Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Kan Statement on Japan’s Recent Past on the Korean Peninsula

The Kan Statement on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Imperial Japan’s annexation of the Korean peninsula has passed the Yomiuri test—which means that it will go down with the populist-nationalist wing of the Japanese political center. Sankei is coming out fiercely against it, but its smaller print circulation gurantees that active opposition will represent no more than a small minority of the national vote.

That said, it will only be success diplomacy if the Japanese authorities are able to put an end to apologies once and for all and south Korea to accept the latest one for what it’s worth. An apology repeated is an apology not accepted. That should be obvious to anyone.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"An apology repeated is an apology not accepted. That should be obvious to anyone."

It is difficult to combine an ignorance of history, an ignorance of what specifically happened during those apologies, and an ignorance of human relations, but you managed to do it.

Congratulations.

Jun Okumura said...

Hey, it's you again. Glad to know someone's still reading this blog.

Jobi-Wan Kenobi said...

"An apology repeated is an apology not accepted. That should be obvious to anyone"

And this would, of course, be Korea's fault?

Or alternatively it could be the constant SHOUTING of revisionist, right wing Japanese politicians and the like which compels various prime ministers to try again and again to put as much political distance between them and the far right.

Just a thought like...

Jun Okumura said...

First, Japan is a democracy. Second, President Obama does not issue an official apology every time that a Christianist congressman or the Anti-Defamation League dumps on Muslims. An apology to Native Americans on the 4th of July?

Just a thought like...

Jobi-Wan Kenobi said...

Yes, Japan is a democracy.
So is the Republic of Korea.
What's your point?
If you're going for the "there are a multitude of different views in a democracy" what goes for Japan must also be true of South Korea.

I'm talking about specific revisionist politicians, the DPJ's Jin Matsubara for example, seeming to be constantly picking at the scabs of war-time memories.
What's in it for him, Shintaro Ishihara et al?

To your second point, I'm not sure what the hypothetical actions of President Obama have got to do with this. Japan is a parliamentary democracy so a better comparison would be with the UK would it not?

The UK has been a much larger, more more aggressive colonist power than Japan. We've subjugated, exploited and surpressed at one time over 25% of the world's population. From the US indigenous populations, through to Ireland (a problem still resonant today), Nigeria, Kenya and the rest of Africa, the middle east, Pakistan, India, Australia and yes, even China (Opium anybody?) we've made a hearty amount of people feel disposessed through the ages.
But yet the UK hasn't faced a barrage of concerted, high pressure demands for apologies, it hasn't had to issue apology after apology to our former slaves/indentured labourers or the former dominions we exploited.

Now think about it: Why hasn't the UK had to issue a long list of apologies or express "deep remorse" for what we've done in our history?

It's because our politicians have learnt to keep their mouths shut.

Sure, the UK is a democracy, and we've got freedom of speech just like Japan but even our most deluded, reactionary, pompous politicians know not to make a big noise about how great our empire was in the public realm. Now I dare say in private safely ensconced in their stately homes, they believe their empire was the greatest thing for human progress ever but because it's not in the public realm various nation's representatives don't call for "clarification", there's little in the way of public anger towards the UK and the British prime minister doesn't have to make speech after speech apologising for what we did.

I've consequently found out that Tobias Harris has put my point over much better at his blog.

"And while the list of apologies to Japan's neighbors is lengthy, it is precisely because conservatives question the legitimacy of those apologies — most notably the Murayama statement — that prime ministers are compelled to keep issuing new ones."

PS Shouldn't the apology on the 4th of July be to the British not the Native Americans?

Jun Okumura said...

Jobi-One Kenobi:

you're going for the "there are a multitude of different views in a democracy" what goes for Japan must also be true of South Korea.

I don’t see where this reference to South Korea is going at all, but it certainly has no relevance to any suggestion that the Japanese government apologize for whatever Jin Matsubara is saying.

To your second point, I'm not sure what the hypothetical actions of President Obama have got to do with this. Japan is a parliamentary democracy so a better comparison would be with the UK would it not?

The UK system of government is more analogous to Japan’s, but UK politicians typically care less about what Japan did to Korea and China—for obvious reasons, as your subsequent comments indicate.

Now think about it: Why hasn't the UK had to issue a long list of apologies or express "deep remorse" for what we've done in our history?

It's because our politicians have learnt to keep their mouths shut.


That is a valid point. And there’s a good reason why “Everybody else was doing it” is not a good defense against the claims of two peoples with long histories and a sense of nationhood (well, among their elites anyway) that stretches back long before the nation state became the latest black in Paris, London, and Milan. But remember that it takes two to tangle. Algeria did not try to micromanage what the French, the Congolese the Belgians, taught their children about their history, and some parts of the Chinese and Korean stories have the strong aura of mythology, the Korean (but not Chinese, and certainly not the Dutch) story for the comfort women included. And Koizumi said all the right things, signed all the right papers, including the condemnation of the Class A War criminals, but he went to Yasukuni to honor the rest of the dead. And c’mon, “[B]ig noise about how great our empire was in the public realm [?]” C’mon, we have our wacky black/tan trucks blaring out that kind of nonsense, but how often have you heard that from any Japanese Prime Minister? Cabinet member? What sometimes comes across as a blanket demand to accept nothing less than the entire mythology—okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it would be well within the boundaries set by a blanket assertion on Japanese actions that ignite the Korean id—must share some of the blame. Some is poking the monkeys.

So what makes both sides tick(ed off)? I think that this is the more interesting story. I think that I’ve already indicated the core of my answer for the other side. (Note that there is no such thing as a Congolese or Algerian language.) I’ll take my time expanding on this, as well as speculating on the Japanese side of the equation.

PS Shouldn't the apology on the 4th of July be to the British not the Native Americans?

You got me there.

Aceface said...

"Yes, Japan is a democracy.
So is the Republic of Korea.
What's your point?
If you're going for the "there are a multitude of different views in a democracy" what goes for Japan must also be true of South Korea."

The point is many in Japan wants reconciliation and end the history of hatred and consider apology is a way to achieve,while majority of Koreans do not like wise.Period.

Shintaro Ishihara and Naoto Kan has pretty much in common just as Glenn Beck
and Barack Obama,me think.


"Why hasn't the UK had to issue a long list of apologies or express "deep remorse" for what we've done in our history? "

I think that's a question that should be considered among the citizen of the UK before they throw stones at Japanese.....

Jun Okumura said...

Aceface: We can’t really tell if the developing world would be collectively better off today if it had been left to itself. What we do know is that it still bears the scars of colonialism and imperialism. So I do not think that it is out of line to issue an official apology to address the consequent grievances, even if the laws and ethics of the time as were different from ours. I draw the line at “within living memory.” In the meantime, there will always be people, some of them prominent, who dispute the need or validity of such actions. The proper follow-up, where politically required, should be confirmation, not repetition, of the apology.

In the case of Korea and China, there is the added element of their long histories as what could reasonably called nation states or, perhaps more properly, nations with their own distinctive states. (I’ll worry about the role of ethnic minorities in the Middle Kingdom on another occasion.) But there is also the matter of the national myths that those two sovereign states have adopted. As a matter of state policy and popular intent, they demand that the Japanese government accept them in pure unadulterated form. Even reasonable Japanese, when they give thought to the matter, object to that and think that thirty-eight times and counting, if not once, is enough.

I have many more thoughts on this matter. However, I don’t have the time to do the thinking, research and fact-checking needed to put them into proper and convincing order, and I think that I’ve been able to give the basic framework here. So I’ll leave it at that.

Jun Okumura said...

Aceface: We can’t really tell if the developing world would be collectively better off today if it had been left to itself. What we do know is that it still bears the scars of colonialism and imperialism. So I do not think that it is out of line to issue an official apology to address the consequent grievances, even if the laws and ethics of the time as were different from ours. I draw the line at “within living memory.” In the meantime, there will always be people, some of them prominent, who dispute the need or validity of such actions. The proper follow-up, where politically required, should be confirmation, not repetition, of the apology.

In the case of Korea and China, there is the added element of their long histories as what could reasonably called nation states or, perhaps more properly, nations with their own distinctive states. (I’ll worry about the role of ethnic minorities in the Middle Kingdom on another occasion.) But there is also the matter of the national myths that those two sovereign states have adopted. As a matter of state policy and popular intent, they demand that the Japanese government accept them in pure unadulterated form. Even reasonable Japanese, when they give thought to the matter, object to that and think that thirty-eight times and counting, if not once, is enough.

I have many more thoughts on this matter. However, I don’t have the time to do the thinking, research and fact-checking needed to put them into proper and convincing order, and I think that I’ve been able to give the basic framework here. So I’ll leave it at that.

Aceface said...

No argument there on colonialism.

I came across your post from other blog reading this in the comment section by the guy who runs the blog.

"Were I Korean, I would care not a whit that Japan had introduced some institutions and infrastructure that contributed to development later."

"but for Japanese to insist continuously that Japanese rule wasn't all bad because some time later Korea developed is belittling."

What this guy totally dismissed is what we've been doing thorough foreign aids since 1965 which lead South Korea to become prosperous industrial nation.
Added to the fact our whole national effort been rejected repeatedly and only judged by "specific revisionist politicians"who probably has the same sort of idea on colonialism with....
say Niall Ferguson.

Jun Okumura said...

Aceface: Your reference to Niall Ferguson reminds me that Bill Emmott once wrote an op-ed recommending that Japan stop issuing general apologies and instead address specific wrongs such as the Nanking Massacre. This suggestion flows naturally from the British (and European) perspective that there was nothing inherently wrong about colonialism/imperialism. Note that the Dutch prime minister (foreign minister?), after a measure of national debate, decided not to issue an apology on the occasion of his visit to Indonesia. The overwhelming majority of the Japanese public reject that approach, as you point out.

That said, I think Koreans have to stop using their anger to sustain their national myths and shield themselves from some unpleasant truths of what was a deeply patriarchal, very poor society, one rung belong the economic stratum of Japan’s Tohoku region.