Is there any lingering hatred for Japan on a global level

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I didn’t know Korea was a Confucian society. Chalk up another tiny scrap of ignorance, erased.

I have known a few vets of the Pacific war theatre who still as of this writing, don’t much care for Japan in general, and I have heard more than once about Korean and Chinese feelings about Japan’s past.

Most Americans I’ve spoken with, though, seem to regard it as a tit for tat thing – “They attacked Pearl Harbor, but then we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then the war was over, and what’s the point in dwelling on it?”

22

As others have said above, there are quite a few Chinese and Koreans who are still pretty angry at the Japanese.

In the West, it seems to me that there’s not so much a problem of lingering hatred as lingering contempt. I’ve written about this before, but I’ve often sensed that many of my fellow Americans don’t think the Japanese are capable of anything more than ripping off good ol’ American ingenuity. Heck, sometimes I don’t have to sense it, because they say so flat out. Others are less negative, but equally contemptuous in a “Look how cute and funny they are, with their flashy cellphones and their porn cartoons! It’s like they think they’re civilized!” kind of way.

Even some people who seem to like Japan strike me as being pretty darn condescending about it. These range from the real creeps looking for petite, submissive women to the real geeks who think they’re experts on a rich, centuries-old culture because they’ve seen a few of those porn cartoons.

23

Oddly, I have a chip on my shoulder toward the Japanese. They seem to refuse to understand WWII (in the Asian/Pacific Theater) was their fault.

The Germans did nasty stuff, but they accept that and we can now move on. The Japanese were the equal of the Nazis and seem to have a blind spot on the subject.

Maybe I am irrational, but sometimes it is OK to be a bit irrational.

24

We could argue a lot as to exactly who is to blame for the Pacific war. And American bombing of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not makes USA liked in Asia either.

25

Ah, WWII, a very complicated war with very complicated roots, as well as a heaping share of just plain human brutality towards other humans.

I had several uncles in the Pacific in WWII (in addition to a couple in Europe, too). The Pacific guys were all front-line Marines who, afterwards, never talked much to anyone about what had happened. They didn’t have to - what little they did mention was enough to convince my young self not to inquire further. Icky warning: They certainly did see a lot up close and personal, and most of their buddies weren’t even buried - when you’re pinned down by gunfire you don’t go grave-digging no matter how good of friends you were with that guy over there. Uncles are where I learned about nature’s beach-cleaning crew, in which crabs figured prominently. At first, none of them or their fellow Marines ate the crabs because the crabs were so happy to munch on dead people. When they started to get really hungry, though, and as time went on, they started eating the crabs. In some places, starving Japanese troops eliminated the crab middle-man and went directly to canabalism. Uncle Bill always said the battle stuff he had seen was much, much worse than crabs eating out the eyeballs of the corpse lying on the sand next to him. Uncle Bill would also include sound effects with this story.
Anyhow - the uncles weren’t terribly fond of Japanese. In fact, they still used some nasty language in referring to them. On the other hand, when they encountered a Japanese (or other Asian, because, to be honest, they didn’t draw much distinction between them) in later life they were courteous and polite (usually). But they never, ever trusted them - were absolutely convinced that the civilized veneer was just that - very thin veneer and just underneath were sadistic beasts.

By cooincidence, where I went to high school we had a significant number of Japanese kids. Apparently their elders felt much the same about Americans as my uncles felt about Japanese. And they had all sorts of family lore about the atrocities Americans had committed against the Japanese. I guess the main difference between us in regards to WWII is that while we both had similar stories about American atrocities in the Pacific, only the Americans seem to have any stories of Japanese atrocities. These kids - and their parents - seemed very shocked at hearing about some of what went on that was perpetrated by Japan.

As my life has gone on, and as I have learned more about WWII, including details never shared in my high school history classes (being very explicit and nasty), I can’t claim that we Americans were wonderful, ethical human beings. However, I do not see any official recognition on the part of the Japanese government, or of many native Japanese, to admit and take responsibility for what they had done that was just plain wrong. They do seem to portray themselves as victims - sort of “oh, yes, we bombed Pearl Harbor and maybe that was wrong, but your reaction was all out of proportion to what we had done”

Well, yeah, the Doolittle Raids did wind up bombing a hospital and burning down civilian homes - but the Japanese killing tens of thousands (in some estimates, hundreds of thousands) of Chinese in response to just a few people aiding pilots landing on the mainland was also a bit over the top, don’t you think? After which both sides spent some time escalating up the war crimes ladder.

Anyhow - yes, the Americans took “trophies” - they mailed home Japanese skulls and trinkets made of Japanese bones in addition to collection of personal effects, but we’ve admitted that and in cases where identification could be made the remains have been returned to surviving relatives with apologies (as if any apology could atone for that) Yes, we bombed civilians, dropped napalm on cities, and yes, there were those atomic bombs. But like I said, we’ve admitted to that. We provided medical care to the injured after the war. We helped rebuild Japan (back in the 70’s and 80’s some of us said we maybe had done too good a job). I don’t know how you make up for doing bad things like that, but at least we’ve tried to balance the scales.

The Japanese, however, seem to go blissfully on and don’t seem to understand why other folks are still angry about things like “comfort women” (a euphenism for imprisoning women for the purposes of allowing soldiers to rape them at a rate of 40-70 men a day, every day, for the duration of the war - or until they died, as many of them did), slaughter of civlians including canabalism (well, the Japanese troops were starving in many instances), torture of men who had surrended, and the charming habit of putting a bullet in the head of wounded (of either side) rather than rendering aid. The use of prisoners and civilians for biological warfare and medical experiments. Use of live people for both sword practice and bayonet practice in the training of soldiers. And, oh yes, only the Japanese used chemical warfare (on the Chinese mainland) during WWII.

So yeah, there’s a LOT of hatred and mistrust in Asia (so I’m told) about a lot of things that happened during WWII. And the Americans may be allies of the Japanese now, but we’re somewhat uneasy as friends. Certainly, neither side wants a re-match on the battlefield, but we still have a lot of areas of disagreement. A lot of this is cultural differences, yes, but it’s part of American culture that it’s most honorable to confess to one’s wrong-doings and attempt atonement. Maybe in Japan it’s still considered best to never admit wrong and “save face”. I don’t know how you reconcile those two differences. But until the Japanese can admit that they were aggressors in WWII there will be a lot of people who don’t trust them - if you can’t be honest about your conduct in the face of overwhelming evidence how can you be trusted to be honest in other areas?

Pearl Harbor was NOT the only unprovoked attack launched by the Japanese during WWII.

And my uncles always had contempt for how the Japanese treated their own - leaving troops on Pacific islands to starve, killing the wounded instead of caring for them, women and children being forced to suicide rather than being allowed to surrender… (not everyone who jumped off a cliff after an American invasion of an island did so willingly). It gets pretty bad when you start feeling sorry for the enemy grunts you’re shooting at (not too sorry - they were still at war, after all)

So please, spare me the notion that the atomic bombs were so horrifically out of proportion to the rest of the war - horrible yes, a new technology, yes, a new way to kill and wound people but the fact is a lot more people died of conventional causes - starvation, bullets, disease, fire, and swords - than the a-bomb killed or wounded. Which doesn’t make them OK, but I think people focus so much on those two bombs they forget the rest of the horror that happened.

Of course, the generations that actually remember WWII on a personal level are dying off, so the actual guilty are disappearing on both sides. I don’t think the younger generation on either side is being told the full truth. This may lead to greater trust in the future, without the memories of horrific things to poison the relationship, but I question if that sort of ignorance is really the best foundations on which to build a relationship in the future.

26

Yes, Japanese did lots of cruel things all over the pacific ,but why they have to apologise first?
Why Americans won’t apologise for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki?and how about fire bombing civilians in Dresden and Hamburg?
Why won’t USA apologise to the black people for slavery?
Why won’t USA apologise for holocaust of N.American Indians?
Why won’t USA apologise for killing millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians?
Why won’t USA apologise for treatment of prisoners at Abu-Ghraib.?
Show some example to the World, maybe then other nations do the same.!!!

27

You can’t blame just the government for this. The reason they can’t issue an official recognition is because it would be political suicide. That says a lot about what the majority of the Japanese think. Many think the Koreans and Chinese hate Japan for its economic success. (Not dissimilar to the “they hate us for our freedom” line, I guess.) As a Japanese citizen myself I’m truly ashamed that this is going on.

28

Excuse me? WTF?

Why the Hell is there something fucking SPECIAL about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Whee, one bomb, instead of a whole fucking flight. Why don’t the people who carry on about the inhumanity of these bombings ever mention the firebombing of Tokyo, which is estimated to have killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined?

For that matter, why doesn’t anyone ever point out the apparant racism in the dichotomy between US bombing policy over Japan compared with that over Germany? In Germany the US steadfastly refused to do nighttime bombing, or area bombing, because of concerns about civilian casualties. On the other hand, those same policies were standard over Japan.

So killing Japanese civvies is only wrong if you do it using a fucking nuke? Get a goddam clue.

Sorry, nonpolar, I’m not really screaming at you - it’s rather the assumptions that you and others like you seem to be operating on.

I’d also like to point out there’s a vast difference between not apologising for past behaviors - and officially denying that such actions took place. (BTW: I thought that there had been public and official apologies from various politicians for US treatment of blacks, and for Abu Ghraib.)

29

Or the fire bombing of Dresden

That’s because the Brits were bombing at night, the USA during the day.

30

Actually, that’s an effect not a cause: The Brits wanted to do night bombing in spite of the reduced accuracy because of the advantages with regards to evading fighter cover - translating to lowered crew casualties for those making the bombing runs. Also, between Churchill, and the commander of the British air wing, AIUI there was a lot of willingness on the part of Brit high command to burn as many German civvies as they could. And the US bombing group was adamant to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties - which meant they were willing to accept higher crew losses, and the other problems associated with daylight bombing.

I might be wrong about that - but that’s my understanding of how the day/night split was made.

31

I wouldn’t say hatred, more like strong dislike, mostly because they are actively ignoring what they’ve done to China, Korea and a few others of their conquests.

Before going over there, I was fascinated by Japanese culture and frankly, it is very admirable. People are polite, superficially friendly. Everything is beautiful, clean and well organized. If you are Japanese, they are truly no better place to be then Japan.

But you can feel the undercurrent of discrimination and racism everywhere, like some kind of dark shadow ready to overtake should any disruptive event occur. When you are American or European, things are relatively ok because there is some kind of ignorant fascination. (Except of course in place like Okinanawa where there is “too many” of them).

But if you are a Korean or a Chinese in Japan… It is not so nice. Multiculturalism / melting pot are foreign concepts. They still prop up any successful “true” Japanese as some kind of superman (Hideki Matsui…). They still do a lot of flag waving. Still make and obey arbitrary rules without criticizing. If I remember, a poll conducted while I was there had something like 70% of them preferring not having tourists from other countries. The mayor of Tokyo (almost a city-state) is a popular man, even if he is blatantly racism. They have black jeeps driving around, shouting slogans like “Repeal the Barbarians”. There is of course a minority of liberal-minded Japanese that openly criticize their own culture. But they are a small minority with no political power and only a superficial understanding (on the level of the hippie “Make love not war”)… The government is stale, monolithic and corrupt.

So I guess that is why there is a fundamental distrust. If they haven’t learned from their history, what says they won’t repeat it? A large portion of Americans have read and recognize how terrible the destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima was. A very large majority of Germans feel guilt about the holocaust. But the Japaneses live blind to their past.

32

I think a guy named Bomber Harris was running the show. Killing civilians was supposed to reduce morale and help bring the war to an end. The RAF and the USAAC participated in the fire bombing of Dresden.
My point being that the USA had no bad feelings about killing civilians by bombing German cities.

33

There was a program on UK TV recently (can’t remember the channel) about Japanese treatment of prisoners in WWII Vs WWI - I didn’t see the whole thing but it seemed to be saying that in WWI the Japanese had treated prisoners very well.
But with the unchecked growth of the military (who were only responsible to the Emperor, not the government IIRC) there came a problem of training and disciplining the huge number of new recruits.

The solution was to deliberately brutalise the recruits, or rather to get them to brutalise each other (There were various horrific recollections from old Japanese solders of having to beat their comrades and of being beaten, on a routine, daily basis)
The brutalised troops, spurred on by the aggressive militaristic thinking of the time, and ideas of racial and cultural superiority went on to commit atrocities against civilians and prisoners.

34

Here is the obligatory link.

Worse than I thought:

At the time, the city was cramped full of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. Dresden, having been spared from previous attacks, was considered to be very safe. Bomber Command was ordered to attack Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and other east German cities to “cause confusion in the evacuation from the east” and “hamper the movements of troops from the west”. This directive led to the raid on Dresden and marked the erosion of one last moral restriction in the bombing war: the term “evacuation from the east” did not refer to retreating troops but to the civilian refugees fleeing from the advancing Soviet troops. Although these refugees clearly did not contribute to the German war effort, they were considered legitimate targets simply because the chaos caused by attacks on them might obstruct German troop reinforcements to the Eastern Front. There are eyewitness-reports that even civilians fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden in February 1945 were strafed by British and American aircraft, though it is doubted

35

carnivorousplant, I didn’t mean to imply I doubted the reality of the Dresden raid - nor that the US took part in it. However, it was, in many ways, an atypical attack for the USAAF. That does nothing to change the horror, or the casualties.

36

The British didn’t “want” to do any bombing at all - it was a guy called Hitler who asked the Germans if they wanted total war, and a lot of them said “yes”, hence WWII.
As to night Vs day bombing or area Vs precision bombing, there was no choice, at least at first, since bombers flying during the day got shot down (bomber command still lost tens of thousands of aircrew at night), and bomb-aiming even during the day didn’t allow the precision to hit anything smaller than a city (it took a long time before it was realised how inaccurate the raids were)

The Americans, coming along later, thought their heavily-armed bombers could defend themselves if flown in formation during the day; in fact they took unsustainable casualties until fighter escorts with sufficient range were available.

Personally, I think Bomber Harris and others were mistaken in pressing on stubbornly with area bombing of cities when new bomb-sights, navigation systems, etc finally allowed real precision bombing to be realised. But I’m not going to sit in judgment on them morally, I know how WWII turned out, they didn’t have that luxury.
They were fighting for the survival of their country, for civilisation itself, in the way they thought most likely to bring victory. Personally, I’m glad they won

37

Evil bastards, how dare they make cars that are better AND cheaper! Maybe the people were buying Japanese cars because they were affordable and dependable? From what I remember, Detroit started churning out real crap in the 70s and 80s,and was arrogant about it . Don’t make a decent product, wave the flag and demand protectionism instead. Maybe they were buying Japanese stereos because they were the best? Downright unpatriotic.

38

From this book review

The problem with getting a true picture of the Dresden raid is that has been so thoroughly propagandised.
The Nazis started of course, followed by the East Germans. But what often isn’t realised is the work most often quoted as “the” history of the raid was written by that evil fuck David Irvine, Hitler apologist and Holocaust denier (wanting to discredit Churchill, as in most of his work)

39

Atypical? how about the fire-bombing of the Japanese cities (much worse casualties than the A-Bombs BTW, though for some reason the A-Bombs that finished the war in the Pacific are seen as the last word in evil)
It was a war - people get killed in wars, thats why it’s a really bad idea to start them (and yes, thats an Iraq reference)

40

I don’t agree.look at modern Japan and other western nations, there is always little bit of xenophobia and discrimination.Japan as an island nation in particular was always on the fringes of so called multiculturalism.,they are just not used to foreigners.
One more thing, – Japan and German nations did not hurt anyone in last 60 years, so obviously they learned from their history .