Ah…since the Japanese were not quite as methodical as the Germans their actions weren’t as bad. It that it?
The Japanese had a distinctly dim view of other Asian societies. They were there to be used as a resource for the Japanese and certainly were beneath consideration as other human beings.
The Nanking Massacrre, the Sook Ching Massacre, Japan gathering forced labor on the order of a million Manchurians. 100,000 forced laborers died in building the Burma-Thailand railroad. The Bataan death march was mostly other Asians and some Americans. Comfort women forced into sex for the benefit of Japanese soldiers (massive scale, ongoing rape).
Then look at Unit 731. Think carefully before reading that. Vivisection of live humans, germ warfare on actual populations, giving poison candy to children…the list is shocking. It was a fucking horror show (that puts it mildly).
Frankly, gas chambers seem a blessing considering some of that. Japan may not have been bent on the systematic extinction of the Chinese or Koreans but enslaving them and seeing fit to subject them to whatever took their fancy was certainly there. The Japanese managed to knock off around 20 million Chinese, 9 million Koreans and 2 million Taiwanese.
I am not sure saying, “But they were worse cuz it was genocide” gets us anywhere. In both cases it was evil on a massive scale that was tacitly and/or explicitly allowed by their governments and military. Both Germany and Japan had a lot to answer for. The Germans have owned up to their atrocities and endeavored to make amends. The Japanese not so much and rather prefer to play the aggrieved party because they got nuked.
Bottom line:
The Japanese government/military in WWII was fucking evil. No two ways about it.
Back in the 1990’s there was a 4-part documentary on tv about Japan, narrated and featuring actress Jane Seymour. It was about modern Japanese culture.
Unfortunately—under a veneer of very proper behavior that one associates with modern Japanese culture, there is a strong undercurrent of violence in the society.
I remember one segment in the documentary that illustrates this. Seymour visits a Japanese adult bookstore. She describes not just that porn is available in Japan, but that it tends to be of an extremely violent and sadistic nature. “Shocking even to the most hardened Westerner”, she remarks.
She then goes on to connect this observation with Japanese atrocities in WWII. She explains that since Japan is such a crowded society, there are strict rules on personal behavior to prevent conflicts when so many people are crowded elbow to elbow. However a problem can occur when the average Japanese is taken out of this controlling societal context. They can feel lost and unguided.
Then if you put this person in a wartime combat situation, with all the terrors and dangers, it only makes it worse. All the pent-up aggression and lack of societal control can cause an ordinary Japanese to lose all restraint.
I don’t know what it was like to grow up as Japanese in Japan. In the US just one parent that kills a newborn is in every newspaper all over the country. But to live in China, where tens of thousands of newborn girls are killed…it’s beyond my ability to understand and respect. Can I assume an entire nation can go insane all at the same time? History books single out one culture at one time, then pass onto another culture at another of what seems like mass insanity. I have a spiritual thing about this sort of thing.
He was. So were the Portuguese consul who delivered tons of visas to Jews in France, or the Swiss police officer who let in many Jews against orders. All three were rehabilitated only long after their deaths (as late as the 90s)
The North could kill tens of thousands or more with just a conventional artillery barrage, aside from nukes or invasion. I’d bet the US has a few Patriot batteries around to try stopping a missile attack. The odds of them succeeding are probably better than the odds of a N Korean nuke hitting Japan and actually working as designed.
I read the first few page and get the jest. Now I understand why Chinese still holds a deep grudge against Japan.
If you all can get some stories of how horrible the Japanese treated the American POW, just remember, during WW2 there was only about 106,000 American killed by Japanese and almost all of them was military.
Now, let’s take that number and change it to about 20-25 million Chinese killed. And imagine their suffering.
Another thing about Japanese is that during WW2 is that they have done the greatest damage to the Chinese, but after the war, but it was really the Americans that got the revenge, they occupied Japanese homeland and make it a vessel nation.
China essentially got nothing, no revenge, no resolution, this is because after the war, soon China went into a civil war with each other and no one cared about Japan’s involvement for their damage for about 50 years, until modern China as we know of awakens today.
I read up more about Unit 731, (it was not a easy thing to do). It appears the person in charge of that and many other doctors who were responsible for the experiment and killing got off free after the war, because they give all of their research data to the American military in return for war crime immunity, and he lived peacefully until his old age and died in his bed. To me this is a huge injustice, because it was NOT an immunity for the American to give. I am 10000% sure if his experiment subjects was American soldiers they would be killed faster than you can say uncle. Oh well, such is the nature of war and justice.
Now, I see a pissed off China starting to remember the past… and remembering it very well…
If I were the Japanese, it would very much be my interest to apologize as much as I can and make peace with China, but funny thing is, I see the opposite thing is happening, so many times you hear Japanese politician make stupid comments like Nanking was a lie… there was no comfort woman… Japan was trying to liberate Asian from Western colonizer etc… This DOES NOT make the situation easier for them.
And from China’s perspective, about this island dispute, funny thing is this island is about 10x closer to China than to Japan mainland, and it was officially “discovered” by Japan during their first year invasion of China. So I can see how modern Chinese would be very angry about Japan calling this island so close to Taiwan/China as “inherently” Japanese territory. They would easily link this to the connection with Japanese invasion of their homeland a century ago.
Watch ‘City Of Life And Death’ for a beautifully tragic depiction of the goings-on in c.1937 Nanjing. The best Sino film I can attest to seeing. Caveat: It’s heart-wrenching.
As far as the ‘why’ is concerned; methinks it has to do with the Bushido culture and the ingrained attitude of superiority the Japanese felt at that time. As with most atrocity committed during wartime, its often facilitated by the systematic dehumanisation of a group of people; a ploy that makes it a lot easier for an aggressor to justify base actions that fly in the face of human morality. Japanese Shimbun (newspapers) regularly reported of ‘sport killing’ conducted by Japanese ‘samurai’, with head counts (literally) determining the victors of said macabre games and the participant treated like modern day sporting stars.
The real point on import, however, is how deep these wounds still go to this very day. With deliberate nationalistic indoctrination on the Chinese part and the refusal of Japan to avow the heinous acts committed in Nianjing, it serves to fan the smouldering coals of hatred between the two Asiatic powers. The Senkaku / Daioyu islands dispute has its roots in incidents like Nanjing and may well become a flashpoint for conflict in the not too distant future (see: recent re-election of Japan’s right wing, hard(er) line government). If China’s economy and in turn, communist regime’s legitimacy wanes, the world will so become well au fait with lingering Sino-Japanese animosity, to be sure.
If you’re a gambling person, your money should be on any possible World War III emanating from the region in question, nay the Middle-East; as counter-intuitive as this sounds considering mainstream media reporting. The proxy WWIII fought in the Koreas is only in a ceasefire stasis itself…
China’s problem with still intent on blaming Japan for a basically 10-year conflict 70 years ago is that after the war, China went and killed 20-30 million people of its own people during a 3-year span during the Great Leap Forward… Heck of a lot easier to point at Japan and say ‘they’re the bad people! Look, over there!’…
Re: the Senkakus, proximity to China is meaningless, but in ay case, the idea that Senkakus / Diaoyu are ‘10x closer to China vs Japan’ is ridiculous; have you even looked at a map? The islands are about 120 miles from Taiwan, and 110 miles north of a Japanese island (Ishigaki Island). Japan took over the islands in 1895. The US gained control over the islands after WWII, and returned the islands to Japan control in 1972. It’s only after oil reserves were found that China reasserted its claim to the islands. The Chinese government wrote an official letter in the 1920s making reference to the Senkakus as being part of ‘Okinawa, Empire of Japan’. China’s newspapers in the 1950s refer to the Senakus as being part of Japanese territory. Taiwan’s official government documents up through the 70s refer to the Senkakus as belonging to Japan. If it went to an international court of law, China would lose.
Please do some basic research before spouting nonsense. The Japanese government has officially and repeatedly apologizedfor its actions in the war in general, and regarding the Nanking massacre in specific.
Is there a handful of loonies in Japanese politics that insist the Nanking ‘incident’ didn’t happen or is overblown? Sure. Are their loonies in US politics that think a woman can’t get preggers if she was ‘legitimately raped’? Sure. Hope you see where I’m going with this.
Cite please for ‘regular reporting’ of sport killing. In Japanese is fine. By ‘samurai’, no less, sheesh. :rolleyes: Do you think samurai were still running around in the 1940s, swords at their hips, killing people?
There are lots of things Japan could be criticized for. ‘Insufficient apologies for WWII’ ain’t one of 'em. And in any case the idea that military atrocities during a war can somehow be ‘more evil’ than the Holocaust and the deliberate, calculated, and efficiently managed attempt to exterminate an entire ethnicity from the face of the earth is just silly.
That may be part of it – on some level, the Western nations “expected better” from the Germans, so their atrocities were more shocking (all else being equal).
Thank you for the response, those are indeed the normal reply from a Japanese to Chinese when history is being bring up.
While I agree that Mao’s famine caused more death than Japanese invasion, but you go to admit this is different, because Mao basically screwing his own nation and almost all the death was caused by hunger, but Japanese invasion was different, it was a different nation that invaded another nation can caused more than just damage to human, it also cause widespread infrastructural destruction which were much more costly than just death from hunger. And just because one wrong is just as worse, does not make the other wrong none existent.
That would be like for example, you were walking on the street peacefully after withdrawing $10,000 cash from the ATM, but before you got home, you got robbed by gunpoint. So you go to the police to file a report, at first police feel empathy towards you, but after police pull up your background, then find out that you own $20,000 dollar to the IRS for tax evasion and $10,000 dollar to credit card due to reckless spending on drugs and hookers.
So does that justified the police saying… “oh come on dude, don’t blame the robber, you yourself have done a lot worse in personal finance and you even own the government money, so why don’t you stop the act buddy and walk away, I am not going to help to you recover your money because it appears you have lost more money by your own stupid personal decisions”
Is that justified? One wrong by yourself wash away another wrong done by someone else?
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Re: the Senkakus, proximity to China is meaningless, but in ay case, the idea that Senkakus / Diaoyu are ‘10x closer to China vs Japan’ is ridiculous; have you even looked at a map? The islands are about 120 miles from Taiwan, and 110 miles north of a Japanese island (Ishigaki Island). Japan took over the islands in 1895. The US gained control over the islands after WWII, and returned the islands to Japan control in 1972. It’s only after oil reserves were found that China reasserted its claim to the islands. The Chinese government wrote an official letter in the 1920s making reference to the Senkakus as being part of ‘Okinawa, Empire of Japan’. China’s newspapers in the 1950s refer to the Senakus as being part of Japanese territory. Taiwan’s official government documents up through the 70s refer to the Senkakus as belonging to Japan. If it went to an international court of law, China would lose.
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You are correct on the 1895, that is when the year Japan officially “discovered” and took over the island, but you should also know that the year 1894 was the year that the first Sino Japanese war broke out, that is the year when Japan invaded China and took over Taiwan in 1895. And geographically that island is part of Taiwan island chain
So of curse you can argue that China recognize the island as part of Japan in the 1920s, because almost half of China was almost conquered by Japan. And after war, Japan is suppose to return all of the land it conquered by force, and for some reason, they didn’t do it with this island. So why can’t you see that from Taiwan/China’s perspective this is actually a continue legacy of the war of Japanese aggression?
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Please do some basic research before spouting nonsense. The Japanese government has officially and repeatedly apologizedfor its actions in the war in general, and regarding the Nanking massacre in specific.
Is there a handful of loonies in Japanese politics that insist the Nanking ‘incident’ didn’t happen or is overblown? Sure. Are their loonies in US politics that think a woman can’t get preggers if she was ‘legitimately raped’? Sure. Hope you see where I’m going with this.
Cite please for ‘regular reporting’ of sport killing. In Japanese is fine. By ‘samurai’, no less, sheesh. :rolleyes: Do you think samurai were still running around in the 1940s, swords at their hips, killing people?
There are lots of things Japan could be criticized for. ‘Insufficient apologies for WWII’ ain’t one of 'em. And in any case the idea that military atrocities during a war can somehow be ‘more evil’ than the Holocaust and the deliberate, calculated, and efficiently managed attempt to exterminate an entire ethnicity from the face of the earth is just silly.
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Yes I agree with you that not everyone in Japan today thinks Nanking didn’t happen, however one thing is for sure, the widespread of ignorance and denial of the war crime is far more mainstream than German societies, I don’t think there are Japanese running all over the place yelling “War didn’t happen” as much as there are so much more Japanese that just don’t care about history or what their nation have done to others. The widespread is ignorance on purpose or by design is very much part of Japanese society, there is also the problem that the people in power often feels that Japan did no wrong or Japan didn’t do as much wrong as those oversensitive Chinese/Korean constantly going on about. I don’t need to remind you this for what Shinzo Abe have said in the Nanking Now what do you think the chances that Angela Merkel go around and giving speech that says “Nazi was not that bad, Holocaust was not as bad as the people make it seems”
Or how do you think if Obama says that “the atomic bombing of Japan was not that bad, I think it was well done and it should have killed more Japanese for what they done to pearl harbor” Not so good is it?
I am sorry but you guys are getting way out of hand here. The above statements are taken way out of context and are only a small part of the equation. It would be like saying:
I learned 2+2=0 in math today!
Leaving out the second 2 is actually -2. The real equation being:
2+ (-2)=0
The karmic laws work as such:
Sure, the beggar had done something in his previous life to attain that position, BUT, that doesn’t mean:
Do bad things to him. You, yourself, will get bad karma and suffer for acting that way.
Don’t help them. To overcome your bad karma, or to get a higher birth, etc you must help.
Maybe at the highest level of realization, you see everybody as spirit and not this body, you aren’t gonna help them… but even then, you will help them to show the right path of life to the less realized.
Anyway you cut it, you don’t harm others, or at least try to minimize it.
Have you spent even one day in Japan? Do you live there? Do you speak/read/write the language? Do you have even the smidgen of the first clue of ‘Japanese society’?
Because I can say with 100% confident that you don’t have a fucking clue of what you’re talking about.
You know you can’t win an argument when you are dropping F-Bombs, and attack me as a person instead of finding evidence to attack what I wrote.
Oh well, so much for a civilized discussion.
ps… yes I been to Japan and I have talked to many Japanese people on this issue.
Now, you can drop more F-bombs or go back to my post and write up a detail response to dispute what I am trying to say… ball is in your court my friend, good luck.
Well, maybe not in some alternative universe, but they surely can be criticized for that, in this world.
Japanese “apologies” have been few and have nearly always been delivered late and under external pressure. It was only in the early 1980s before their school textbooks began acknowledging that the empire might have done something to instigate the Allied occupation that began in 1945. (And by the early 1990s, there was loud backlash movement that wanted to reverse the minor gains made in the '80s.)
Now, on the other side, a Japanese kid who went into the Army in 1945 at the age of 17 would be 84, now, so the idea that the current population of Japan should be held accountable for the atrocities of WWII tends to lean in the direction of blood feuds. Japan (repeatedly) missed an opportunity to actually atone for its actions, (and idiotic claims by guys like Abe that deny the historical reality of Korean “comfort women” do nothing to encourage their neighbors to look more kindly upon them), but it is soon approaching the point where antipathy based on events during WWII are rather pointless.
The question has always been “How bad was Japan in World War II?”
Japan has certainly acknowledged that what they did was wrong. But from what I’ve heard, they often qualify these admissions by comparing the things they did in World War II to other historical conquests like the British conquest of India or the American war with Mexico. Their implied argument is “Sure, what we did is wrong. But you guys have all done things that were comparible so we’re no worse than everyone else.”
Yep this is one of the arguments, but if you were on the receiving end of it, how would you feel about this explanation?
“So what if I raped your daughter and killed your whole family? Because John over there have done far worse to other people, he raped and killed 2 families, and I only raped and killed one, therefore you should get over it.”
If you were on the receiving end of the stick, do you accept this excuse and move on?