Japan’s ruling party is reportedly planning to reexamine the history of Imperial Japan from the Sino-Japanese War in the late 19th century to World War II.
Japanese media reports that the Liberal Democratic Party plans to set up this month a history review panel to mark the 60th anniversary of the party’s founding.
We suspect that the move is related to Japanese nationalists’ persistent efforts to justify Japan’s aggressions against Asian countries in the first half of the 20th century.
The suspicion is strengthened by the reports that the panel, which will directly report to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, plans to review the verdicts handed down by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
The tribunal was established in 1946 to judge the war crimes committed by the leaders of the Empire of Japan since the first Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895).
It ruled 25 Japanese Class-A war criminals guilty of crimes against peace, sentencing seven of them, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, to death by hanging.
Japan accepted the jurisdiction by signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952. Yet Japan’s right-wing politicians have long questioned the validity of the rulings. They argue that Tokyo trials simply delivered victors’ justice rather than fair judgments.
The most recent remark to that effect came from Tomomi Inada, chairman of the LDP’s Policy Research Council. She said in June that the perception of history on which the rulings were based was “so poorly constructed” that “we are in need of an examination by the Japanese.”
Underlying the nationalists’ negation of the tribunal’s verdicts is the perception that the war Japan waged against the Allies was not a war of aggression but a war of self-defense.
They claim that America initiated the war of aggression and that Japan had no choice but to fight back for survival.
But such a revisionist perspective, which is shared by Prime Minister Abe, puts all the blame on the United States, ultimately denying the postwar international order established by the Allies.
Furthermore, it turns a blind eye to Japan’s blatant aggressions in the early decades of the 20th century, such as the colonization of Korea and the invasion of Manchuria.
Japan’s denial of its wartime wrongdoings has long been criticized by Korea and China. But if it goes further and denies the postwar international order, it will face criticism from the international community.
Mindful of this, the LDP said the panel would simply function as a study group without making any conclusions. It has also appointed a moderate party member as head of the panel. But such a fig leaf cannot cover the real intention of the Abe administration.
Any attempt to distort historical truths will only backfire. The planned history review panel may be able to rally more conservative Japanese behind the LDP. But it will further isolate Japan from the international community as far as historical issues are concerned.
Instead of trying to glorify its past, Japan needs to face up to its history and apologize to its neighbors for its wartime crimes against humanity. More than anything else, it should address the issue of the Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery.
