"I would like to face history with sincerity," said Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto in a statement issued on 10 August, the 100th anniversary of Japan's annexation of Korea. "I would like to have courage to squarely confront the facts of history and humility to accept them, as well as to be honest to reflect …
Tag: Japanese history
Okada acknowledges past wrongs in Seoul
The Hatoyama government's campaign to revitalize Japan's bilateral relationships in Asia continues, with Foreign Okada Katsuya's visiting South Korea for the first time as foreign minister for meetings with President Lee and other senior officials.While Americans are focused on celebrating what is being called the fiftieth anniversary of the US-Japan alliance this year, a more …
"Our Far East Partner"
The title of this post is the name of a propaganda film produced by the US Army sometime after the end of the occupation that I found at the Internet Archive. Makes for interesting viewing as we mark the alliance's fiftieth anniversary.http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf
Tamogami, Palin, and populist conservatisms
It has been just over a year since General Tamogami Toshio (ASDF-ret.), then the chief of staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense Forces, was drummed out of the service after he was awarded the top prize in an essay contest sponsored by the APA Group for his essay "Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?"In the year since …
Continue reading Tamogami, Palin, and populist conservatisms
Amano’s election deepens Japan’s nuclear paradox
After a long stalemate to choose a successor for outgoing director-general Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA's board of governors elected Japanese diplomat Amano Yukiya to the position by a single vote over the requisite two-thirds majority.The prolonged dispute was the result of a split between developed and developing countries, the latter of which preferred South African …
Continue reading Amano’s election deepens Japan’s nuclear paradox
The conservatives humbled
Perhaps one of the positive consequences of Japan's economic crisis is that it has silenced Japan's conservatives.By silenced I do not mean literally silenced — they're still fulminating. What I mean is that they have been rendered irrelevant by events. Despite their media power, their ability to churn out a seemingly infinite amount of books, …
General Tamogami refuses to fade away
Is Tamogami Toshio a millstone around Aso Taro's neck?The now former chief of staff of the Air Self-Defense Forces (ASDF) appeared before the House of Councillors foreign and defense affairs committee and continued his determined campaign to dispel the postwar consensus on Japan's wartime past.In his remarks, General Tamogami appeared to play dumb. Asked about …
Revisionist America?
At 空, Ken Tanaka responds to yesterday's post about Japanese revisionism by citing Stephen Walt regarding American "historical amnesia."I definitely take his (and Walt's) point about America's historical amnesia, particularly in regard to Japan. Few Americans appreciate the extent of the damage inflicted upon the Japanese people, or if they do, their appreciation stops at …
Japan’s revisionist problem
In my critique of Tamogami Toshio's essay, I asked, "Just how widespread are these views in the JSDF?"Jun Okumura quickly provided some sort of answer: more than fifty SDF members submitted essays in the contest won by General Tamogami. Sankei reports that the number of ASDF members who submitted essays is actually seventy-eight by the …
The Tamogami affair
The Times (of London) reports that Aso Taro may face an upper house censure motion over now-retired General Tamogami Toshio's revisionist essay on Japan's activities on mainland Asia in the 1930s.I think this would be a mistake — as Jun Okumura noted, Mr. Aso did the right thing. General Tamogami was sacked immediately. Unless it …
Tobias S. Harris 