Japanese general hoisted by own canards
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - The latest high-profile incident involving Japan's scandal-prone
Defense Ministry has further rattled public confidence in the nation's
civilian-controlled military.
Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff General Toshio Tamogami, 60, was sacked
on October 31 over a controversial essay in which he denied Japan's aggression
against other Asian countries before and during World War II. Tamogami also
called for the authorization of Japan's right to collective self-defense.
These remarks, among others, clearly contradict the Japanese
government's official position on its wartime aggression and Japan's pacifist
constitution.
"It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor
nation," Tamogami wrote in an essay which took the grand prize in a contest
called "The True Outlook for Modern and Contemporary History". The competition
was organized by the hotel developer Apa Group which is run by a right-wing
owner.
"Japan is a wonderful country that has a long history and exceptional
traditions. We, as Japanese people, must take pride in our country's history,"
Tamogami wrote. The prize came with an award of 3 million yen (US$30,000).
Tamogami may have best summed up the jaw-dropping extent of his naivete himself
when he told local media, "I did not predict hell would break out like this."
But it has; and with it launched a national debate over how such a jaundiced
view of history could have been acquired by a top general in a military
establishment under strict civilian control.
And, considering that of the 230 competitors in the essay contest, 94 were ASDF
(Air Self-Defense Force) members, many are worried about how many military
leaders think along similar nationalist lines. For his part, Tamogami has
denied any effort to pressure subordinates into entering the contest, saying,
"If I had instructed it, more than 1,000 would have entered."
But for many older Japanese, the general's miscue has revived painful memories
of the devastating Sino-Japanese War and World War II - conflicts that
sacrificed the lives of millions of Japanese and even more foreign victims,
especially Chinese.
"The correct historical perception constitutes democracy, especially for
countries like Japan, which conducted wars of aggression in 1930s and from that
time onwards," Jiro Yamaguchi, politics professor at Hokkaido University in
Japan, told Asia Times Online. "Japanese people still have not realized the
seriousness of this situation. If the nation denies past wrongs, there would be
no place for Japan in the international community."
The issue of Japan's past is nothing new. Right-leaning Japanese politicians,
including Prime Minister Taro Aso, have strained Tokyo's diplomatic relations
with neighboring countries, especially Beijing and Seoul, by justifying Japan's
wartime military policies and colonial rule. There has also been the thorny
issue of controversial history textbooks that whitewashed the atrocities
committed by the Japanese military during the invasion of China in World War
II.
This incident is all the more surprising because the air force chief is in
charge of 50,000 armed personnel. It represents the latest effort of Japan's
small number of prominent hawks to revise history in an attempt to inspire a
sense of pride in Japanese history, especially in the postwar era.
Content of essay
Even from a Japanese perspective, Tamogami's essay contains historical
inaccuracies. It stresses, for example, that the Japanese Imperial Army never
advanced on the Korean Peninsula or Chinese mainland in the last half of the
19th century without the consent of those nations. This is not true.
Japanese soldiers invaded to secure Tokyo's vested interests, and justified
their actions on a loose definition of self-defense. Moreover, the essay
crucially omitted any description of the Manchurian Incident which was
instigated by Japan's semi-autonomous Kwantung army between 1931 and 1932.
The problematic essay also attempts to view Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek as
the major victimizer who dragged Japan into war in China. The essay states,
"The bombing of Zhang Zuolin's train in 1928 was for a long time said to have
been the work of the Kwantung army," but continues, "The theory that it was
actually the work of Comintern [an international communist organization led by
the Soviet Union] has gained a great deal of prominence recently."
Suffice to say, the majority of historians don't exactly buy this theory. More
than a few memoirs of key veterans such as Mamoru Shigemitsu revealed the
Kwantung army actually had its hand in the bombing of Zhang Zuolin.
Tamogami also wrote, "Japan was caught in [Franklin D] Roosevelt's trap and
carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor." This is a perennially popular
conspiracy theory that belongs in a mystery novel.
And Tamogami was hardly finished with his revisionist canards.
"There are so many descriptions based on inaccurate facts and misinterpretation
of facts," Ikuhiko Hata, a professor emeritus at Nihon University in Tokyo and
a well-known expert of modern Japanese history, told Asia Times Online. "The
essay's quality is extremely low. It's very shameful that a person in a good
position of the nation's air force chief wrote this kind of low-level essay. It
has no academic value at all."
In retrospect, many Japanese find it worrying that Tamogami was able to ascend
the ladder of success in the Defense Ministry. Tamogami even served as
commandant of the Joint Staff College of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) from
2002 and 2004, where he took the initiative of creating a class on "views of
the state and history". Many are now concerned about just what the school
taught SDF recruits under Tamogami's tutelage.
China, South Korea keep mum
China and Koreans are unhappy as well. On November 1, both nations denounced
Tamogami after he had been forced to retire the previous day. But Seoul and
Beijing have been less vocal as days go by; the swift action to dismiss
Tamogami made it difficult to hold the Japanese government responsible.
Also, neither nation wants to strain their improved relations with Japan, which
were severely damaged after former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual
visits during his term to the Yasukuni Shrine honoring the war dead (including
14 Class A war criminals such as wartime premier Hideki Tojo).
Since the controversy escalated, Tamogami has stressed his human rights. "A
country that does not allow remarks against the official government view is
just like North Korea," he has been quoted as saying.
In this, Tamogami is finally correct. In a democratic nation like Japan,
whatever comments someone like Tamogami makes, there is no legal way to stop
him - especially as he is now a civilian. As he said, only a totalitarian state
can limit the freedom of speech. This represents a difficult state of affairs
in which Japan is beset with problems with history both at home and abroad.
Kosuke Takahashi, a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun, is a
freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at letters@kosuke.net.
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