revolutionary cadres, the difference being that these latter were modernists as opposed to those seeking a return to the allegedly more glorious past. Thus the "terror"Â? they induced must be put within the context of their irregular composition, their spontaneous nature, and the context of social violence within the China of the day. As for denying that the Boxers were patriots, it is a point that cannot reasonably be made. It makes as much sense to deny the patriotism of the Waffen SS, or the Viet Cong. Patriotism can be found within all shades of any political spectrum. But it is not holy water, and does not wash away "sins"Â? committed in its name. As for the anti-Boxer campaign required to lift the siege of the Foreign Legations, under international standards of the period, those nations whose legations were under siege had a right to deploy a military force to protect their property and personnel, in that the Chinese government had proven itself unwilling or incapable of doing so. It had been years since I read international law, but I am unaware of any dictum that allows a nation which adjudges its armed forces incapable of enforcing internal order or foreign policy to call upon mobs or uncontrolled private citizens to do so, targeting the personnel and property of those foreign nations who displease it. Although I'm sure that the current President of Iran would argue such a right. Mi Hwa's point about racism often being the handmaiden of colonialism (or neo-colonialism) is valid, but so is Dan's counterpoint. The sad truth is that many colonial regimes did more for their subject peoples than the indigenous governments which followed. But even paternalistic colonial regimes were tinged with racism, and the great masses of their subject peoples were denied a voice in how their affairs were governed. This brings us to the unpleasant truth that not all political cultures are equal, and indeed, some are demonstrably inferior to all but the politically conditioned and blind. The Chinese of the 1840-60s could accept that the West was far ahead of China in science and technology. The Sino-Japanese war showed them that Western science and technology could be successfully adopted by Asians, and the Russo-Japanese war showed them that an Asian state who mastered both could employ them to defeat a powerful European nation. Thus by 1905, the consensus among ordinary Chinese had likely swung to the Qing's disadvantage. New leadership was required. The question which intrigues me is: Was it the men (Sun Yat Sen, Mao Ze-dong) who made the moment? Or the moment which made the men? My inclination is the latter. Those Japanese who died in Manchuria after the war (when the Chinese civil war had resumed in all its ferocity), are casualties of war no matter how they died. No one ever asked them to invade China or reap the benefits thereof. Likewise the Japanese government would not be ill served by extending an apology to the Chinese people that does not require nuanced explanation. My apologies to those I've bored.
Dan
January 31, 2006
2:11 pm
Lirelou,

An excellent comment. Thank you.

I like your thinking a lot, so a few quick comments.

1. I wasn't denying patriotism to the Boxers, or al Qaeda in Iraq. Just refusing to let them use patriotism as an excuse. The typical Chinese insistance on "patriotism" is oten enough to make me a Leftist internationalist! :-)

2. Likewise, I wouldn't deny the term Holy War to the Boxers, or al Qaeda in Iraq. Both believe they are attempted to reestablish a divine order. But likewise, that doesn't give them carte blanche.

3. Be careful in excusing the deaths of Japanese civilians after the end of fighting as casualties of war. One could likewise say no one asked European Jewry to settle in Palestine, or Hindus to settle in Uganda, or....

(And considering the wide support the Japanese occupation had across the Yalu in Korea, it seems likely that many Manchurians did support the Empire)
Dan
January 31, 2006
4:38 pm
PS

Thus the "terror"Â? they induced must be put within the context of their irregular composition, their spontaneous nature, and the context of social violence within the China of the day.


This reminds me of Arabist defense of "good terrorism" as against "bad terrorism." The argument, that though two actions and intentions are the same, one is different from the ohter because of context, is incorrect.

Perhaps, normatively, some terrorism is "better" than the other. It doesn't change the identity of terrorism, however.
larry
January 31, 2006
10:34 pm
"At the risk of sending this discussion off track, I will throw in my understanding of the Sino-Japanese War and the forces it unleashed."Â? lirelou.
You could have not done more to keep this discussion on track, than if you had tried to. By what you have written, your understanding of history is nothing short of amazing, at least to this Westerner, thank you.

"This brings us to the unpleasant truth [in today's political world] that not all political cultures are equal, and indeed, some are demonstrably inferior to all [all, as in mostly non-western nations] but the politically conditioned and blind [American public]."Â? lirelou
I hope I didn't play with your words too much. With the forces at play in the world today, we need people like you capable of open and clear discussion of the topics at hand. You have done remarkably well. This goes with my discussion with Dan a while back. I told him that Kim (leader of N Korea) is a benevolent leader, as anyone who would want to unite a country must be. Would this mean I was not benevolent, if I wasn't willing to sacrifice millions to accomplish this great victory? In Kim's world, I would not be called benevolent.
While there might be much agreement about the politically conditioned and blind people in this country, it is also true that these politically partisan blind people give our good or bad leaders great power. Under today's leadership we have given up our wealth for riches, as well as control of our destiny to our leaders. In some societies this would be considered powerful, the willingness to give others the power we don't want. In other society, it would seem inferior.

"Likewise the Japanese government would not be ill served by extending an apology to the Chinese people that does not require nuanced explanation." lirelou
In some ways, Japan is under attack. An image in your head showing a missile flying over your land is a very real wake-up call. Because of the potential conflict between Asian nations, a nuanced apology is all Japan can afford to give right now. However that doesn't mean it is not as sincere as any other country's apology.
An Apology, or the lack of one, may be a reason to go to war. However, it is no reason for one country to hate another. Death is a real personal thing, but with many common feelings. On the issue of death, I don't think that either side is far apart.

"My apologies to those I've bored."Â? lirelou
I don't believe you bored anyone. It has been my pleasure in reading the thoughts of a person with such insight and wisdom, thank you again.

These postings only show that the forces in Asia are even more confusing, for me, than they are in Iraq, except, because of technology, the outcome is more easily found.

Dan,
Some terrorism is better, I am sorry but I don't agree? So, do you think the March First Movement as the first 5GW or not? From Korea too, how about that?
Jing
February 1, 2006
12:44 am
Dan, thats a mighty interesting moral compass you have there. Its a slippery road in equating being booted out of your house in occupied territory(let us not forget that the Soviet army was in control of Manchuria following WW2) to being directly killed by deliberate IJA reprisals against civilians.

Actually no, its not very interesting. It's just a very shallow and feeble attempt to find any excuse for the Japanese.
Dan
February 1, 2006
3:18 am
Dan, thats a mighty interesting moral compass you have there. Its a slippery road in equating being booted out of your house in occupied territory(let us not forget that the Soviet army was in control of Manchuria following WW2) to being directly killed by deliberate IJA reprisals against civilians.


Actually, I was equating civilians killed during guerrilla actions with civilians killed during counter-guerrilla actions.

Civilians die in war. People die in war. It sucks.
Mi-Hwa
February 1, 2006
5:11 am
Dan: There's a big difference between civilians dying accidentally, and civilians being massacred in war crimes. The Japanese did the latter at the Nanking Massacre and at Unit 731, where thousands were cruelly killed with medical experiments. It is very ignorant to equate the two kinds of civilian deaths.
Curzon
February 1, 2006
5:44 am
People killed by guerrillas are killed accidentally??
darin
February 1, 2006
8:55 am
This looks to me like another "it's okay to kill any and every japanese person because other japanese people killed any and every chinese/korean person they could".. or "japanese civilians that were killed or suffered under any circumstances are not victims of anything because they deserved it" argument.

no one is saying it was okay what imperial japan did... but to say innocent civilians got what they deserved because the countries leaders did bad things, is just absurd. if that's the way you guys want to play it, then every single last person on this earth can be killed at any moment and no one can say a damn thing about it.

come-on guys.. two wrongs don't make a right. remember? did we forget the basic principles of the value of human life on this one? prosecuting people for their crimes i'm in favor of... killing a farmer because of he's japanese? isn't that called a hate crime?
snow
February 1, 2006
9:01 am
Ultimately, I think a big problem in Asia is the uber-nationalism that seems to be the norm in so many countries over here. It seems that everyone has a beef. I think the governments of each country should think more strategically, instead of always jumping on the bandwagon of anti this or that (as the gov of South Korea regularly does), why not figure out the best way to get what you want? I don't know if the Japanese could ever offer an apology that would be accepted by Korea or China. But if there were some way to do it, they could do it, not because they believe it, but because it's good for business. Do what's best for your country and tone down the nationalism. Let the fools in the other countries shoot themselves in the foot.
BillyBob
February 1, 2006
9:14 am
Snow -- certainly the governments in all these countries think that encouraging this nationalism is in their national interest, no?
snow
February 1, 2006
9:22 am
BillyBob, no, I disagree. They are pushing nationalism because it helps them politically at home. It doesn't help them outside the country and ultimately hurts the country because it damages relations with other countries, including the all-important economic relationships. I just think its shortsighted to push over-the-top nationalism for mere personal political gain. They are being paid to do what's best for the country and if they're not doing that, they should get their butts turfed outta there (I know it won't happen in China).
Jing
February 1, 2006
11:58 am
No one is saying any such thing Dan, Curzon, and Darin. I don't see how one can extrapolate "In Manchuria alone, it is estimated that 179,000 Japanese civilians and 66,000 military personnel perished in the confusion and the harsh winter that followed caputilation.." to being 179,000 and 66,000 were killed by communist guerillas following the war. The entire issue is being deliberately obfuscated to the point of incoherence.
Mi-Hwa
February 1, 2006
1:36 pm
Curzon wrote: "People killed by guerrillas are killed accidentally??"

That's not what I meant, although now I can see how you got that impression. I was referring to Dan's original comparison:
"yet China has yet to apologize for the murder for tens, if not a hundred, thousand civilian Japanese deaths after the end of the war. Why not?"

However, in the book that Dan cited, the author never specifically mentioned that the Japanese civilians in the post-war period were killed by Chinese guerrillas.
The book said:
"In Manchuria alone, it is estimated that 179,000 Japanese civilians and 66,000 military personnel perished in the confusion and the harsh winter that followed capitulation. Uprooted civilians in Manchuria and elsewhere in northern China usually were able to bring with them only what they could carry, which commonly meant little more than their smallest children and paltry, soon-to-be-exhausted quantities of food"¦."

The book is suggesting that those Japanese may have died from freezing in the winter and running out of food, while making the long trek home through chaotic situations. That's why I said "civilians dying accidentally".

Those Japanese deaths were tragic in their own right, but the tragedy of the Chinese murdered in war crimes were more horrific, hellish, and directly inflicted by the Japanese military. Treating all civilian deaths equivalently or lumping them together, waters down the nature of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Dan
February 1, 2006
3:28 pm
The book is suggesting that those Japanese may have died from freezing in the winter and running out of food, while making the long trek home through chaotic situations. That's why I said "civilians dying accidentally"Â?


Would the Armenians killed '17-'18 also be "accidental" death, then? After all, they died of exposure, hunger, and random violence (after forced evictions and a death-walk home)....
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Diplomat without Portfolio
May 12, 2006
7:24 pm
[...] As Foreign Editor of The Times of London from 1899 until 1912, Valentine Chirol played a singular part in alerting people to the dangers facing them as war clouds gathered over a fast modernizing world. He analyzed wars from South Africa to the Balkans, and political eruptions from Peking to Constantinople. This was the man referred to by the Chancellor of Germany as one of the most dangerous enemies of the German Empire. In this wide-ranging biography, Linda Fritzinger paints a skilful portrait of a man at the centre of the greatest events of his period. Including new sources and extracts from Chirol’s writing, Diplomat without Portfolio is an accessible entry-point to an engaging vista of world history at the turn of the century. [...]
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » If war broke out…
July 24, 2006
10:30 am
[...] Just don’t misunderstand the cause. Regardless of the sale figures of a few jingoistic comic books, the biggest cause of any change is a growing sense of anxiety about all of the crazy neighbors than a change in public opinion towards national pride. Or at least that’s how I see it. [...]