most people who are not oriental still think asians all look alike…hence their complete ignorance…i however can tell the difference between Chinese, Pinoy, Korean, African, and Whites
The reason it has not dissipated is because Japan hasn’t really renounced it to a great extent. Germany on the other hand was forced to bow towards the rest of the world and basically say “I will have nothing to do with this Nazi stuff any more” and become a giant apology. Japan on the other hand still culturally identifies with that Japan. The other reason is that Germany was able to shunt blame for WW2 atrocities on a particular party (ignoring the fact that similar views were widely held throughout the West) , Japan has not been able to do that.
Japan has not taken responsibilities for their atrocities. The Chinese have a right to a lot of things right now. I don’t believe in war unless its inside the ring, but Japan need to fess up and apologize and straighten out their history. Otherwise, this can get really ugly.
Part of being a 5000 year old continuous civilization with much of that history consisting of political unity (unlike Europe, which is arguably 4000 years old but with relatively little political unity other than around 500 years under the Roman Empire) is that people in China do tend to have longer memories and think about constructing things on generational or even centuries long processes.
The filial piety and cultural tradition of ancestor worship (which isn’t as common as a metaphysical practice these days, but is still present in terms of strong family relations and respect for elders) also makes people feel stronger about what happened generations ago than most Westerners or certainly most Americans feel.
Most europeans have forgiven Germany for WWII, but many Jews still have mixed feelings. They understand that the Germans who are alive today aren’t the same people that were in charge of the Holocaust and aren’t individually responsible, but there’s often nagging doubt that goes “if we took our eyes off of them for a bit, would they just go back and do it again when we weren’t looking?” The answer is “probably not,” but it’s still a palpable discomfort, even when no one was alive back when the atrocities happened.
And I’m sure the Chinese have something similar going on with their feelings about the Japanese. And it’s a very useful tool for the Chinese State when it promotes Chinese nationalism and looks for things to focus on for social unity.
WWII in many ways had a much bigger impact on China than in Europe. For one, it basically started in 1930, so it was about 3x as long. Secondly, it created or exacerbated a civil war in its aftermath (to 1949). One of the biggest rifts between the KMT and the CCP was that the KMT was so obsessed with eliminating the communists when it was in power that it basically did not prosecute the war against the Japanese. Now that may have been because the KMT felt that it couldnt’ fight a two front war and thus had to unify its forces first, or it may have been because they felt they couldn’t actually win against the Japanese but they could against the Communists and so they tried to beat the communists first, but the failure to fight the invader infuriated so many Chinese that many turned to the communists not so much because of the beauty of the communist utopia, but simply because the communists actually bothered to fight the Japanese.
So the impact of WWII on China was really enormous, even if we don’t tend to think about that theatre of the war. So, under those circumstances, it’s not so surprising that many Chinese are still angry at the Japanese about that.
China (controlled by the Mongols at the time) tried to invade Japan back in the 13th century… should China apologize for that?
Japan won’t apologize. They also find it rather odd when the Chinese get all in a hissy fit over things like the Yasukuni shrine visits. This is because they essentially consider all is fair game in war so there is no reason to be sorry. That said, they don’t exactly tell a fair history of the atrocities committed.
Yes,the difference between Japan and Germany in terms of war crimes or atrocities is lack of closure. If Germany denied the holocaust and removed nazism from history books like the japanese did its history with the Chinese, I suspect the neighbouring European bedfellows won’t be too happy.
Japan was amazingly cruel to the Chinese people during WWII. The Japanese legitimately thought the Chinese were closer to animals than humans.
Just look at the differences in the way Japanese and Germans treated their POWs. Being captured by the Germans wasn’t really that bad all things considered. Being a Japanese POW was hell on earth. They were just a cruel, sadistic people.
Now, since WWII I’d say Japan has gotten off pretty easy from a Western perspective. Their atrocities were really limited to their Asian neighbors so we (the West) have moved on. The Germans weren’t so lucky and they’re still paying for their WWII mistakes today. Literally. They were guilted into joining the EU. Only just now as the Germans are bailing out all of Europe are the citizens saying enough is enough.
I have no idea who’s right about this island dispute…I don’t really care. But, sushi is just barely better than orange chicken so I’m siding with the Japanese.
The fact that you know about China invading Japan back in the 13th century says a lot already. Many Japanese don’t recognize their atrocities in WW2.
Secondly, the mongols aren’t Chinese and that was wayyy back in the day…but yes, all acts of violence should be recognized.
STL, be careful with the word “legitimately.” It got a bunch of Republicans into trouble when misused.
I think you meant to say “really.”
I agree with you, some countries would be much better if they move on. It’s hard for me to understand because we dropped 2 H bombs on Japan and they’re buddies with us, yet Japan and China have issues. You could argue that it’s the proximity, but then again, as mentioned before, Europe has reunited. The German apology may play a role in that reconciliation, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it’s the full explanation. It’s always puzzled me. One factor could be that nations that have a chance to fight it out and get all that agression out of their system are more able to put the bad blood behind them and move on. The Chinese never really got that opportunity as they weren’t a military power at the time, so maybe it feels like an unsettled score.
Anyhow, the Japanese atrocities are well documented, and most likely pretty much any story you’ve heard is true. The first hand accounts and photographs that were captured following the rape of Nanking are hand down, without a doubt, the most appauling things I’ve ever encountered. It honestly makes what happened within Germany seem less horrible if you can imagine that. Combine that with their attitude towards the US military (beheading prisoners for amusement and cutting the genitals off slain combatants and shoving them down their throats as a show of disrespect) and it can help you understand just how intense the situation was over there.
If you ever get the chance, read Eugene Sledge’s “With the Old Breed”, it’s widely considered the best first hand account of war ever written and it will absolutely give you a new perspective on the gruel of combat.
There’s another point too, which is that the Mongols didn’t succeed in even getting to Japan, not to mention massacring the inhabitants by the millions. So although it was a mean thing to try to do 600 years ago, it’s different from actually going in and slaughtering large portions of the population after getting there, which is what the Japanese did 70 years ago.
There’s also a difference between what armies do to each other in battle, and what occupying forces do to civilians once they’ve conquered an area. Both can be gruesome, but the sense is that armed forces versus a largely unarmed civilian populace is a much nastier game that has worse moral consequences.
I actually meant to say literally. And I am a person that gets pissed about literally vs figuratively so I’m aware…
I suspect that racism is also a part of this. In the US, everyone is indifferent towards people of German origin. They are all “white people”. However, a Chinese person would never confuse their ethnicity with Japanese people. I also get the feeling that Chinese people think of themselves as the original type of East Asian people, since they are most populous and are from the “mainland”. Deep down, Chinese people believe that Koreans and Japanese are offshoots of Chinese people.
As long as I’m being literal…no we didn’t. H-bombs weren’t invented until the '50s. H-bombs are significantly more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on Japan.
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Yeah, “literally” makes much more sense there.
I have wondered if at some level the Japanese feel that having been the only country (so far) that has had atomic/nuclear weapons dropped on them in war, that this makes them feel they’ve “done their pennance” and therefore don’t need to apologise for anything about the war.
From the US point of view, I think we see the atomic bombs as the acts that balance out what we saw as the “treachery” of Pearl Harbor: the sense that “they started the war with a horrible sneak attack, but we totally pounded them at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Though this is generally followed by a a quiet “thank God we didn’t have to invade the home islands the way we had to take Iwo Jima.”
So from the US point of view, there’s this balancing out from the nukes, but Japan was pretty horrid during the war to pretty much all non-Japanese (Koreans, Chinese, Philippinos, Australians), and since they didn’t drop the nukes, it’s not clear that they feel that things have been balanced out at all.
Yep, plus fire-bombing Toyko. People forget about that but we lit that place up. I’m good calling it even. And it would have been a major pain to invade them.
Cut once, cut deep…or twice in this case.
Having lived in Japan. My sense was that most of the Japanese people don’t really create much of a fuss about the bombs as it was something that happened during war. If I had to guess, I think war revionists here kick up more of a stink about it than the Japanese do.
I wish countries would let these things go, but that’s definitely not the trend, even before fresh disputes in the past month. When I visited Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, I witnessed first hand a ton of anti-Japanese sentiment, mostly by young people. During every team sport, the Japanese got booed at continuously. WWII decades before the athletes or hecklers were even born, so it had to have been passed down across generations.
On a separate note, I think these riots are going to be significant step back for both economies. Japan for obvious reasons, but China for [country/political] risks.
I think the only reason it seems odd to the West is that most don’t realize the vast extent of the war in China, and probably because it does not consider Chinese grievances as “legitimate” as western or Israeli ones. As bchad noted, the war began in China about 4-5 years before Europe, and China was basically subject a campain of destruction and genocide, and as BS noted, they’ve never really gotten to retaliate against Japan on their own terms (neither has Russia).