Right side up

Right side up:  A powerful if little-reported group claims it can restore the pre-war order
The Economist: 16 June 2015

80 percent of Japanese Cabinet ministers belong to “Nippon Kaigi” or “Shinto Association”, a nationalistic right wing party which aims to restore pre-war Japan value. This is why some Japanese are so cautious about Abe government. Issue on Pacifist constitution vs new security bill is not merely a matter of  “change of security environment.”

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IT IS only 18 years old, and its name is innocuous—Nippon Kaigi simply means “Japan Conference”. Yet as one of Japan’s most powerful lobby groups it has a shopping list of nationalist, indeed blatantly revisionist, causes: applaud Japan’s wartime “liberation” of East Asia from Western colonialism; rebuild the armed forces; inculcate patriotism among students brainwashed by left-wing teachers; and revere the emperor as he was worshipped in the good old days before the war. Far from crediting America’s post-war occupation for bringing democracy, Nippon Kaigi’s supporters say that the occupation, and the liberal constitution that sprang from it, has emasculated Japan. Oddly, the group receives little attention from the media in Japan, despite its strong and growing influence at the heart of government.
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Nippon Kaigi has backroom clout, with over 280 local chapters, 38,000 fee-paying members and a network that reaches deep into the political establishment. A former chief justice was its last chairman. About a third of the Diet (parliament) are members of the group’s parliamentary league, as are over half of the 19-strong cabinet of Shinzo Abe, the prime minister. Mr Abe is the group’s “special adviser”.
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Its firepower is dedicated to making Japan a “normal country”, says Yoshiko Sakurai, a leading supporter. Education must water down imported notions of Western rights and stress duties to the state and the emperor. The group says that the nation should rearm, stoutly defend disputed territories against China and scrap the constitution of 1946 which renounces war as a means for settling disputes. It says its aim is to reflect Japan’s “true, original characteristics”.
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Nippon Kaigi has a formidable ability to mobilise. A decade ago it collected 3.6m signatures demanding reforms to the education law making it compulsory to teach children patriotism. Enacting a law with this requirement was one of the few things that Mr Abe accomplished in his first, inglorious term as prime minister from 2006 to 2007. Its members have consistently campaigned against anything that shows Japan’s wartime aggression in a bad light—bombarding exhibitions on war crimes, for example, with petitions and phone calls.
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Most of the group’s current energies are aimed at getting signatories—10m is the target—calling for a national referendum on revising the constitution. It wants the removal of the pacifist section, Article 9, and supposedly traditional family values to be enshrined in it. A draft of a new constitution drawn up by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2012 reflects much of Nippon Kaigi’s agenda. Ms Sakurai is one of the campaign’s figureheads. This is a recognition by Nippon Kaigi, says Tomomi Yamaguchi at Montana State University, that changing the attitudes of women, many of whom admire Japan’s long-standing pacifism, will be crucial.
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Nippon Kaigi gives nationalists in China and South Korea an excuse to claim that Japanese militarism is on the rise again. It wants Mr Abe to continue to visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, which deifies Japan’s war dead, including those who led the nation to war in 1931-45 with disastrous consequences not just for Asia but for Japan itself. (By the way, common citizen victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo air bombing do not belong to Yasukumi. It only worships spirits of military people including war criminals.) It also rejects what its supporters call Japan’s apology diplomacy. Nippon Kaigi is lobbying for Japan’s admissions of war guilt to be reversed this year, the 70th anniversary of the country’s surrender.
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A closely allied group is the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership. From the late 19th century Shinto, Japan’s oldest religion, was reinvented as a tool of state, serving as an ideology that helped mobilise Japanese to fight wars in the emperor’s name. In 2007 lobbying by the association and Nippon Kaigi helped to persuade the government to make April 29th a national holiday in honour of Hirohito, the emperor of Japan during the war.
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Even opponents are impressed at how reactionaries have quietly transformed the landscape of Japanese politics. Nippon Kaigi members, however, are frustrated over what they see as the slow pace of change. One of their aims in future is to help Japan find support for their causes from abroad and “build friendship with other nations”. It is possible they may achieve the opposite.

 

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21653676-powerful-if-little-reported-group-claims-it-can-restore-pre-war-order-right-side-up

Japan’s Expanding Military Role Could Be Good News for the Pentagon and Its Contractors

Japan’s Expanding Military Role Could Be Good News for the Pentagon and Its Contractors
Foreign Policy: 16 July 2015

Japan, a country that swore off offensive warfare after World War II, took its first step down a very different path Thursday by passing legislation giving its military the power to engage in combat overseas. That’s something the Pentagon has wanted for years, and it could be very good news for U.S. defense contractors.

In January, the government of conservative Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe endorsed a defense budget of nearly 5 trillion yen, or $42 billion, continuing a three-year growth trend after nearly a decade of decline. The sum still represents a small portion of Japan’s GDP — it accounts for just one percent of it, according to the World Bank — but because offensive military action is prohibited by Japan’s constitution, even a modest increase is controversial. Protesters rallied against the shift outside parliament Wednesday, the night before 11 controversial security-related bills were pushed through that will give Japan’s military the power to engage in more than just defensive actions.

This year’s defense budget is part of a larger push to improve Japan’s military capabilities. Abe has promised to spend 24.7 trillion yen, or $240 billion, between 2014 and 2019 on new warplanes, naval vessels, and drones, including American-made F-22s, F-35s, and Global Hawk drones. He’s also formed an advisory board, modeled after the U.S. National Security Council, to advise him on security matters.

The United States and Japan have been allies since shortly after World War II. In April, as Abe visited Washington, officials from both countries vowed to strengthen those ties.
“What should we call this, if not a miracle of history? Enemies that had fought each other so fiercely have become friends bonded in spirit,” Abe told U.S. lawmakers during a joint session of Congress.

During the same visit, the United States and Japan unveiled a new agreement, the Joint Defense Guidelines, which will allow greater military cooperation between the countries. As part of the deal, Japan agreed to shoot down missiles heading toward U.S. territory, even if Japan itself isn’t under attack. U.S. and Japanese military staffs can now work more closely.

When the partnership was announced, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter and their Japanese counterparts, Foreign Affairs Minister Fumio Kishida and Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani, released a joint statement saying the new guidelines showcase “the ironclad U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan, through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, including nuclear and conventional.”

There’s a very specific reason that Tokyo and United States, which is currently attempting to reallocate more military resources to the region, are increasing their military cooperation: China. Tokyo is engaged in a tense standoff with Beijing over the contested Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. China, which calls them the Diaoyu, has also been building a series of concrete runways capable of handling military planes in the South China Sea’s contested waters. The two nations have been engaged in an increasingly sharp-edged war of words, and Beijing reacted harshly to this week’s vote.

“We solemnly urge the Japanese side to draw hard lessons from history, stick to the path of peaceful development, respect the major security concerns of its Asian neighbors, and refrain from jeopardizing China’s sovereignty and security interests or crippling regional peace and stability,” Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in a statement after the lower house approved the measures Thursday.

For the moment, the idea of Japan jeopardizing China’s sovereignty anytime soon is a bit laughable. Reports indicate that Beijing’s 2015 defense budget increased 10 percent to around $145 billion, second only to the United States.

But $240 billion can buy Tokyo a lot of new equipment, which could be good for American defense contractors. F-35s are made by Lockheed Martin, based in Texas, and the Marine vehicles are manufactured by BAE Systems, based in Northern Virginia.

Tokyo also plans to buy U.S.-based Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk drones. It’s also developing two Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and missile defense system with Washington. Those are made by Lockheed.

Japan’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s vote.
The rise of China’s military, and the perceived decline of the Pentagon’s, is a key talking point cited by Abe’s allies pushing for the change. Last year, Yosuke Isozaki, a security advisor to Abe, said the United States “can no longer afford to play the world’s policeman.”

“This is no longer an era when Japan is permitted to do nothing and count on America to protect us. It’s become extremely important we do our own share alongside the U.S.,” he said.

 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/16/japans-expanding-military-role-could-be-good-news-for-the-pentagon-and-its-contractors/?utm_content=buffer24684&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

Please also refer to:

 

Is the US Army Near a Breaking Point?

http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/is-the-us-army-near-a-breaking-point/

 

 

 

Is the US Army Near a Breaking Point?

Is the US Army Near a Breaking Point?
The Diplomat: 16 September 2015

Joining a chorus of senior Pentagon officials and military officers, acting Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness Brad Carson warned in an interview with Stars and Stripes that the U.S. Army – the world’s deadliest conventional fighting force – will be near breaking point if automatic sequestration, set to begin in October, takes place.

The U.S. Army could be cut down from 450,000 to 420,000 active duty soldiers should sequestration – automatic spending cuts across the board in order to reduce federal expenditure – continue with the result that the army would not be able to meet its current deployments.

“The Army’s near breaking point if you go that low, I think. Already we see the fact that people are demanding the Army do many missions — from West Africa and the Ebola crisis to now resurgent problems in Iraq, Syria. Russia of course posing a threat,” Carson said. “So the demand on the Army is not slackening at all, and at the same time, their numbers are falling.”

Less manpower available, means more soldiers deploying more often, which in turn affects the readiness of the U.S. Army, Carson notes:

 This has a real cost, a real cost to their readiness, because when they’re out in the field, they’re not training. Across all the services — the Marine Corps the same — the personnel cuts have been deep. And if they go much deeper, they will become a matter of grave worry to us all.

The U.S. Army currently fields the smallest force since the beginning of World War II. In July 2015, a document obtained by USA Today outlines that the Pentagon plans to cut another 40,000 soldiers and 17,000 Army civilian employees by the end of September 2018 with reductions bottoming out at around 450,000 active duty soldiers by then.

Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff, general Ray Odierno, voiced his grave concern over troop reductions back in July noting that the U.S. military can no longer deter conflict due to the shrinking number of soldiers: “The reason we have a military is to deter conflict and prevent wars. And if people believe we are not big enough to respond, they miscalculate.”

A February 2015 report by the Heritage Foundation indexing U.S. military strengths reiterates the dangers of fiscal constraint:

The common theme across the services and the United States’ nuclear enterprise is one of force degradation resulting from many years of underinvestment, poor execution of modernization programs, and the negative effects of budget sequestration (i.e., cuts in funding) on readiness and capacity.

The study also notes that the United States will have difficulties fighting two regional wars simultaneously (the so-called Major Regional Contingency strategy) despite maintaining the world’s largest defense budget.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/is-the-us-army-near-a-breaking-point/

Please also refer to :
Japan’s Expanding Military Role Could Be Good News for the Pentagon and Its Contractors
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/16/japans-expanding-military-role-could-be-good-news-for-the-pentagon-and-its-contractors/?utm_content=buffer24684&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 

New Security Bills which allow Collective Self Defence is passed

Japan’s defense reform tarnished by low public support, unconvincing sales pitch  
From Japan Times:  16 September, 2015 

The government’s struggle to pass a pair of controversial security bills has made history in more ways than one. But the effort has failed in an important respect: to win public support. The ruling camp has now spent more than 200 hours debating the bills in both chambers of the Diet, the longest such deliberation since the war, government officials have said.

Still, Prime... Minister Shinzo Abe’s failure to win the support of the nation represents what some call one of the worst political blunders in the postwar period.  Despite the record-breaking deliberations, opinion polls by media outlets consistently show around 60 percent of voters opposing the bills, with some 80 percent of people complaining that the government has yet to provide “sufficient” explanation as to why they are needed.  The ruling camp now aims to have the bills clear the Upper House as early as Thursday night.

“The government has failed in convincing (the nation)” Katsuya Okada, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, said during an NHK debate Sunday. The polls, he added, show the nation simply cannot accept the use of the right to collective self-defense. “About 30 percent are for and 60 percent are against the bills. This situation has not changed” throughout the Diet deliberations, Okada said. Lawmakers have lived and breathed the bills since May.

The core element of the two bills, which Abe submitted to expand the legal scope of overseas operations by the Self-Defense Forces, is to allow the nation to use the right of collective self-defense, or the right to attack a third party that has assaulted an ally even if Japan itself is not under attack.  Opponents say some of the wording in the bills is ambiguous and that this could allow the government to stretch the interpretation, rendering the war-renouncing Constitution toothless.

Meanwhile the contingencies Abe has presented have repeatedly changed shape, only deepening anxiety among voters. “It’s true, support has not spread yet,” Abe acknowledged during a Upper House session Monday.  Under the Constitution, Japan has been allowed to use force for self-defense only if the nation itself is attacked by an enemy.  But under the bills, Japan would be allowed to attack a third country to support an ally nation — presumably the United States — if three conditions are met: that Japan’s survival is threatened, that there is no alternative, and that the use of force is kept to “the minimum necessary.”

More precisely, according to Abe, the first condition refers to a situation “that threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger of fundamentally overturning people’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Opponents say the meanings of such abstract words are not clearly defined and the bills are susceptible to over-interpretation — possibly expanding the scope of joint operations with the U.S. military.

Many questions remain unanswered.  Would disruption of oil imports to Japan amid a Middle East crisis allow Japan to engage in a joint military operation with the U.S.? Would loss of economic benefits for Japan alone meet the conditions to use the right of collective self-defense?  Abe has only responded to such questions with even more abstract phrases: The government would “make judgments from a comprehensive viewpoint by considering if it will cause a critical impact on people’s lives,” for example.

To some, this is unacceptable. “The government says we should leave the decision on starting a war to a ‘comprehensive judgment’ by the government. We should not do that,” Okada said.  He has called for writing into law the prerequisites for force to be used.  One scenario that Abe initially touted as meeting the three conditions was the mining of the Hormuz Strait by Iran, an act that could hit oil shipments to Japan.  But experts say such a blockage is unlikely because Iran itself is reliant on the strait for its own oil exports. Abe later admitted that he did not consider it a realistic scenario.

Then Abe started pointing to a possible military crisis in the South China Sea, despite earlier saying such a situation would be unlikely to affect Japanese trade because cargo ships and oil tankers can bypass the area. The apparent contradiction only deepened suspicion that his primary goal was to pull the teeth from the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, and that his talk of scenarios was just a way to bring that about.

“We suspect (the ruling camp) has developed its argument just to open the way for the use of the right to collective self-defense,” Tadatomo Yoshida, the Social Democratic Party, said during Sunday’s TV debate.  Abe and many experts have, however, argued that the Japan-U.S. military alliance would be critically damaged if Tokyo refuses to defend the U.S. military in a crisis threatening Japan. Under the security treaty, the U.S. must defend Japan, but Japanese troops do not have to defend the U.S. military. Tokyo is obliged, however, to grant Washington routine use of military bases.

“It makes a great deal of sense for Japan to strengthen the Japan-U.S. military alliance” by enacting the bills, said Koji Murata, professor of international politics and president of Doshisha University in Kyoto.  Murata pointed out that China’s economic and military power is rapidly growing, while American influence in the Asia-Pacific region has shrunk in recent years. “If you ask the opinions of experts on security affairs — not constitutional scholars — I believe many will have positive views about the bills in question,” Murata told a public hearing at the Upper House on July 23.

Abe, meanwhile, is trying not to exacerbate tensions with Beijing and has stopped short of citing a clash with China as a possible scenario during his Diet contributions. He has referred instead only obliquely to its growing military power.  Indeed, China has been the No. 1 trading partner with Japan in recent years and it would be too risky, both economically and politically, for Abe to provoke Beijing by openly discussing a scenario of war with China.

Instead he has cited North Korea’s nuclear ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development as one of the main military threats to the nation. His decision to highlight this rather than the threat from China has contributed to the confusion.  Meanwhile, even with the enactment of the bills, Japan still would be unable to fully exercise the right of collective self-defense, although the United Nations bestows the right on all member countries. Senior government officials maintain that no major country attaches such strict conditions to using the right of collective self-defense.

During an Upper House session Monday, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida pointed out that among the U.S., Britain and Australia, none has laws that “set conditions for use of the right to self-defense.”
“I believe the three conditions would work as an unparalleled brake” to Japan’s use of the right of collective self-defense, argued Masahisa Sato, a former SDF officer turned Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, during the same Upper House session. Abe appears to believe that time is on his side, although the first political test for him will come in next summer’s Upper House election.

The Self-Defense Forces, which were set up in 1954, were initially dismissed by the general public and the vast majority of constitutional scholars as unconstitutional. Now, however, the forces enjoy widespread support from the vast majority of the public. Mainstream, liberal intellectuals and students also opposed the revision in 1960 of the Japan-U.S. security treaty, which was proposed and pushed by then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather and role model. Likewise, a majority of the nation now admits that the treaty was and is vital for peace and security of Japan. “As times passes, (support) will no doubt spread among the public,” Abe told the Upper House session Monday.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/16/national/politics-diplomacy/japans-defense-reform-tarnished-low-public-support-unconvincing-sales-pitch/#.VsJurP1FDZ5

Also please refer to :
Japan set to pass security bills despite widespread anger From Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/controversial-security-bills-approved-japan-parliament-vote-jiji-175238669.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons&soc_trk=fb


 

850 Tons of Treated Fukushima Water Dumped Into the Pacific

850 Tons of Treated Fukushima Water Dumped Into the Pacific
EcoWatch: 15 September 2015

Despite the objections of environmentalists and after overcoming local opposition from fishermen, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) pumped more than 850 tons of groundwater from below the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday.

More than four years after a tsunami destroyed the plant and triggered a meltdown, the cleanup effort remains frought with numerous difficulties, including the nearly impossible task of dealing with the millions of gallons of contaminated and radioactive water—both treated and untreated—that have accumulated in thousands of tanks constructed in the shadow of the destroyed power station. On a daily basis, approximately 300 tons of groundwater are pumped to the surface to undergo treatment before being placed into storage.
According to Asahi Shimbun:

The discharge marks the first release under the utility’s “subdrain plan,” an additional measure conceived to help diminish the build-up of contaminated groundwater at the crippled facility.

TEPCO began discharging water after a third-party panel confirmed that the radioactive content was below the standard set by the utility.
The plan utilizes subdrains, which are essentially wells set up around the main buildings of the power plant to collect groundwater flowing into the complex. Once the groundwater has been pumped from those wells, it undergoes decontamination in a special facility for release into the ocean after being checked for radioactive content.

And Agence France-Presse adds:

The move is a milestone for the company, which said its Advanced Liquid Processing System, which removes highly radioactive substances like strontium and caesium, meant the ground water was now safe to release into the natural environment.

Fishermen had argued that the discharge even of the groundwater would heighten contamination concerns and hurt their already battered reputation.

They had fought to stop the water being released into the sea, even after it is filtered, but eventually bowed to pressure from TEPCO, which is struggling to find space to store the tainted supplies.
But it has yet to find a solution to deal with another highly radioactive 680,000 tons of water that was used to cool the reactors during the meltdown, which is still stored on site.

Fishermen are opposed to the fluid being released into the sea, even after it is filtered.

Filtered groundwater stored in these tanks at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was discharged into the Pacific Ocean Monday. Photo credit: KYODO

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/15/fukushima-water-dumped-pacific/

Japanese Soldiers train at National Training Center for first time

 

According to the photo journalist who witnessed this Japanese SDF-US military joint training (2014 January-February)  , the site of the training was a big desert with the setting of mosque, Arabic village, Arabian actors who played the role of residents, and security expert who played the role of insurgents. Also, heavy military equipment and US staffs well experienced at Middle East were ready

Abe government repeatedly explain that proposed security bill is necessary for the “critical” Self Defense condition mainly due to mounting tension between East Asian neighbors and risks of tankers supplying oil to Japan could be attacked at Strait of Hormuz. (The definition of “critical” is vague in draft. Opponents asked to define it concretely but no favorable response. ) At the national Diet, the member of the opposite party asked if such setting is related to “critical” Self Defense of Japan. Abe explained as “as per US-Japan security treaty, if Japanese land is attacked, US troop and Japanese SDF cooperate to defense.” However, there is no such big desert with mosque exists in Japanese land.

Earlier, the details of this training were available at the official home page of US Army, but not available any more. The member of the Opposite party requested the information disclosure to the Ministry of Defense officially, but the many parts of the documents given in response were painted in black. Specific secret protection law became effective a few months before this training.

Enough Apologies. We Need More Truth From Japan About WWII.

Enough Apologies. We Need More Truth From Japan About WWII.

The Huffington Post: 2 September 2015 

 

HONG KONG -- The 70th anniversary of the victory of the Allies over Japan in the Second World War is now upon us. It is at times like this that discussions of whether apologies by the Japanese government for the hardships, miseries and sufferings caused by the Japanese Army and the atrocities committed by it, especially to civilians, have been sufficiently contrite, sincere and from the heart.
This war created tens of millions of victims, perhaps even as many as a couple of hundreds of millions, in Asia. I was one of the victims of the war, but a relatively lucky one. My parents lived in Hong Kong before the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. They were fortunate enough to escape from Hong Kong after the Japanese Army invaded and occupied the city in 1941, to move back to Guilin, in the province of Guangxi.

Towards the end of 1944, in one of its last offensives, the Japanese Army made a big push for Guilin. My family became war refugees once again and tried to flee to Chongqing, the war-time capital of China, on land. My mother was pregnant with me then. We had to travel through the province of Guizhou first. We made a transit stop at Zunyi, a regional administrative center of Guizhou, when my mother could not go on any more. However, there was "no room at the inn," so I was born right in the Office of the Regional Administrator of Zunyi. I was very lucky indeed to have survived (I turned 70 last December).

Almost every Japanese prime minister since 1945 has apologized in some fashion or another. But these apologies seem to have never been deemed sufficient. Why? To be fair, the Japanese people also suffered greatly during the Second World War. Japan was the only nation that suffered the massive devastation of atomic bombs -- not one, but two -- and most unfortunately almost all of those who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians. But just because everyone suffered from the war does not and should not eliminate the culpability and responsibility of those who started the war and committed atrocities, or allowed them to be committed.

However, I believe the time has come to call a halt to demands for further apologies from Japan. It is not apologies that the world needs, even if they are fully contrite, sincere, voluntary and heartfelt. After all, it makes no sense for someone to apologize on behalf of his or her grandparents, for what was done more than 70 years ago. Likewise, it also makes very little sense for someone to accept the apologies on behalf of his or her grandparents, who are long gone. Such apologies would not make any difference. What the world needs is a truthful account of what happened, a true history that has not been whitewashed, so that hopefully it would help to prevent a repetition of history in the future.

The German Example

In Germany, after the Second World War, the war-time atrocities committed by the Nazi government against the Jewish people and others were readily acknowledged by the (West) German government. Those responsible were prosecuted, tried, convicted and punished. The victims were compensated to the extent possible. There has been no attempt by the German government to cover up the true history. In fact, in some European countries today, it is even a criminal offense to deny that the Holocaust took place. No one, as far as I know, has called on the German government to apologize, certainly not for the last 50 or 60 years. Why? It is because Germany has dealt with its history forthrightly, truthfully and responsibly.
 Why is there such a difference between the behavior of the German and Japanese governments? One difference is that Germany (West Germany to be exact) cleaned its political house after 1945. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer basically made sure that no former Nazi would become a part of the German government. In contrast, Japan did not clean its political house, and many war criminals and suspected war criminals came back to serve in the post-war Japanese government.
The fault, however, does not lie entirely with Japan. The U.S., as the occupying power of both post-war (West) Germany and Japan, must bear a significant share of the responsibility. Had Japan clearly and forthrightly acknowledged its responsibilities for the war-time atrocities committed by its army and accepted the records as part of the historical accounts, as Germany did at the time, there would have been far fewer calls for more apologies, if any, today. The U.S., intentionally or unintentionally, missed an opportunity to help make things right.

Moving Forward

However, this is water under the bridge. How should we move forward? China, Japan, Korea and other East Asian nations can move forward together by trying to find and document the whole truth. They should gather together all the records that still exist, from all sources -- private, public and governmental, including information held by the intelligence agencies -- on that period. More than 70 years later, nothing needs to be held in secret any more. For example, on the question of whether the Nanking (current name is Nanjing) Massacre actually took place, in addition to the news reports, photographs, survivor diaries and reports, it is worth looking into the daily records and reports to the Tokyo headquarters by the commander and senior officers of the Japanese Army in Nanjing. Was there any mention of this event in the Japanese emperor's diaries? What did the representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nanjing report? What did the other diplomatic missions in Nanjing report to their respective governments?

For another example, on the question of whether the Japanese Army performed experiments on human beings in its research on germ and chemical warfare in northeast China, one can look at the reports filed by the Japanese researchers involved to their superiors and to the Tokyo headquarters in addition to survivor accounts. For still another example, on the question of whether the "comfort women" volunteered, as claimed by some Japanese, or were forced into sexual slavery, no time should be wasted to interview the survivors, who must be already in their 90s, and their families, but also former Japanese soldiers, the recruiters of the "comfort women" for the Japanese Army, and the former members of the medical corps of the Japanese Army. The Japanese Army is well known for keeping good and complete records. These records would shed light on what happened, if they have not been destroyed already.

The objective of this exercise is not to assign blame, not to seek compensation and not to punish anyone. The objective is to simply discover the whole truth, and to record it in the history books of all the countries in the world, so that these atrocities will never happen again.
While a civilized nation may or may not be able to completely prevent its army from committing atrocities (the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq would come to mind), it would not shirk from the responsibility of confronting the facts no matter how painful, prosecuting those criminally responsible and trying to right the wrongs, as the United States did in both of the cases mentioned here. The U.S. is held in greater honor and respect in the world because it acknowledged its shortcomings instead of covering them up. I firmly believe that Japan can live up to the responsibilities of a civilized nation. The world, including Japan itself, does not need more apologies from Japan, just more truth.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/japan-apologies-wwii_b_8072408.html?section=india