The question of war responsibility has been a subject of
nationwide debate and controversy in Japan since the end of the
World War II, 62 years ago this week.
The concept of war responsibility did not exist in Japan before
the end of the war. Most Japanese simply did not think about it.
According to popular belief, it was normal for the country to wage
war on and colonize foreign lands.
The average Japanese actually became aware of the concept as a
result of their country's defeat, and when the Allies formed a
tribunal on Japan's war crimes, stripped the guilty of their right
to hold public office and punished the country politically and
administratively as well as legally. It did not take long for the
concept to spread among and influence the Japanese population.
However, reaching a consensus on the concept of war
responsibility was not simple. Japanese society has gone through
several stages in its understanding of the subject.
The initial stage spans the first decade after the country's
defeat, when debates about war responsibility had the nation's
blood boiling.
Back then, the Japanese people learned for the first time about
Japan's military's atrocities in Asia, including the Rape of
Nanking (the Nanking Massacre) through the Tokyo War Tribunal and
BC Class war criminal trials.
Believing the post-war rule in Japan and the ruling hierarchy
was the continuation of that before the war, the leftwing forces
represented by the Japanese Communist Party demanded the state and
the decision-makers headed by the emperor be held totally
responsible for war crime. The JCP also held the ruling hierarchy
responsible for war crime legally as well as politically on the
same standing as that of the Allied countries, whereas the average
Japanese citizen had to deal with a dilemma when deciding who
should bear the responsibility.
Meanwhile, the country's liberal intellectuals who, having felt
depressed by the military rule during the war, found the post-war
Western humanitarianism refreshing and accepted the prevailing
philosophy of the occupation forces in holding Japan responsible
for the war.
However, they also felt the occupation forces' presence hurt the
Japanese people's feelings and therefore found it hard to accept
the particular way they and the leftwing pursued Japan over war
responsibility.
This sentiment led to their halfhearted attitude toward
identifying who should assume war responsibility. But, following
the prevailing Western philosophy, they were able to reflect on the
sorry fact that the Japanese people, they themselves included,
lacked spontaneity during the war in discussing the responsibility
issue from a national, ethical point of view.
In the mid-1950s, the activities in the outside world to pursue
Japan for its war responsibility basically ended. Those inside
Japan thus entered the second decade. The characteristics of this
stage lie in the emergence of the theory of holding the principle
parties responsible for the war.
By that time, those sent to battle as army cadets during the
final years of the war had become the mainstay of Japanese society.
They had unforgettable firsthand experiences of the war, while some
of them came across Marxism and liberalism in the early years of
the post-war era.
They therefore found themselves torn between the nation's war
experience and its war responsibility and gave rise to a fresh
round of nationwide debates on this dividing issue. A host of books
published in that decade exposed to the average Japanese war
atrocities committed by the Japanese military in Asia, especially
in China.
The Japanese reflections on war responsibility during that
period were mostly based on an inward and ethical point of view,
including discussions on why the average Japanese was reluctant to
verify war responsibility and what was preventing them from digging
deep into this issue.
The third stage of Japan's war responsibility debate began in
the mid-1960s, when the inquisitive minds bore into the war
responsibility of the nation as well as of the emperor. Even the
religious circle and those still in elementary school, sometimes
referred to as "underage citizens" during the war, were engulfed by
the nationwide soul-searching tide.
During this period, the criticism of the emperor and the state
found its place on the political agenda as a result of
parliamentary debate over the Yasukuni national war shrine
management bill.
The generation whose education was swiftly switched to
democratic values after the war began to develop a strong distrust
for their educators and parents along with the militarist teachings
they had been subjected to during the war and think about the war
responsibility issue based on their own war experience.
At the same time, the United States' bombardment of Vietnam and
the escalation of the Vietnam War as well as the growing anti-war
movement in Japan also lent energy to the drive to fault Japan for
its colonial rule and war crimes. Needless to say, the
indiscriminate bombing of Japanese cities and atomic bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US also came under pursuit as war
crimes.
The year 1982 saw busy hammering of Japan's war responsibility
by native and foreign voices triggered by the way the officially
revised history textbooks for secondary schools avoided the word
aggression in their chapters on the war.
Against this backdrop, some Japanese intellectuals conducted
in-depth research into such sensitive subjects as the Rape of
Nanking and the Tokyo Trial. Apparently this kind of affirmative
research into these new areas brought a greater sense of moral
conscientiousness to the brainstorming about Japan's war
responsibility. And the nation's recognition of war responsibility
and its subjects both expanded in this period.
With the end of the Cold War as a turning point, the Japanese
brainstorming over war responsibility swept into the fourth stage,
when the war-victimized countries let out their cry of injustice,
which had been muffled by the ideological duel between East and
West, over Japan's attempts to shirk war responsibility.
Their collective anger also resonated through the activities in
Japan to find those responsible for the war of aggression. The war
victims' voices from overseas helped increase exchanges between the
Japanese people and their foreign counterparts as well enriched the
knowledge about war responsibility available in Japan.
During the Cold War, the dominant rightwing conservatives
successfully silenced the discussion about war responsibility by
labeling it an ideological taboo and calling those who openly
question the official denial "brainwashed" by the Communist
Party.
When the Cold War ended, however, the issue of human rights
violations came out in full force. One example of addressing the
war responsibility issue from that standpoint can be found in the
personal damage cases filed by wartime forced prostitution victims
known as "comfort women".
Some legal experts began working on litigations for war
reparation in addition to helping former "comfort women" suing the
Japanese government for compensation, both on the grounds of human
rights violations.
The public pursuit of those responsible for the war of
aggression took on different shapes at different stages and on
different grounds.
However, we should take note of the fact that there were two
different views, or stands, over the concept of war responsibility
in Japan.
One is to pursue Japan for its war crimes from the point of view
of the Allied countries and those victimized by the war of
aggression. In this respect, the pursuance of war responsibility
was aimed at Japan as a whole. Without question, China, the
Republic of Korea and most of the Asian countries that suffered at
the hands of Japanese aggressors held Japan responsible for the war
from this point of view.
But, regardless of which view the Japanese understanding of war
responsibility was based on, compared with that of victimized
nations, there has also been a peculiar Japanese view that pitted
the common Japanese against the state and the state leaders, namely
the Japanese government, military and political functionaries such
as institutions responsible for war propaganda and even the
media.
In this scenario, the Japanese people, as subjects "deceived" by
state leaders who led the nation to its defeat, pursued whoever
they believed was responsible for waging and expanding the war for
their criminal responsibility, though not without some sort of a
"dilemma" every now and then during the process.
For instance, the Yomiuri Shimbun last year published a book Who
Was Responsible? From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor. Its war
responsibility verification is basically of the latter view, or
stand.
These two concepts of war responsibility are different: Though
the view that the Japanese were also victims is not entirely at
odds with the other view on Japan's war responsibility, their
difference is quite obvious. More than a few people in Asian
countries have to question whether some in Japan try to shy away
from the war responsibilities by placing too much emphasis on the
Japanese as victims.
However, we must recognize the courage with which many Japanese
intellectuals transcend the neo-nationalism to reexamine history
and pinpoint those who were responsible for the war. Although we
may not fully agree with their conclusions and may point out their
emotional obstacles, we must still delve into the past to explore
the events that shape their thinking.
The author is director of the Institute of Modern History of the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The original article is a
review of the Chinese version of the book "Who Was Responsible?
From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor," which was published by
Xinhua Publishing House. The original was written and published by
Japan's leading daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun last year.
(China Daily August 14, 2007)
