World War II began near an unremarkable town called Wanping, China in July 1937 and ended with soul-destroying fury that ballooned as giant mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
With two atomic bombs, the United States stuffed the genie of Japanese militarism into the American bottle. Under its watch, post-war Japan has maintained an elegant deception as a beacon of pacifism.
But the benign façade is cracking under the pressure of China’s rise and rise. The resurgence has sparked an existential crisis for Japan, its sense of drift even more acute as its erstwhile victim steams ahead.
Japan must find fresh bearings. The bad news is that whenever Japan casts around for new directions, it leaves a bloody trail of terror and destruction.
Throughout history, from the Korean Imjin （壬辰） wars to the Sino-Japanese wars of the modern era, Japan has displayed an innate disposition for raising the clenched fist against its neighbors.
It should be no surprise to John Kerry that he was rebuffed in South Korea for attempting to delink the bloody events of past from today’s security issues. Historic context is the framework for contemporary intra-Asian relations.
The geisha fan-boys claim that Japan has become a fully paid-up member of liberal democracy, and history does not repeat itself. But it rhymes, as some say.
In fact, names such as Abe, Aso and Hashimoto have a similar ring to yesterday’s warmongers; in Japan, the apple really does not fall far from the tree. Today’s leaders are scions of that power-hungry elite that planned and led the brutal rampage across Asia.
Out of political expediency, American occupying forces reprieved thousands of war criminals and butcher scientists to fortify the defeated enemy as a Cold War bulwark.
In Tokyo’s corridors of power, it has always been 1941 all over; when it is business as usual, what is there to repent or even reflect when some things apparently never happened – such as the Nanjing Massacre – or are exaggerated, like the comfort women issue?
With each poker-faced denial, the peaceful Zen-like mask is rolled back to reveal the martial bushido spirit. At heart, Japan is really a Potemkin village operated by bone-headed politicians from a corrupt party founded by war criminals, yakuza gangsters and foreign funding.
Shinzo Abe would be its village idiot, except for the method under the madness of his coven of crazies.
“The denial of crimes on the scale of the Rape of Nanking has only one meaning—it is the ideological preparation for new wars and new atrocities,’’ opines an article bylined John Symonds on wsws.org
“ It is an argument that until now has been confined to extreme right-wing fringe groups.
Nearly seven decades after the end of World II, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is rapidly re-militarising Japan, freeing its armed forces from any legal or constitutional constraints and revising history to whitewash the past crimes and atrocities of Japanese imperialism.’’
Provocations over Diaoyutai, visits to Yasukuni, textbook revisions, comfort women, Nanjing massacre, etc, serve one purpose: they help to harden home sentiment against the inevitable protests across the seas.
Washington has also becoming increasingly overt in support of Japanese re-armament, and Western thinktanks and media are falling in line with the move. The China-bashing claims can be described as `making the foot fit the shoe’.
Japan’s return to arms, says Financial Times, has resulted from the loud and angry noises China is making. What’s missing, though, is that Chinese objections were first triggered by Japanese baiting in `purchasing’ and `nationalizing’ Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands.
Analysts Ian Bremmer and David Gordon forward a tenuous assertion in a joint article (Project Syndicate) about China’s reforms; their failure, it seems, could make simmering tensions, especially with Japan, boil over into real war. A safe inference is that Japan must re-arm for its own safety.
Actually, the biggest danger of stalled reform would be to China itself. A state weakened by factional struggle and social unrest is ripe for foreign, especially Japanese, meddling.
China has been there before. The leitmotif of modern Chinese history is nei luan, wai huan (chaos within, aggression from without).
China’s firepower cannot reach parity – unless it wants to bankrupt itself – with the US-Japan and Nato alliances.
Ultimately, Shinzo Abe’s determination to tweak Japan’s peace constitution and facilitate military adventure with the US and allies, seems to smell of an incipient backdoor attempt at an Asian Nato, through false flags, bribery and coercion of countries over the long term.
Japan’s long peaceful charade will truly end when it completely throws off its benign mask to partner the US in leading a struggle for regional space and influence against China.
ersim says
The U.S. imposed “Japanese constitution” is “the peaceful Zen-like mask”, a “mask” the U.S. military occupation forces created to cover ” the martial bushido spirit” of Japan. A U.S. imposed “peace” Japan “agreed” to under military occupation. Let’s not kid ourselves, Japan has NEVER been in “peace” WILLINGLY.
Sleeper says
@ersim
Yes, Japan’s ambition and madness is beyond questions.
I’ve read some Japanese scholars’ articles about strategies for dealing with US and China. Most of them share a similar view: agitate China and then exaggerate Chinese threat, meanwhile lure US to believe China is going to kick US away from its position, and finally let China and US kill each other. After that, Japan can easily loot both China and US’s bodies and become the super power in the world.
Some malicious details is beyond imagination. For example a guy named Shigawa Shuu (市川 周) suggest to estrange overseas Chinese from their home country, by exaggerate the dark side of CPC and Chinese society in support of support Japan’s conquest. Shigawa thought that overseas Chinese had once jeopardized Japanese Empire before and would dot it again, while nowadays not a few overseas Chinese leave China for the dissatisfaction of CPC’s rule, so that Japan have the chance to turn them against their home country. And of course Shigawa will not let them live after jobs being done, he also suggest that Japan should eradicate the influence of overseas Chinese sooner or later. Shigawa integrated his views into one book—-Defeat China: Japan Shall Become Asia’s Parent (中国に勝つ!―日本よ「アジアの家長」たれ Amazon JP: http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%AB%E5%8B%9D%E3%81%A4-%E2%80%95%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%82%88%E3%80%8C%E3%82%A2%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A2%E3%81%AE%E5%AE%B6%E9%95%B7%E3%80%8D%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8C-%E5%B8%82%E5%B7%9D-%E5%91%A8/dp/4569558984/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1392918713&sr=8-5&keywords=%E5%B8%82%E5%B7%9D+%E5%91%A8) in 1997, and warned all Japanese publishing house that do not translate this book into Chinese (Oh yeah, he might think not a normal Chinese can read his words) for his views were “seriously meanful”. Although looks daydreams, some of his views are accepted by current Japanese government.
denk says
few people know about japan’s complicity in the 1965 genocide in indon
*The Indonesian covert action of 1965, reported by Ralph McGehee, who was in that area division, and had documents on his desk, in his custody about that operation. He said that one of the documents concluded that this was a model operation that should be copied elsewhere in the world. Not only did it eliminate the effective communist party (Indonesian communist party), it also eliminated the entire segment of the population that tended to support the communist party – the ethnic Chinese, Indonesian Chinese. And the CIA’s report put the number of dead at 800,000 killed. And that was one covert action. We’re talking about 1 to 3 million people killed in these things. [1987 Lecture] THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA: by John Stockwell*
http://www.whale.to/b/indonesian_genocide.html
denk says
i posted the wrong link, here’s on jap complicity.
everybody knows that the 1965 indon genocide was muricun orchestrated, [1]
but…..
few r aware that the japs were up to their eyeballs in that bloodbath, where up to a million innocent chinese were framed as commie 5 columists n slaughtered like sacrifiicial lambs.
* Besides certain Western oil companies, Japanese oil firms and other Japanese interests were connected with those plotting Sukarno’s overthrow and the demise of the PKI.
……………………………
Besides the 1973 Chilean coup, among the many other coups in which the CIA has been a prime agent after Indonesia 1965, was that in Cambodia in 1970, of which many observers noted the same complex of CIA plotters, Japanese secret societies and oil interests behind the military takeover there. Even Suharto’s Army was implicated *
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/prsp25.htm
ersim says
Japan has always been a useful tool for Western imperial ambitions to have access to the Pacific Ocean. Since the sol called Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, when Britain was a major power at that time, signed an “agreement” with Japan in “respecting” each others ” interests”. As the saying goes,”The more things change, the more they stay the same”.
pug_ster says
http://world.time.com/2014/02/13/toshio-tamogami-japanese-right/
Sad thing is that Abe is fueling Japan’s Ultra right like Toshio Tamogami who is even more crazier than Abe. The point is that he ran for a position for Mayor in Japan and won 12% of the vote, and more than 25% of the people who are in their 20’s. It seems that Japan’s whitewashing their textbooks works and now they have a next generation of youth who is blaming China for Japan’s Lost decades.
Allen says
@denk
Have you seen this recent oscar nominated (not that it necessarily means anything) documentary on the mass killings that occurred in Indonesia starting 1965?
See, e.g.,
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/indonesia/140115/the-act-killing-oscars-indonesia-crew-anonymous-interview
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/24/act-of-killing-oscar-nomination-indonesian-government
http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1410271/chinese-demand-apology-indonesian-communist-purge-film-gets-oscar
I haven’t … and don’t know exactly what to think of Indonesia. It’s not just that … bur also its terrorizing of East Timor (see e.g. http://www.crimesofwar.org/commentary/east-timor-ten-years-on-justice-denied/).
Is Indonesia “evil” – like Japan? Is the U.S.? What about other S.E. nations like Malaysia … or Vietnam that have also engaged in open, mass ethnic cleansing and oppression? Or is that too simplistic a way of looking at things?
denk says
@Allen
sorry Allen, just see ur post now.
i didnt watch the film , merely read a review.
what’ll they think of next , a docudrama about the 1998 atrocity starring the mass rapists themselves ?
indonesia does has more than its fair share of ethnic genocides, i think its one of the most inhospitable country for chinese this part of the world.
ethnic chinese also suffered two pogroms in malaysia . even today many malaysian chinese resent the preferential treatment given to the bumniputras.
but relatively speaking, i agree with malaysian leaders claim that its one of the more tolerant n bengin country out there for ethnic chinese !
overall i put the blame squarely on the evil vampire, this perenial *shit stirrer* was the agent provocateur behind most , if not all of the anti chinese violence all over the world.
this evil vampire isnt contend to make use of japan as catpaw to provoke china,
its also actively courting indonesia to join the posse. no sooner did kerry left jakarta when the indons warned china not to set up a sea adiz. !
pug_ster says
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fukushima-anniversary/japan-producing-huge-lightly-guarded-stockpile-plutonium-n49376
Oh gee, guess Japan is stockpiling weapons grade plutonium.
pug_ster says
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/04/08/japan-pm-abes-push-for-bigger-military-role-faces-tough-opposition/
I frind this poll funny. Ironically, 63% of Japanese that they shouldn’t rearm and 47% of the Japanese believe that they haven’t resolved their “Wartime History” issues.