History that still hurts

Historythat still hurts

Apr 8th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Chinaand South Korea have excoriated[痛斥] Japan over its approval of new schoolbooks which they say whitewash the atrocities[暴行] committedduring Japaneseoccupation. The lingering bitterness over Japan’s pastimperialismstill threatens to mar[损害] relations between the big East Asian powers

JAPAN’Sprime ministers and its emperor have apologised to China for the brutalconduct of the occupying Japanese army in the 1930s-1940s on no fewerthan 17 occasions since the two countries restored diplomatic relationsin 1972. Seven years ago, Japan also made a written apology for itsharsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, in 1910-45. But itsexpressions of regret have never been seen as quite sufficient,especially by China. So, though relations between the East Asian powershave improved greatly since the end of the second world war,Japan’sbig neighbours remain acutely sensitive to any words or deeds on itspart that suggest a lack of genuine contrition[悔悟].

The latestsuch act of perceived impenitence[不知悔悟的] is the Japanese government’sapprovalof a set of school books written by nationalist historians, whichreportedly omit or gloss over such wartime atrocities as the rape ofthousands of “comfort women”, captured and used as sexslaves by theJapanese military. Furthermore, to South Korea’s fury, one of thebooksasserts Japan’s claim to a group of rocky islets that Koreapossessesand calls Dodko, which the Japanese call Takeshima. On Thursday April7th, South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, had whatofficialscalled a “very frank discussion” (ie, a blazing row) withhis Japanesecounterpart, Nobutaka Machimura, over the issue, telling him that thebooks had “greatly enraged” his countrymen.

In China,where the fury over the books is even greater, the country’slargestretailers’ association is urging its members to boycott Japanesegoods.As in Seoul, the foreign ministry in Beijing has summoned the Japaneseambassador to express official anger. On Beijing’s streets,demonstrators are also reported to have attacked Japanese-owned stores.On Tuesday, Japan said it had asked the Beijing government to help itensure that Japanese investments in China, and Japanese citizens there,were safe.

China’sownschool books are harshly critical of Japan’s conduct in the 20thcentury’s wars, so even Chinese far too young to remember themharbourstrongly anti-Japanese feelings. Last August, after Japan’svictoryover China in a soccer match in Beijing, Japanese flags were burnt anda Japanese diplomatic car was vandalised.

Rows over thewording of Japanese history books have been flaring up for a quarter ofa century, most recently in 2001 when a previous version of the booksat the centre of the current controversy was submitted for approval.Then, the Japanese government demanded over 100 revisions to try toanswer the accusations of “airbrushing history”. Thegovernment pointsout that Japanese schools are not obliged to use the approved textsand, indeed, many do not. But to the Chinese and South Koreans, that isbeside the point. It is unfortunate that Japan and its neighbours didnot set up an equivalent of the Franco-German history textbookcommission that, soon after 1945, sought agreement on a common accountof the two countries’ bitter history.

This time,the row over school books comes in the wake of several other regionaldisputes. Japan’s Shimane prefecture designated February 22ndthis yearas “Takeshima Day”, underlining its claim to the disputedislands andtriggering protests in Seoul. And recently the Japanese government tookcontrol of a lighthouse built by its nationalists on another set ofdisputed islands, which it calls the Senkaku, while China, which alsoclaims them, calls them Diaoyu. China is sending ships to an area nearthe islands, looking for oil and gas, while Japan is thinking of doingthe same, raising the scary prospect of a confrontation between theirnavies. Last November, Japan demanded and got an apology after aChinese submarine was caught in its (undisputed) waters. In February,it was China’s turn to get rattled, as Japan joined America inmaking astatement that Taiwan (which China regards as a renegade province) wasa mutual security concern. Were tensions over Taiwan to escalate, theissue would quickly dwarf that of school books and uninhabited islets.

Rise and fall

China andJapan have, of course, been rivals for the best part of a millennium.For much of that time, China had the upper hand. But from the mid-19thto the late 20th centuries it was in decline while Japan was in theascendant. For the past three decades, since Deng Xiaoping began toconvert China’s economy to market-led capitalism, China has beenon theup again, whereas Japan has stumbled since the 1990s.

For all theirrivalries, there are plenty of signs that Asia’s two great powersareedging closer together. Last year, China overtook America to becomeJapan’s biggest trading partner. Japan has been China’sbiggest tradingpartner in three of the past four years. Moreover, both countries areworking with neighbours to launch a broader and deeper East AsianCommunity. Most important of all, China and Japan, along with SouthKorea and Russia, have been willing collaborators in the American-ledeffort to persuade North Korea to relinquish its nuclear-weaponsprogramme.

However,there has been no official visit to China by the Japanese primeminister, Junichiro Koizumi, since October 2001, and none by theChinese president to Japan since 1998, when Jiang Zemin went.Overcoming the bitter memories of the 20th century’s wars andbuildinga genuine partnership to ensure they are not repeated will requiremovement by both sides. Japan could withhold approval from school booksthat sanitise the awful truth about its wartime record; and it couldoffer more compensation to the victims of its past occupations. As forthe Chinese, it would require a willingness to sanction a jointtextbook commission in which historians would be free to examine thetwo countries’ past, a readiness to give up anti-Japanesepropaganda,and a willingness to engage in serious negotiations about disputedwaters. Only then might East Asia finally consign its past conflicts tothe history books.