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Isn’t It Time to Stop Asking Japan to Apologize?
Yesterday Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Pearl Harbor, the first time that a sitting Japanese prime minister has done so. This follows President Obama’s recent (and similarly historic) visit to Hiroshima.
Abe paid tribute to those who died at Pearl Harbor, offering his “sincere and everlasting condolences.” He renewed Japan’s commitment to peace, and spoke about how the US and Japan showed that it is possible for bitter enemies to become allies.
All of this is well and good. I have always taken heart from the history of our relationship with Japan, which is an achievement both countries should be proud of. And yet, for some reason, whenever there is an observance of this kind, all of the news stories seem to focus only on one question: Will Japan apologize for Pearl Harbor? (Even though Abe had made it clear in advance that that was not the purpose of this visit.)
I find this discussion to be frustrating and, as the years pass, increasingly stupid. For one thing, over the last 70 years, Japan has made many statements expressing “remorse” or “repentance” (or words to that effect). I know that in the field of international diplomacy such statements tend to be carefully constructed and closely analyzed, but come on; I’m satisfied that they’re sorry and won’t do it again.
More to the point, no one responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack is part of today’s Japanese government. Few people who were involved are even still alive. Do we really subscribe to a “sins of the father” philosophy of guilt? What is the point of extracting an apology from people who weren’t even alive at the time of the crime? Does today’s France owe anybody an apology for Napoleon? Are we still angry at Great Britain about the Stamp Act?
Actions matter more than words. For seven decades, Japan has consistently shown itself to have turned its back on the militaristic tendencies that characterized its government in the early 20th Century. It has consistently behaved as a country that is dedicated to peace (to an almost pathological degree, in my opinion) and freedom, and it has become one of our closest allies. Do these seven decades of unambiguous deeds not count? Is it really necessary, in 2016, to remind them once again that they lost the war? This is not how you treat your friends, not if you want them to remain friends.
I do not suggest that the war should be forgotten. History teaches us lessons, and we would be fools to ignore those lessons. But history is, after all, history; isn’t it time for us to move on?
Published in General
Yeah. I’m with you. After awhile, it starts to seem creepily racial. If I don’t have to apologize for slavery, Japan doesn’t have to apologize (more) for Pearl Harbor.
The only thing I would insist on—as a general principle—is that people should be committed to the truth about what actually happened. E.G. the Rape of Nanking. And the Comfort Women. And so on.
I do think it was a good moment when reparations—largely symbolic, but still—were paid to the Japanese-Americans interned during the war. But the reparations and apology went to the actual people who had been harmed.
There isn’t a good one that I can tell and I frequently wonder about this also. If it were President Publius taking office next month, I’d be telling the Japanese that we’re good, you can stop apologizing, and start building up your naval forces because we’re going to need some help with North Korea and an increasingly hegemonic China.
Mm… not sure. It’s not so much that I think we need an apology. I just want to be sure Japan has learned the right lesson. Their past militarism is one thing — it’s the racial supremacism that’s more concerning. And it’s my impression that they’re still a very insular culture, not even attempting to assimilate foreigners. I may have that wrong.
In any case, they treated others as sub-human. The Germans seem to have learned the lesson, but then took it to the extreme of committing cultural suicide by valuing migrants more than their own. Somewhere there’s a happy balance and I don’t think either the Germans or the Japanese have found it.
We dropped two atom bombs on Japan. I’d call that even.
Ask the South Koreans.
It has only been in the past six years or so that Japan has even acknowledged that they committed some of their heinous war crimes.
Sometimes a real apology is needed before divided peoples can come together.
The Japanese figured out that they needed to learn how to make nice with their near neighbors in the Age of Obama. With America moving in the direction of disengagement, de-armament, and a deliberate pursuit of weakness, Japan began to take steps needed to be able to work together with South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines to counter the growing threat from China.
That’s what I was going to say.
The Germans need to gives themselves a break also. I was surprised at how recent WWII felt when I was in Berlin last year. They’re very open about talking about it. I didn’t want to bring it up because I thought it would be rude especially in Berlin (“Um, sorry about the 8th and 15th Air Force annihilating your city. Looks like you’ve cleaned the place up well though…), but I found that Germans almost want you to ask about it so they can tell you what they think.
I was also surprised at how fresh the wounds of the Berlin Wall and the separation felt for Germans on both sides of the wall who lived during that era. It still felt weird to talk to people in Berlin who lived under East German Communist tyranny. You just sort of what to give them a hug when they start telling you their story and they all have a really interesting story.
That said, I think it’s probably best that the Germans didn’t remilitarize heavily after WWII. It never ends well. Having the United States basically be the military component of both Japan and Western Europe for as long as we have done so has certainly imposed costs on the United States, but I suspect we made more money in the end due to peace allowing us to trade with Asia and Europe rather than having to fight wars there.
I took it that the entire purpose of the visit was some type of sop to Obama for his apology tour in Hiroshima, likely the administration requested it as some type of rear guard political cover for Obama’s actions there. Thus framing Obama’s actions and Abe’s as some type of reciprocity. On his own initiative I cannot possibly imagine a Prime Minister of Japan would have some burning desire to visit Perl Harbor, Abe least of all.
Yes; I don’t know, but I bet that this is costly for Abe. The people that will dislike it the most are Japanese voters who voted for his party.
Then again, apologizing to the U.S.A. is much easier for the Japanese back home to accept than apologizing to Korea, Taiwan or the Philippines. This is a good start on what will be a very difficult but necessary path. My guess is that Abe is playing a long game, with the Chinese threat in mind. Otherwise, why go for a politically risky gesture for a lame duck Obama?
@10cents
I doubt Japan will apologize since I doubt it views itself as wrong. It would attack Pearl Harbor again today if its government thought it was in their best interests to do so.
Agree
The best way to move forward after a nasty war is to get on with commerce and diplomacy. We have managed good relations with the Japanese since the war. Apologies between nations are always messy.
I just wish people would stop expecting us to be sorry for dropping those bombs.
Agree. Stop apologizing. The war is long past. They have proven their friendship and peaceful intentions.
Frankly, I want them to find some nationalism and fighting spirit to help us contain the Chinese.
Well to be honest I would be more than willing to prove my friendship and peaceful intentions to somebody pointing a nuclear weapon to my head and have already shot me twice with them just to prove the are serious about using them.
I agree, but I have an older friend that is absolutely adamant that the Japanese stay in eternal apology mode. I asked “When will you forgive them for Pearl Harbor?”. His answer is “When oil stops leaking from the Arizona”.
I’ll bet he didn’t come up with that phrase himself, but it sure did make his point. That’s a pretty stout reminder of what happened that day, almost as if the ship is still bleeding.
I served with a shipmate whose grandfather was a diver at Pearl Harbor, and spent the next few months after the attack recovering bodies, or more accurately, body parts. He told his grandson that finding severed limbs, torsos, and heads was pretty common in some parts of the wreckage. My shipmate told me his grandfather never got over hating the Japanese. He carried it to his grave. So, there’s your answer, I think: America will “get over” Pearl Harbor when the generation that suffered it directly has passed on.
Abe isn’t the first sitting Japanese Prime Minister to visit Pearl Harbor. His visit isn’t all that historic. Yet another example of the media trying to paint Obama as a “unifier.”
Leader Yoshida visited Pearl Harbor in 1951.
http://nypost.com/2016/12/26/abe-not-the-first-japanese-prime-minister-to-visit-pearl-harbor/
I don’t think they need to apologize, per se, but they need to admit what they did in Korea, China, and the Philippines. Currently Japanese school children don’t even know that the Rape of Nanjing even happened. They don’t need to perpetually grovel like the Germans do, but a little honesty would be nice. And I’m someone who generally likes Japan and considers them a valuable ally.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of aggression that brought WW II to the United States. The two atomic bombs ended that war, and saved American and Japanese lives that would have been lost in the continuation of the war Japan started with the US . They are not remotely equivalent.
All I will say is that I have a personal investment in what happened during WWII between Japan and the United States. Our daughter-in-law is a Japanese citizen. My dad fought in the Pacific on submarines as an eighteen year-old. My son’s father-in-law went hungry during the war in Japan.
I remember that when it came to be fitted for the tux for the wedding I did not speak Japanese, and the father of the bride did not speak English. The wedding planner told me that would be no problem. She opened a bottle of champagne and produced two glasses. If you both finish this bottle I have more.
I remember two more things. Her father’s formal bow at the reception when he asked me to treat his daughter as if she was my own daughter. The other was a woman who said in a beautiful southern accent; My what a beautiful couple as my son and daughter-in-law stepped out of their limo after arriving back at the hotel after the ceremony.
If Abe were truly interested in peace he would have apologized for Jonah Goldberg and then we could all move on.
Ahahahahaaa!
That damned Stamp Act. Unforgivable. Why’d you have to bring that up?
But seriously, I don’t need an apology. We whooped them more than you can whoop anyone, and they know it. Racial superiority? Never felt that from them. They just like to keep a tight border. We could learn something there. As for Korea, China, etc., the U.S. is supposed to expect those apologies to occur before we let them off the hook? Why? Let them negotiate their own relationships. We’re not their co-dependents.
As far as I’m concerned, the past is well over. We are now allies. Japan has a great culture, and personally I’m envious of their immigration policies. Plus we both share a love of baseball. Can’t beat that.
Very touching. Great looking family. God bless.
The Japanese are the most racist of people. They consider themselves to be superior to everyone. They look down on Chinese and Koreans as racial inferiors. To them, we are hairy barbarians. They respect us, but their respect is very tempered.
You missed my point. I think Abe is apologizing to the U.S.A. in part to prepare his people for future apologies to Koreans, Taiwanese and Philippinos. Apologizing to the Americans is the easiest apology to make.
Apologies will be needed from Japan to the Koreans, Taiwanese and Philippinos, if they are going to form an alliance that each can trust. They have only learned that they need an alliance in the Age of Obama, when they suddenly learned that America is not a trustworthy ally. After Trump, fickle American voters just might return the presidency to a Leftist. In which case they are going to need each other.
I find that refreshing. I find that the hallmark of conservatism. There was a time when western civilization thought themselves superior. Now we are just cultural relativists, just like the Liberals have always wanted us to be.
Edit: That’s not to say I support racism. I don’t. But I do believe in cultural superiority.
As others said, I want the truth of the Rape of Nanking taught, along with denunciation of militant racial nationalism, because I like the Japanese and I don’t want to have to nuke them again.
Japan needs to recognize that they were as bad as the Nazis in WWII, and commit to not doing it again. It’s the same standard I’d apply to the southern US. I don’t see Southern people needing to eternally apologize for slavery, as long as they are not calling for a return of the peculiar institution or stating that the South should have won. It’s also not a problem to laud the bravery and skill of individuals fighting for the wrong side.
How a about when they refer to the “War of Northern Aggression”?
Japan is not a melting-pot culture and never has been. I don’t see any reason why they should open their culture to others if they don’t want to. (Personally, I like a lot of aspects of Japanese culture and would hate to see it diluted.)
My impression is that their insularity is more cultural than racist, but either way, it doesn’t bother me as long as they don’t use it as an excuse to dominate or eradicate other cultures. Since they dismantled their military and their empire long ago, that doesn’t seem like a particular worry.
During World War II? Of course they did. So did we. Look at propaganda posters from the era and you’ll see the most offensive racist caricatures you can imagine. It was war.
Agreed, absolutely, but that’s a separate issue. “They” — meaning today’s Japanese — didn’t commit those crimes. They need to be honest about what happened, and they need to condemn the crimes committed by their fathers and grandfathers, but that’s not the same thing as apologizing.