Asian countries are still waiting for repentance from Tokyo

November 27, 2010 1

Joint Statement of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry
Anatolyevich Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao in connection with the 65 anniversary of the end of World War II, signed during the visit of our country's president to China in late September, was greeted by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, judging by the publications in the Japanese press. The comments of the newspapers also do not so much comment on the text of the statement, but on the desire to convince the readers that this statement "testifies to the unification of efforts by Russia and China on the problems of territorial disputes with Japan." With Russia, Japan has a dispute over the ownership of the so-called "northern territories". China considers Japan’s administrative control over the Senkaku Islands to be illegal.

Japan’s Secretary General Yoshito Sengoku at a press conference, as the Yomiuri newspaper wrote, said that “Russia has not yet expressed its position on the Senkaku Islands, but if it supports China, it can push it to act more aggressively, invasions of the islands and the area around them. ”

TWO APPROACHES TO THE RESULTS OF WAR

The reaction of Japanese officials to events in connection with the 65 anniversary of the end of World War II once again showed the difference in the approaches of Japan and Germany, the two aggressor countries guilty at the beginning of World War II, to their defeat in it. Involuntarily think: well, that Japan is an island country. How would the situation in the Far East develop if Japan, like Germany, had land borders with a dozen countries?

Germany accepted the capitulation with dignity, obeyed the peoples who suffered from the national socialists, the Germans condemned fascism and legally provided conditions preventing the revival of the fascist ideology on their land. In Germany, there is a law under which public approval and simple denial of the Holocaust or other crimes of the national socialists is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years or large fines. The law was passed in the 1985 year and has undergone a number of changes in the direction of tightening.

For more than 95% of Germans of all age groups, Hitler is a monster. His criminal acts in politics, economics and the social sphere, which contributed to the emergence of National Socialism, are widely discussed and condemned not only in schools, but also in literature and in society. As German journalists testify, even at the household level, the Germans have an unwritten rule not to wear dark brown clothes, the Germans have a sharply negative attitude to them as a Nazi attribute. The same attitude to a number of words that have become widespread under Hitler. For example, you will not hear the word “Aryan” in Germany, and even instead of “the people of the country”, the Germans try to say “people”.

And there are over a hundred such words “killed” by Hitler. In Germany, similar political correctness has become the norm.

The German people admitted their guilt for the crimes of the Nazis and calmly and confidently build their relations with their neighbors. Japan, on the other hand, demonstrates a completely different attitude to the criminal actions of its militarists, which led to the outbreak of World War II, and ultimately to Japan’s defeat in the war and unconditional surrender.

The Joint Statement does not mention either Japan or the Japanese people, it refers only to "militarists and their accomplices." The purpose of the statement is “the prevention of wars and conflicts”. For the sake of this, the statement said, Russia and China “strongly condemn attempts to falsify history World War II". This phrase, apparently, most concerned about the leadership of Japan. In fact, the whole history of the last century is permeated with examples of falsifying interpretations of events and the pre-war and not less, if not more post-war leadership of Japan.

TWO ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD

In September, a round table devoted to the 65 anniversary of the end of World War II was held at the Korea Research Center of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is not by chance that the initiative to hold such a round table came from Korean scientists. In 2010, 100 turned years after Japan’s annexation of Korea to Korea, and the Korean people experienced all kinds of Japanese colonial oppression. And it is also not by chance that the phrase “revision of the results” of the war was used in the headlines of two of the five main reports at the round table. Other speakers and participants in the discussion roundtable also gave examples of the desire of Japanese historians to whitewash the expansionist predatory goals of the Japanese militarists and methods to achieve them. From attempts to prove that Japan "was forced to start a war in the Far East," to justify the atrocities of the soldiers of the Japanese army in the occupied territories by the fact that they "acted according to the laws of war."

The audit is carried out by various methods: silence of facts, a tendentious selection of obvious evidence, a direct lie. At the same time, the methods in their time were the same among the fascists of Germany and Italy and the Japanese militarists. These countries united in a military-political alliance with a common goal - the violent repartition of the world by any means, even military ones.

One of the main goals of the Japanese falsifiers is to separate the two centers of World War II as unrelated. The Japanese recognize the indisputable fact that the war in the Pacific was launched by Japan, specifically the strike on December 7, 1941 at the base of the Pacific fleet USA at Pearl Harbor. But it is immediately asserted that prior to this, the country's leadership "sought to peaceful resolution of all conflicts arising in the region."

The similarity of the actions of the German fascists in Europe and the militarists of Japan in Asia is striking. Even before 1 September, 1939, Germany annexed Austria by “peaceful” means, occupied part of Czechoslovakia, and then the whole country. Where the "peaceful" means of expansion stopped working, the German leadership, without any hesitation, began to use the armed forces. The historians of most countries of the world define the beginning of the Second World War as a transition to such a redistribution by military means in its European focus from the invasion 1 of September 1939, the year of Hitler's Germany to Poland.

So it was in Europe. In many ways, we see a similar picture of developments in Asia. Apparently, because the interests and attention of most world powers in the 1930s were focused on Europe, the beginning of 7 July 1937 of the Japanese militarists of the armed expansion in China remained practically without reaction in the world.

By that time, Japan had “peacefully” annexed Korea to 1910. 18 September The Japanese organized the so-called "Manchurian incident" 1931 - an explosion of a railroad in the area of the town of Mukden, and the Japanese army, accusing it of the Chinese, "occupied the Manchurian provinces of Mukden and Jilin in order to enforce the law." Then, in fact, and all of Manchuria, camouflaging the occupation with the creation of the puppet state of Manzhougo.

Japanese expansion in China continued. Under the pretext of the 7, provoked by the Japanese themselves on that day of the “incident” at Lukoudziao station on July 14, the Japanese headquarters sent reinforcements to the “incident” area consisting of four divisions and two brigades. By concentrating more than 1937 thousand troops on the railway linking Beijing with Central China, the Japanese presented an ultimatum and threatened to attack Beijing. The ultimatum was rejected by the Chinese command, but no measures were taken to organize the defense. The Japanese army, capturing Beijing, began a large-scale advance along three key railways.

The scope of hostilities expanded. The Japanese captured Shanghai, Nanjing, the administrative centers of six provinces. It was 7 July 1937 of the year, with the beginning of Japan’s bloody war in China, the Eastern focus of World War II arose. The Nazis were a bit late.

“DEFEAT” OR “END”

With the presentation of a full-scale war by a local “incident”, the falsification of facts about World War II by the Japanese militarists began. Falsification continues to this day. Only became more sophisticated. China is being deduced from the category of victims of Japanese aggression by an attempt to convince that World War II began on December 7 of Japan on Japan's Pacific Fleet base in the Pacific Pearl Harbor. It was as if there had been no bloody war that had unleashed the fourth year, unleashed by Japan in China.

If we talk about the falsification of the calendar dates of events, then they are trying to determine the end of the Second World War in Japan by their far from harmless criteria. In Japan, the end date of the war is considered to be 15 August 1945, when the rescript of Emperor Hirohito was announced to accept the terms of surrender.

In international practice, the end of the war is sealed by an act of surrender. Especially when it comes to unconditional surrender. Attempts to erase September 2 from the history of the country as a day of unconditional surrender began immediately after the defeat of Japan in World War II. Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese writer, publicist, Nobel Prize winner (1994) in one of his essays on the terms "defeat" or "ending" writes: "I remember every teacher talked only about the" ending ", never mentioning" defeat " . The school principal, addressing the younger students, said: “Children! Do not assume that Japan was defeated. After all, even in the newspapers they write: “the end of the war”. This means that the war just ended. Never think that Japan has lost. ” “Verbal definition,” writes Oe, “denoting reality with the help of words, is an attempt to interpret reality.” This is how the Japanese school teachers interpreted the reality immediately after the end of the war.

It continues now. In the 1995 year, in the 50 anniversary of the end of World War II, Professor at the University of Maryland, George Kvester noted that the Japanese education system did less than the German one in order to raise the Japanese guilt over that war. Most Germans, as polls show, are even happy about the defeat of their country in that war. It is unlikely that such a survey in Japan would have produced the same result. ” But quotes from Japanese history textbooks of the year 2001: "The annexation of Korea was a legally legal act in accordance with the international situation of that time," "The Great East Asian War was designed to liberate Asian nations from colonial rule in Western countries."

Therefore, it is clear that in the information of Japanese media about the Joint Statement of the President of the Russian Federation Medvedev and President of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao, it also strives to regard as a “strange fact” that in July the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree that “defined 2 of September 1945 of the year when Japan formally (?) capitulated to the united forces, as the day of commemoration of the end of the Second World War, ”writes, for example, the Japan Times newspaper.

This decree of the President of Russia undermines an important component of the propaganda strategy of Japan. It is the basis of attempts to withdraw Japan from the bloc of aggressive countries responsible for the tragedies of the Second World War, to accuse Russia of violating the neutrality pact with Japan, and, of course, to avoid the term “unconditional surrender”.

“TRANSFER” OR “RETURN”

The substitution of terms is a common practice in the activities of Japanese diplomats and politicians. “War” is called “incident”, “unconditional surrender” and even “defeat” are defined only as “the end of war”. A lot of rehash of old falsifications in the Japanese media appeared in connection with the joint statement of the leaders of Russia and China, as well as the recent visit of the President of Russia to the Kuril Islands.

All the newspapers, in one context or another, but without fail with accusations against Russia, touched upon the so-called “northern territories”, the Japanese side falsified the problem of the South Kuriles. For more than half a century, it has been discussed by the Japanese side and has hampered the development of good-neighborly relations between Japan and Russia.

For all the final international legal documents fixing the post-war settlement, the Kuril Islands were ceded to the Soviet Union. After lengthy and difficult negotiations in October 1956, the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan was signed on ending the state of war between the two states and on restoring diplomatic and consular relations. For political reasons, the Soviet Union, which is forgotten by the Japanese side, agreed to include in the declaration a provision on the transfer of two of the four islands of the South Kuril ridge to Japan, but under certain conditions.

In Japan, the allocation of the "northern territories" as a special group of islands appeared at the beginning of the 1960-s, which is recognized by Japanese researchers as islands in the north of Hokkaido. At the same time, the diplomatic term “transfer” was replaced by the word “return”. So it is more convenient to prove that the islands have no relation to the Kuriles. The Northern Territories turned into a pretext for whipping up anti-Soviet sentiment during the Cold War. Research began and the search for historical rationales for the islands of Japan.

At the same time, the Kuriles came under the jurisdiction of Russia “following the results of the Second World War”, in which Japan was recognized as an aggressor and was punished in accordance with international law, into the shadows. The Japanese side also forgets that in the joint 1956 declaration of the year, the transfer of the two islands is due to a number of actions by Japan. About them in Japan completely forgotten.

Commenting on any summit of leaders of Russia and Japan, the Japanese media state that “the Russian leader did not make any concrete proposals.” What offers are waiting? That Russia will again show goodwill and add two more to the two islands? But, as the athletes say, the ball is on the Japanese side, and Russia can wait for Japan to fulfill the provisions of the 1956 accords of the year.

WHAT JAPAN SHOULD REPENT

Whatever the passage with comments on the content of the statement of the leaders of Russia and China in the Japanese media, it is more or less falsified. One newspaper expressed surprise why, they say, “China so highly appreciates the illegal invasion of the Soviet Union into the territory of Manchuria (now North China)”. At the same time it is said that the USSR thereby "broke the Russian-Japanese agreement on neutrality". Another regards as “a very unusual step when some countries sign a joint statement about their historical attitude to the Second World War, especially when 65 years passed after the end of hostilities”.

Indeed, why is this the third generation of Japanese who continue to be reminded of the criminal colonial course of the Japanese militarists? Apparently, because of the ongoing conflicts over assessments of the historical past between Japan and its neighbors China and Korea. Here and changing the role of the Shinto temple Yasukuni, turning it into a place of pilgrimage for supporters of glorification of war criminals, here and protests about the biased content of Japanese textbooks and school textbooks on history, distorting the truth about the aggressive policy of the Japanese militarists.

The peoples of Korea, China and other countries in the region are waiting for the Japanese to sincerely repent for the atrocities committed by their fathers and grandfathers. Here is one of them. Just four months after the outbreak of hostilities in China, in December 1937, the army commanded a “bloody massacre” in Nanjing. Now it is Nanjing, a port on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, in 1927 – 1937 the seat of the government of the Republic of China.

The Chinese are demanding an official apology from Tokyo for the massacre in this city by the Japanese military after the capture of the city. According to eyewitnesses, the captured Chinese soldiers were gathered on one of the squares and in groups of 10 – 15 people were taken to the Yangtze river bank, they were put on their knees and their heads were cut off, another group was forced to dump bodies into the river. The process was slow. The next day, the prisoners were shot from machine guns. Then the city began raids on civilian men, they were also indiscriminately shot. According to various estimates, in Nanking, from 270 to 300 thousands died. The killing of prisoners was cynically justified by the fact that "they had to be fed, and if released, they would join the ranks of the anti-Japanese units."

The command encouraged looting. The dark days for the women of Nanking have come. Going home, the soldiers did not miss the case of violence against women and girls, while in front of family members. It was hard to hide from Japanese-style rapists. Foreigners have recorded disgusting cases of gang rape on the streets. According to Western historians, at least from 20 to 80, thousands of women were raped in December of 1937 in Nanking.

In full measure, all Koreans experienced all of the Japanese colonial orders. Their homeland was annexed by Japan in 1910. Began national humiliation, the eradication of Korean culture and language. The Koreans were taken away the most convenient land and transferred to the Japanese settlers. More than a million Koreans were imported to Japan, where they were used in coal mines for heavy road works.

The scornful attitude towards the neighboring peoples as the lowest in development was characteristic of the Japanese colonialists. It was also maintained in the post-war years as Tokyo’s “forgetfulness” about the misfortunes and sufferings that the peoples of the neighboring countries experienced as a result of the aggression and colonial policies of the Japanese militarists. This was the purposeful policy of the Japanese leadership throughout the postwar period. The authors of the fundamental work “Post-War History of Japanese Diplomacy” note that during a sufficiently long period of post-war restoration of relations between Tokyo and Seoul, according to some estimates from 1952 to 1965, the representatives of Tokyo did not show a shadow of repentance about their colonial domination on the Korean Peninsula.

It came to a scandal when the head of the Japanese delegation at the Japanese-South Korean talks at a press conference in January 1965 at the press club of journalists at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to prove that "the annexation benefited the Korean people." The Japanese Foreign Ministry sought to prevent the publication of his statements, but they got into the Korean press, causing a wave of disturbances in South Korea. Japan's media scandal was silent. The reason is not only to ban the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also because the Japanese are accustomed to look with contempt at the neighboring nations that Japan once occupied.

MILITARY CRIMINALS TUTORSHIP AS DIVINITIES

A joint statement by Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao states that "Russia and China strongly condemn attempts to falsify the history of World War II, to glorify the Nazis, militarists and their accomplices." The policy of the leaders of Japan on the glorification of war criminals is clearly manifested in the problem of the Yasukuni temple. This Shinto temple was formed as a place of worship for those who "made the highest sacrifice in the name of the motherland," in other words, died for it. Dead warriors rose to the level of a deity. In the XIX century it was 3500 warriors who died for the emperor in the civil war. But as the military policy intensified, their number grew. By the end of the Second World War, the list of persons who were listed as deities exceeded 1200 thousands of names. The names of the victims were included in special books.

Of course, one cannot ignore the fact that the Yasukuni Shrine holds a special place in the emotional life of the overwhelming majority of Japanese, especially the older generation. But it was used for the glorification of war criminals. Yasukuni maintains his position as a stronghold of conservative forces and defenders of the militaristic past of Japan.

October 17 1978, in connection with the next autumn holiday of the sanctuary, the names of 14 A-class war criminals convicted by the Tokyo Tribunal and executed or died in prison were added to the contingent of those who “made the highest sacrifice in the name of the homeland”.

It is hard to imagine that a memorial in honor of the deceased SS men was created in Germany, even with the names of Himmler or Hering. But Japan is not Germany. The visit of 15 in August 1975 of the year by Prime Minister Mika was remarkable. This was the first, after the end of the occupation, visit to the temple by the Prime Minister, albeit in a “private order”. Ten years later, 15 August 1985, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has officially visited the temple, having been noted in the visitors' book as head of government.

It did not go unnoticed in the countries - victims of Japanese aggression and caused sharp protests in China and in the states of the Korean Peninsula. Temple visits, but on other days, in 2000, Prime Minister Koizumi resumed. Nevertheless, this has caused a new aggravation of relations between Japan and China and the Republic of Korea, where visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni temple are regarded as a direct insult to the national feelings of the peoples affected by the Japanese aggression.

Thus, the sacral function of the temple was transformed into a political one, into a tool to assist Japan’s desire to reconsider the results of the war and heroize war criminals. The same is the exposition of the Yusyukan military museum located on the territory of the temple, which is dedicated to all the wars of modern times, which Japan led. They are portrayed as “the mission to free the peoples of Asia from the colonialism of the Western powers,” glorify the acts of the military in Asian countries “as a legitimate act of self-defense of the empire.”

The exposition challenged the fairness of the verdicts of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, although by signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, Japan officially recognized them.

Demonstration of hostilities during World War II emphasizes the attack on Pearl Harbor and omits the miscalculations of the Japanese high command. In Manchuria, it prepared for war by creating fortified areas. But these calculations were overturned by the maneuverable strategy of the Soviet commanders, lightning breakthroughs tank units, the release of airborne assault forces on Japanese rear airfields.

The same miscalculation was in the war in the Pacific. Americans moving from island to island within range aviation. They occupied only 8 islands, while the Japanese command placed garrisons on 25 islands. The garrisons of 17 islands were in fact left to their own devices. In battles with the Americans on the islands killed 115 thousand Japanese troops. While in the garrisons of the other 17 there were 160 thousand people, of whom about 40 thousand died of hunger and disease.

After the events of 11 September, 2001, the museum began to use the thesis on the "fight against terrorism". The American researcher ironically remarks that from the exhibition “we learn that Japan fought against the Chinese“ terrorists ”.

Historians are looking for the reason for the Japanese lack of a sense of historical responsibility for their colonial and militaristic past of their country.

There is not a single abomination of militarists which is being revealed in our days, to which no rigging would be aroused. Recently, the newspaper "Asahi" published a report on a meeting with a certain Masako Muraisi, now she 84 year. A twenty-year-old girl in a group of nine young sisters in March1946, she was sent to the point of forced abortions of returning pregnant Japanese women repatriates. The point was located in Hakata, the main port for reception after the war of Japanese immigrants from China and other countries occupied by Japan.

Muraishi's story is evidence of how deeply Japanese consciousness was permeated by the militarists implanted nationalism, even among doctors, people of the most humane profession. After all, abortions were done for ideological reasons, and not for medical reasons. According to the notions of militarists, women who returned as pregnant from war zones were almost certainly raped and “must be morally tortured”, which should be helped to get rid of them. The report noted that many of the pregnant women "were raped by Soviet soldiers during the sunset of the war." Judging by the fact that this phrase is quoted, so said Muraisi.

Due to lack of medication, abortions were performed without anesthesia. Those who had a pregnancy for more than 5 months, “made artificial miscarriages, and the child was immediately killed,” Muraisi testifies. “At the very first briefing,” she recalls, “the doctors demanded that we never allow women to hear the first cry of the child, since this may cause them to have a maternal instinct. That was one of the reasons sisters choked newborns. ” This is hard to believe, but it is eyewitness testimony! Of course, Japanese historians could not provide the public with any evidence that at least one of these unfortunate women - victims of the truly diabolical cruelty of the then authorities of the Land of the Rising Sun - "was raped by Soviet soldiers."

To summarize The peoples of Asia and representatives of the expert community in many countries believe that the leadership of Japan should demonstrate to Asia the sincerity of its commitment to global values: democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law - the final break in its ties with the former militarist course. This requires the wisdom of politicians and the goodwill of the Japanese people.

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