Japan's Wartime Responsibility

The other day, I went to an interesting seminar on WWII regarding the issue of wartime responsibility in Japan. The event centered around a recently released book that summarizes the findings of a study conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun.

In commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the conclusion of WWII, the Yomiuri conducted a year-long study from summer of 2005 to summer of 2006 primarily on Japan’s wartime responsibility, but also looking into other issues, such as whether the atomic bombs were necessary, the role of the media, etc. The articles are available here: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/0007/.

I confess that I have not had a chance to read the columns, so cannot speak to their quality. (The one random article I skimmed through sounded more like a rationalization than a reflection; however, given that it was an English translation, I'm willing to give Yomiuri the benefit of a doubt and attribute the somewhat defensive tone to mistranslation of nuances for now.) Either way, this is a laudable institutional attempt at examining the war. What I find truly remarkable about this whole project is that the most influential newspaper in Japan—one with a reputation for being right-leaning, no less—took it upon itself to conduct research on a controversial topic and present its findings to the general public. Actually, although the Yomiuri has been traditionally a right-leaning paper, its recent editorials have criticized former PM Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine, perhaps marking a sharp rift from its past editorial stance.

There have been numerous such studies on Japan's wartime responsibility conducted by Japanese academics, but these often tend to stay within academic circles. This has been one of my sources of frustration, when trying to debate or discuss the topic of Japan's role and reflection on WWII.

For example, there are tons of Japanese books written about the various atrocities that Japan has committed against other nations and people--the biological experiments conducted by Unit 731, treatment of prisoners of war, and the rape of Nanjing, to name a few.

Yet, much to my and other Japanese historians' annoyance, the New York Times' editorials never make mention of this when they criticize the decision of Japan's prime minister to visit Yasukuni Shrine. Instead many U.S. papers, as well as other reputable non-Japan specialists--be they academics in other fields or journalists--have an annoying penchant for equating the prime minister's actions with the views of the entire Japanese population, and thus frequently portray all of Japan as a monolithic mass of people who are in denial of the country's wartime history.

Moreover, whenever I discuss Japan's wartime responsibility with American colleagues, they are often clueless about the extent to which the U.S. played a role (a rather large one, I may add) in aiding Japan's "wartime amnesia", which is another source of frustration for me.

How do you begin to have intelligent discussion, when there are gaps in knowledge?

One thing that this project undertaken by the Yomiuri might do is fill in these gaps.

Thus, I attended the seminar with high expectations. The Yomiuri person explained the premise of the project a little bit, then made a brief presentation of its findings-- which to oversimplify, holds the following groups responsible for the progression of the war:
-the mass media, which deceived the public
-the Japanese government (specifically the diet, I think)
-the Japanese people

The Yomiuri study deals strictly with the Pacific War between the U.S. and Japan. Here was my first problem. While I understand the need to narrow the topic, given that the war in Asia is where most of the controversy lies, why did the Yomiuri choose to look at just the Pacific War, rather than the war w/ its Asian neighbors?

Second, this book has already been translated into English, which, given the topic scope, perhaps makes sense. Yomiuri is working on getting it translated into Chinese. But again, it is almost as if this study is targeting an imagined community of English readers who might benefit from reading this study. Wouldn't it have made more sense to translate this into Chinese first?

I don't know much about history education in China, but given the reaction of Chinese youth to Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni, as well as anything that has to do with Japan and the war, I get the sense that Chinese readers may benefit from reading a study such as this one. (Of course, I should probably read the study before making such pronouncements!)

I feel that in the case of history education in Japan, I feel that it is a case of どっちもどっち(Sorry to English speakers who don't know Japanese, which I believe is 99% of potential readers--all 5 of you, that is. . .. There's really no equivalent phrase in English, b/c English is limited like that. But back to my point.) in terms of the Japanese government making at times ridiculous public judgement calls, and the Chinese people reacting. While I'm not trying to side with Japan, I often feel like the Chinese people and students are fed one side of the story and b/c the Japanese government deals w/ the wartime issues one way, the Chinese people do not realize how much diversion there is within groups in Japan regarding this topic. All they see is Koizumi visiting Yasukuni shrine, or Abe making pronouncements about the Japanese government's role in recruiting comfort women, and react strongly to these episodes.

During my grad and undergrad days, I used to one-sidedly condemn such acts of the Japanese government as well, but lately, as I read more things and realize how distorted the NYT's translation of Abe's statement is, for example, I've taken to a much more nuanced view of things--which, for the most part, is still critical of the Japanese government's handing of these things, but also partly defensive when the whole world reacts to one bad translation or interpretation presented from the lens of one reputable newspaper that everyone happens to read.

However, Japan--be it the media or the government--doesn't really make sufficient attempts to dispel these misunderstandings, either. For example, when studies such as this target more of an imagined community of English speakers (as the translation of this book into English suggests), how does this help allay the feelings of Japan's Asian neighbors?

Which brings me to my second question/contention, which I may have already answered-- who is the target audience of these published studies?

If the purpose of this project is to "increase understanding" about Japan's wartime role/responsibility, whose understanding is the Yomiuri trying to increase? And again, the very fact that this book was first translated into English before any Asian language (Korean, Chinese) bothers me a bit. Shouldn't it be these people whose understanding Japan should be trying to speak to?

Although I think that the Yomiuri is taking a big leap towards the right direction, I would now like to see them conduct a study on the war that Japan waged in Asia.