Abe's Nanjing stance threatens
peace By Narusawa Muneo
(Translated and edited by Satoko Oka
Norimatsu and David McNeill)
In
December 2012, more than a few people in Japan
remembered the 75th anniversary of Nanjing
Massacre. Those people hoped that the lessons from
war crimes committed by the Japanese Army from
1931-1945 would be learned so that Japan would
never wage war against another country again, and
peace would be achieved in East Asia. These
Japanese, however, now face a major challenge.
In Japan's general election of December
16, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had
been in opposition since
August 2009, won an
overwhelming majority putting it back in power.
With Shinzo Abe, a right-wing historical
revisionist back as prime minister, the change of
government is no longer just a Japanese issue.
The LDP is a nexus for history deniers who
regard calls for historical reconciliation from
neighboring countries as unjustified, deem their
historical accounts as inaccurate, and claim that
listening to such appeals for Japan to remember
the past would be "masochistic". As LDP president,
Abe most eloquently embodies this character of the
party.
With the signing of the Treaty of
Peace in San Francisco (September 1951), Japan was
allowed to resume its place in the international
community. Japan's neighbors in Asia expected it,
in return, to scrap its imperial past and
apologize sincerely for perpetrating a string of
wartime atrocities. But while the Federal Republic
of Germany began its postwar period by breaking
from Nazism and apologizing for the Holocaust, the
LDP, which ruled Japan for most of the postwar
period, has acted as a hub for history
revisionists, and so it remains.
It is
impossible to imagine that somebody who denies the
Holocaust would be elected as chancellor of
Germany. What the world is witnessing right now in
Japan, 75 years after the Nanjing Massacre, is the
reappointment as prime minister of an extreme
rightist who sides with the Nanjing-deniers.
The people of Asia, where millions were
killed by Japanese wartime aggression, and where
many witnesses and survivors are still alive, have
the right to ask this prime minister if he really
believes that the Nanjing Massacre was a myth, and
if he recognizes that Japan invaded neighboring
countries.
The people of both Koreas and
Koreans around the world are entitled to challenge
Abe on whether he recognizes the Japanese Army's
wartime enslavement of thousands of women
(so-called "military 'comfort women'"), one of the
most ferocious and dishonorable crimes of Imperial
Japan. This prime minister has been adamant about
removing any description of these crimes from
textbooks and classrooms.
Here is a
fundamental question. Sixty-one years after the
resumption of sovereignty, does Japan, led by such
a prime minister, truly deserve to be a legitimate
and credible member of the international
community? It is the people of Japan who, first
and foremost, are responsible for asking that
question, and the people of Asia and beyond are
entitled to pursue it, and to demand clear
answers.
1. Who is Abe
Shinzo? Abe Shinzo's father was Abe
Shintaro, who held various key government
positions including Foreign Minister and was at
one point a candidate for an LDP presidential
election. Abe Shinzo used his father's coattails
to get elected to the Diet for the first time in
1993. He is a peculiar existence within the LDP,
having climbed the party by consistently
advocating extreme right-wing policies. Here are
some of his career highlights.
As soon as
Abe was elected in 1993, he became a member of the
LDP's "History and Deliberation Committee." This
committee held about twenty meetings with
right-wing scholars, and as a result, published a
book called Overview of the Greater East Asia
War, on August 15, 1995, the 50th anniversary
of Japan's defeat in the Asia-Pacific War. The
book argues: 1) "The Greater East Asia War" (the
Asia-Pacific War) was not an aggressive war, but a
war for self-existence and self-defense, and for
liberation of Asia from Western powers; 2) Events
such as the Nanjing Massacre and the "comfort
women," are fabrications. Japan did not commit war
crimes and was not a perpetrator; 3) Since
"biased" school textbooks contain false
information about Japan's wartime activities, a
"textbook struggle" (an attack on education) is
necessary. Abe still holds these positions.
In December 1994, a right-wing group
called the "Diet [parliament] Members' League for
the 50th Anniversary of the End of War" was formed
to counter a parliamentary move to pass a
resolution in August 1995, critically reflecting
on Japan's aggressive war. Abe was selected as
deputy executive director. This group organized
the "Steering Committee of Japanese People's
Movement for the 50th Anniversary of the End of
War" in conjunction with far-rightist religious
groups (mostly Shinto). It led 26 prefectural
assemblies and 90 municipal assemblies across the
nation to pass resolutions opposing the critical
resolution and arguing that Japan did not invade
its Asian neighbors.
The same right-wing
members of LDP in June 1996 formed a new group to
attack history textbooks, called "Bright Japan -
League of Diet Members," and Abe was appointed
deputy executive director. In February 1997, he
formed a group called "Group of Young Diet Members
for Consideration of Japan's Future and History
Education," and became its executive director
("Young" was dropped from the group's name in
2004).
Abe has always been on the
frontline of such groups and has worked hard to
scour descriptions of Nanjing and the sex slaves,
who he argues were "prostitutes," from textbooks.
He pressured not only education ministry officials
responsible for textbook screening, but also
presidents of textbook publishers and textbook
authors, to remove references to such crimes,
claiming that they were "distorted".
While
Abe was chief cabinet secretary, he complained
about the content of an NHK (Japan's national
public broadcaster) program on the sex slaves
issue before it was broadcast, demanding that the
head of the Broadcasting Bureau make the program
"fair and objective," or resign. As a result,
significant changes were made to the program
before it was screened on January 30, 2001. One of
the changes was deletion of the part where the
Women's International War Crimes Tribunal, held in
Tokyo in December 2000, deemed the rapes and the
military sex slavery system by the Japanese
military as "crimes against humanity," and held
Japan and emperor Hirohito responsible for them.
2. Attack on the Kono
Statement On August 4, 1993, during the
Miyazawa administration, then chief cabinet
secretary Kono Yohei released a statement on the
result of a study into the "comfort women" issue.
Commonly called the Kono Statement, it said the
following:
As a result of the study which
indicates that comfort stations were operated in
extensive areas for long periods, it is apparent
that there existed a great number of comfort
women. Comfort stations were operated in
response to the request of the military
authorities of the day. The then Japanese
military was, directly or indirectly, involved
in the establishment and management of the
comfort stations and the transfer of comfort
women. The recruitment of the comfort women was
conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted
in response to the request of the military. The
Government study has revealed that in many cases
they were recruited against their own will,
through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at
times, administrative/military personnel
directly took part in the recruitment. They
lived in misery at comfort stations under a
coercive atmosphere
.
The
fiercest criticism against the Kono Statement came
from within LDP, namely Abe.
He and his
"Group of Young Diet Members for Consideration of
Japan's Future and History Education," called Kono
to a meeting and argued that Kono had recognized
the "coerciveness" of the act without convincing
evidence, as the Korean side demanded so, but Kono
stuck to his guns. At the House of Representatives
Budget Committee on May 27, 1997, Abe further said
there was no need to specifically reference the
issue in textbooks unless the women were coerced,
and no document had been discovered to verify
this.
On June 14, 2004, Abe, then
Secretary General of LDP, told a symposium
organized by the "Group of Diet Members for
Consideration of Japan's Future and History
Education," that "there was no such historical
fact as the military comfort women," totally
ignoring the Kono Statement. Abe went on to say
that he would actively work with MEXT (Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology) to "improve textbooks," meaning the
removal of all descriptions of "military 'comfort
women'".
3. Double-tongued prime
minister Abe was first elected prime
minister on September 26, 2006. As a state head,
there was only so much history revisionism that he
could get away with. History denial might be
tolerated within the LDP or even within Japan, but
it was evident that it would invite international
animosity and backlash. One area where his
position caused much international embarrassment
was the military sex slavery issue.
At the
House of Representatives' plenary session on
October 4, 2006, Abe said: "The government's basic
position is that it follows the Kono Statement."
Perhaps due to the subsequent criticism from the
right-wing forces that supported Abe, on March 5,
2007, he again stated that the government would
"continue to follow the Kono Statement," but added
that "there was no evidence that verifies
coercion, narrowly-defined coercion such as
authorities breaking into houses to take away
women like kidnappers would," suggesting that the
"coercion" part of Kono Statement needed to be
modified.
On January 31, 2007, when
Democrat congressman Mike Honda introduced a
resolution calling for the Japanese government to
"formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept
historical responsibility in a clear and
unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces'
coercion of young women into sexual slavery,"
Prime Minister Abe fought back. He said he had "no
plan to apologize" even if the resolution was
adopted, and argued that there was "no evidence
that supports 'narrowly-defined coercion,' or the
allegation that Japanese soldiers kidnapped women
and coerced them." This was despite the fact that
the Kono Statement had expressed "sincere
apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective
of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain
and incurable physical and psychological wounds as
comfort women." Abe's statement, which suggested
the women had voluntarily provided sex to Japanese
soldiers, was criticized by US newspapers
including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
and The Boston Globe.
Abe could no longer
ignore such criticisms, particularly those coming
from the US and other Western countries. The BBC
reported on April 27, 2007 that Abe, in a meeting
with President Bush at Camp David, said, "I feel
deeply sorry that they [the victimized women] were
forced to be placed in such extremely painful
situations." Newsweek interviewed Abe prior to his
departure to the US, and reported on April 27,
2007 that Abe said "We feel responsible for having
forced these women to go through that hardship and
pain as comfort women under the circumstances at
the time." He apparently admitted "coercion" in
these reports, revealing his double-tongued
strategy.
4. Abe bares his teeth
again Right after his policy speech on
September 12, 2007, Abe suddenly abandoned his job
on the day he was supposed to answer questions by
all the parties' representatives. He was
criticized from all sides for his
irresponsibility. However, somehow helped by the
forgetful nature of the people of Japan, he was
re-elected as president of LDP on September 26,
2012. Around the same time he started to intensify
his far-rightist rhetoric as if trying to recover
his reputation and career, which had disappointed
right-wing supporters during his previous term.
On February 20, 2012, Kawamura Takashi,
Mayor of Nagoya City stirred controversy when he
expressed his doubts over the occurrence of the
"so-called Nanjing Incident" in a meeting with
leaders of the Nanjing City Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party. In response, right-wing
forces in Japan held an urgent meeting titled
"Supporting the 'Kawamura Statement' - Condemning
the myth of 'Nanjing Massacre,'" to which Abe sent
a message of support. The August 3 and September
24 versions of the Sankei Shimbun, virtually the
official newspaper of Japan's right, ran an
advertisement supporting Nagoya Mayor Kawamura's
Nanjing Statement. Abe acted as one of the
proposers.
In an interview with the Sankei
on August 28, 2012, Abe laid out his agenda. If
the LDP returned to power, it would be necessary
to review the Kono Statement, he said and to issue
a new government "understanding" of it. His
subjects for review included "The Statement by
Chief Cabinet Secretary Miyazawa Kiichi on History
Textbooks," known as the "Miyazawa Statement" or
the "Neighboring Countries Clause," in which
Miyazawa stated that "from the perspective of
building friendship and goodwill with neighboring
countries," Japan will "pay due attention" to
criticisms by the neighboring countries such as
China and Korea on some descriptions in Japanese
textbooks, and "make corrections at the
government's responsibility." He would also review
the "Murayama Statement" ("Statement by prime
minister Murayama Tomiichi 'On the occasion of the
50th Anniversary of the War's End'"), issued on
August 15, 1995.
The Murayama Statement
says, "During a certain period in the not too
distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national
policy, advanced along the road to war, only to
ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis,
and, through its colonial rule and aggression,
caused tremendous damage and suffering to the
people of many countries, particularly to those of
Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be
made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of
humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and
express here once again my feelings of deep
remorse and state my heartfelt apology." Abe, in
his previous term as prime minister, had in fact
said that this statement was "the government's
understanding".
Suga Yoshihide, chief
cabinet secretary of the new Abe cabinet, said in
a press conference of December 27, 2012 that
"there have been many studies by experts, and it
is desirable to continue academic examination"
about the Kono Statement. It is possible that Abe
will again change his position on the issue of
"coercion" in military sex slavery, which he
admitted during his previous term by "following"
the Kono Statement. Regarding the Murayama
Statement, Suga in the above press conference said
the government would "follow the position of the
past cabinets."
Only three days later, on
December 30, Abe, in an exclusive interview with
the Sankei Shimbun, reportedly said, "The Murayama
Statement was one issued by the Japan Socialist
Party's prime minister Murayama Tomiichi. I would
like to release a future-oriented statement that
is suitable for the 21st century." As discussed
above, Abe originally attacked the Murayama
Statement when it was issued in 1995. When he
became prime minister in 2006, he changed his
position to "follow" the statement. Then after he
resigned in 2007, he publicly stated his intention
to review" it, and within a week of his
re-appointment as prime minister, he and his
Cabinet sent a mixed message to the world, to
"follow" and "revise" it.
On April 10,
2012, a joint meeting of LDP's "Education and
Science Committee" and the "Group of Diet Members
for Consideration of Japan's future and History
Education" was held, in which MEXT officials
discussed the latest screening of high school
textbooks. Abe condemned the MEXT officials,
saying that some textbooks said the "comfort
women" were "mobilized" and "rounded up."
Abe interrogated the officials on how and
when such "changes" were made, even though he had
denied coercion in the "so-called 'comfort women'"
cases in the Diet when he was prime minister.
According to Abe, textbooks with descriptions of
the "comfort women" were "far from common sense."
LDP Diet members at the meeting blamed MEXT for
leaving such references in high school textbooks
even though junior high school textbooks had been
cleansed.
Abe's argument that the MEXT
officials "changed" their understanding of
"coercion" is groundless. What he was referring to
was a written answer that got cabinet approval on
March 16, 2007 in response to a written inquiry by
a member of the House of Representatives Tsujimoto
Kiyomi, while Abe was prime minister. There he
stated that the basic position of the government
was that it would "follow" the Kono Statement. The
statement recognizes "coercion," as it states,
"their recruitment, transfer, control, etc. were
conducted generally against their will, through
coaxing, coercion, etc."
The written
answer in the Diet in 2007 when Abe was in office
states, "there was no description that directly
suggested coercive mobilization per se by the
military or administrative/military personnel, in
the documents that the government discovered". But
this does not contradict the Kono Statement,
because as Ishihara Nobuo, vice cabinet secretary
when the statement was put together in 1993
admitted in 2006:
After all, we could not locate any
physical evidence that verified coercion, such
as notices and directives, but seeing the result
of the hearing of the 16 people who were
actually made into comfort women, we concluded
that it was impossible that they were making it
up, and it was unmistakable that these people
were made into comfort women against their
will,"… "We, as the government, recognized that
coercion existed, based on the report by the
study group. (From an interview with Ishihara
Nobuo by the Asia Women's Fund Oral History
Project, March 7, 2006)
Therefore, it
is illogical for Abe to complain in 2012 about
expressions making clear that the women were
"mobilized" and "rounded up." These expressions
were based on hearings with the victims, which the
Japanese government recognized as credible in
1993. There were no "changes" in the expressions
in the textbooks precisely because all governments
since the Kono Statement have declared that they
would "follow" it. When he attacked the MEXT
officials in 2012, was Abe stupid enough to
misunderstand his own actions when he declared
adherence to the statement five years before?
On December 26, 2012, Abe announced his 19
new cabinet members. Nine, including Abe, are
members of the "Group of Diet Members for
Consideration of Japan's Future and History
Education," which has consistently worked to
remove the description of the military sex slavery
and the Nanjing Massacre from textbooks. Thirteen,
also including Abe, are members of the "Discussion
Group of the Nippon Kaigi Diet Members,"
affiliated with the "Nippon Kaigi (Japan
Conference)," the biggest right-wing organization
in Japan. These numbers show the far-right
character of the new Abe administration.
One of the cabinet members, education
minister Shimomura Hakubun, requires attention. He
is secretary general of the "Discussion Group of
Nippon Kaigi Diet Members." He is head of a new
department within the LDP called "Headquarters of
Education Renaissance," which prepared the party's
"Pledges for Education Policy" for the December
2012 general election.
The pledges
advocate: 1) cancellation of "biased education"
based on the "masochistic view of history;" 2)
abolition of the "Neighboring Countries Clause" in
the textbook screening process, as expressed in
the Miyazawa Statement; 3) reinforcement of
patriotic education. Shimomura argues that
recognizing the history of Japan's aggressive war
and critically reflecting on it would represent a
"masochistic view of history." The world will pay
close attention to how Japanese history textbooks
may be distorted under Shimomura's leadership.
5. Why the world should be alarmed
about Japan Now that Abe is prime minister
again, is he going to try more double-speak,
behaving as a far-rightist history revisionist in
Japan but saying things like "I feel very sorry"
(for what Japan did) and "I feel responsible" in
the US? We should never let him get away with such
a double standard.
Abe appeared on TV on
August 28, 2012 and said that Japan could not form
true friendship with Korea if the Kono Statement
remained unchanged. Koreans might retort that
"true friendship" is impossible with Japan as long
as somebody like Abe can be prime minister, or
even an influential politician; and as long as an
anachronistic clique like the LDP rules the
country. This sentiment is shared not just in
Korea but most probably in the whole of Asia.
Let us repeat the big question again. Is
Japan, now with far-rightists history revisionists
like Abe holding power, eligible to be a
responsible member of the international community?
Shimomura Hakubun, now education minister,
said in an interview on October 3, 2012:
The "departure from the postwar
regime" slogan that the previous Abe
administration put forward means revising all
aspects of Japan's modern history, including the
Tokyo War Tribunal view of history, the Kono
Statement, and the Murayama
Statement.
The "Tokyo War Tribunal
view of history" presupposes that the
International Military War Tribunal for the Far
East (1946 to 1948), in which Japan was tried and
convicted as an aggressor, is unacceptable as it
was a victors' trial.
But Article 11 of
the Treaty of Peace with Japan says, "Japan
accepts the judgments of the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other
Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside
Japan." This means that Japan accepted that it
invaded neighboring Asian nations.
If Abe
and Shimomura want to "review" the "Tokyo War
Tribunal view of history," the logical requirement
would be that the Japanese government would
formally disavow the Tribunal's conclusions and
notify all the 48 countries that signed the Treaty
of Peace with Japan accordingly. It appears that
Abe and his far-rightist ilk do not understand how
unrealistic and ridiculous such a move would be
regarded.
These forces insistently deny
the facts of Japan's aggressive wars, openly
defend the indefensible view of the war as "for
self-existence and self-defense," and condemn any
admittance of aggression as masochistic. The fact
that such forces grasped power again poses a
serious threat to Japan's democracy and its
credibility in the world. It is also a major
challenge to the international community,
particularly Asia.
We hope the world will
counterattack Abe's far-rightist history
revisionist challenge, and once he is outside of
Japan that there will be protests wherever he
goes, and at press conferences; and that
journalists will confront Abe at press conferences
with the facts laid out above. This is the only
effective way to let Abe know what a shameless
human being he is, according to all international
standards.
The original Japanese version
appeared in Peace Philosophy Centre, January 2,
2013.
Narusawa Muneo is an
editor of Shukan Kin'yobi, a weekly magazine
established in 1993. He is author of Danger of
Obama: The True Character of the New
Administration (Kin'yobi, 2009).
Satoko Oka Norimatsu and
David McNeill are Asia-Pacific Journal:
Japan Focus Coordinators. Satoko is the co-author
with Gavan McCormack of Resistant Islands:
Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States
(Rowman and Littlefield, 2012). David McNeill is
co-author with Lucy Birmingham of Strong in
the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami
and Nuclear Disaster (Palgrave Macmillan,
2012).
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