For Japan, a Difficult Art of Saying It’s Sorry
Wall Street Journal: 13 January 2015
This year, which will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, we’re likely to hear a chorus of voices urging Japan to behave more like Germany, the model penitent.
No country has ever displayed the same level of contrition. Germany’s agonized soul-searching and apologies after the most destructive war in history helped put to rest fears that it would ever again threaten peace. Reassured, Europe was able to reconcile.
By contrast, Japan’s remembrance of its wartime past often has been unapologetic. That is said to explain why relations with China and South Korea, which were most traumatized by Japanese militarism, are still poisoned. There’s a real fear that mounting tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands could erupt into armed conflict.
Japan should apologize comprehensively, once and for all, the argument runs, to lessen tensions in East Asia. Expectations are already high among regional politicians, academics and victim’s groups for what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will say on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in August.
If only it were that easy.
First, it’s simply not true that Japan has been parsimonious with its official apologies.
Japan can be faulted for its tendency to dwell primarily on its own wartime sufferings, for playing down its atrocities in school textbooks and for the inflammatory denial by public figures of such facts as the widespread use of slave labor, the Nanking massacre and the forced recruitment of “comfort women” who acted as sex slaves for the Imperial Army.
But its leaders can’t be accused of not saying sorry. In recent decades they’ve apologized repeatedly and profusely.
In 1991, then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa begged forgiveness for the “unbearable torment and grief” Japan inflicted on the Asia Pacific. On the 50th anniversary of the surrender, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” for colonial rule and aggression.
No Japanese leader has yet matched former German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s iconic “kniefall” in 1970, when he dropped to his knees at the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Still, in 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi laid a wreath in South Korea while apologizing for colonial rule there.
Second, it’s not at all clear that another sweeping mea culpa by Mr. Abe would do much good. It might even make matters worse. Jennifer Lind, the author of “Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics,” disputes the widespread assumption that apologies are a necessary part of reconciliation. She notes that Germany and France made up even before Germany really began to atone for its Nazi horrors. That took a generation. Moreover, apologies are politically risky, says Ms. Lind: They often provoke a backlash in countries making them.
That’s precisely what happens in Japan, where official apologies prompt howls of denial from right-wing nationalists and other extremists, undoing all the good intentions.
The trouble with Mr. Abe is that he has appointed several such figures to positions of prominence, raising questions about where his own sympathies lie. His visit in 2013 to the Yasukuni war shrine, where 14 Class A war criminals are enshrined along with other war dead, gave ammunition to his critics. It allowed China and South Korea to paint him as an unrepentant militarist.
And there’s the rub. Further apologies won’t fix the real problem in East Asia, which is that arguments over history are being exploited by politicians for their own domestic ends.
History debates fuel competing nationalist agendas in the region. They inflame territorial disputes and preclude pragmatic diplomatic solutions.
In China, anti-Japanese sentiment has become a vital crutch for the regime. Portraying Japan as an unrepentant brute helps justify China’s military buildup.
By the same token, many in Japan have come to view China’s economic rise as an existential threat; Mr. Abe’s appeal to voters is at least in part due to expectations that he will stand up to Japan’s powerful neighbor. Getting down on his knees would play well in Beijing and Seoul, but terribly in Tokyo.
True reconciliation anywhere in the world is so hard to pull off that politicians generally have to be forced into it. A common threat is helpful. That was the case in Europe where Cold War imperatives encouraged healing.
Unfortunately, the political incentives in East Asia mostly pull in the opposite direction—toward further enmity.
So what should Mr. Abe say on the Aug. 15 anniversary? He’s promised a statement that will set out “Japan’s remorse over the war, its postwar history as a pacifist nation and how it will contribute to the Asia Pacific region and the world.” He also said he won’t backtrack on earlier official apologies.
All this is essential to improve his standing as a global statesman. But whatever he says is unlikely to appease Japan’s two close neighbors. There are no “magic words,” says Ms. Lind. “China will be unhappy regardless.”
Even if Japan adopts Germany as its model to heal the wounds of World War II in Asia, the question is whether China and South Korea would then act more like France, a model of forgiveness.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-japan-a-difficult-art-of-saying-its-sorry-1421127266
Wall Street Journal: 13 January 2015
This year, which will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, we’re likely to hear a chorus of voices urging Japan to behave more like Germany, the model penitent.
No country has ever displayed the same level of contrition. Germany’s agonized soul-searching and apologies after the most destructive war in history helped put to rest fears that it would ever again threaten peace. Reassured, Europe was able to reconcile.
By contrast, Japan’s remembrance of its wartime past often has been unapologetic. That is said to explain why relations with China and South Korea, which were most traumatized by Japanese militarism, are still poisoned. There’s a real fear that mounting tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands could erupt into armed conflict.
Japan should apologize comprehensively, once and for all, the argument runs, to lessen tensions in East Asia. Expectations are already high among regional politicians, academics and victim’s groups for what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will say on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in August.
If only it were that easy.
First, it’s simply not true that Japan has been parsimonious with its official apologies.
Japan can be faulted for its tendency to dwell primarily on its own wartime sufferings, for playing down its atrocities in school textbooks and for the inflammatory denial by public figures of such facts as the widespread use of slave labor, the Nanking massacre and the forced recruitment of “comfort women” who acted as sex slaves for the Imperial Army.
But its leaders can’t be accused of not saying sorry. In recent decades they’ve apologized repeatedly and profusely.
In 1991, then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa begged forgiveness for the “unbearable torment and grief” Japan inflicted on the Asia Pacific. On the 50th anniversary of the surrender, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” for colonial rule and aggression.
No Japanese leader has yet matched former German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s iconic “kniefall” in 1970, when he dropped to his knees at the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Still, in 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi laid a wreath in South Korea while apologizing for colonial rule there.
Second, it’s not at all clear that another sweeping mea culpa by Mr. Abe would do much good. It might even make matters worse. Jennifer Lind, the author of “Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics,” disputes the widespread assumption that apologies are a necessary part of reconciliation. She notes that Germany and France made up even before Germany really began to atone for its Nazi horrors. That took a generation. Moreover, apologies are politically risky, says Ms. Lind: They often provoke a backlash in countries making them.
That’s precisely what happens in Japan, where official apologies prompt howls of denial from right-wing nationalists and other extremists, undoing all the good intentions.
The trouble with Mr. Abe is that he has appointed several such figures to positions of prominence, raising questions about where his own sympathies lie. His visit in 2013 to the Yasukuni war shrine, where 14 Class A war criminals are enshrined along with other war dead, gave ammunition to his critics. It allowed China and South Korea to paint him as an unrepentant militarist.
And there’s the rub. Further apologies won’t fix the real problem in East Asia, which is that arguments over history are being exploited by politicians for their own domestic ends.
History debates fuel competing nationalist agendas in the region. They inflame territorial disputes and preclude pragmatic diplomatic solutions.
In China, anti-Japanese sentiment has become a vital crutch for the regime. Portraying Japan as an unrepentant brute helps justify China’s military buildup.
By the same token, many in Japan have come to view China’s economic rise as an existential threat; Mr. Abe’s appeal to voters is at least in part due to expectations that he will stand up to Japan’s powerful neighbor. Getting down on his knees would play well in Beijing and Seoul, but terribly in Tokyo.
True reconciliation anywhere in the world is so hard to pull off that politicians generally have to be forced into it. A common threat is helpful. That was the case in Europe where Cold War imperatives encouraged healing.
Unfortunately, the political incentives in East Asia mostly pull in the opposite direction—toward further enmity.
So what should Mr. Abe say on the Aug. 15 anniversary? He’s promised a statement that will set out “Japan’s remorse over the war, its postwar history as a pacifist nation and how it will contribute to the Asia Pacific region and the world.” He also said he won’t backtrack on earlier official apologies.
All this is essential to improve his standing as a global statesman. But whatever he says is unlikely to appease Japan’s two close neighbors. There are no “magic words,” says Ms. Lind. “China will be unhappy regardless.”
Even if Japan adopts Germany as its model to heal the wounds of World War II in Asia, the question is whether China and South Korea would then act more like France, a model of forgiveness.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-japan-a-difficult-art-of-saying-its-sorry-1421127266
No comments:
Post a Comment