Tag: History Problem

  • Selden: How can the U.S. criticize Japanese atrocities?

    Mark Selden, coordinator of Japan Focus, asks: [M]ore than six decades since Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, by what right does an American critically address issues of the Nanjing Massacre and Japan’s wartime atrocities? Stated differently, in the course of those six decades US military forces have repeatedly violated international law and humanitarian ethics,…

  • A Textbook Demonstration … In Japan

    Japan’s history problem (歴史問題, rekishi mondai) is well-known in Asia, and it’s a common topic of discussion in Japanese political journals. Many are familiar with international criticism of Japan’s reckoning with its 20th century aggression, and the repeated approval by the Education Ministry of textbooks that underplay or gloss over the Nanjing Massacre and other…

  • Yasukuni in Context: Nationalism and History in Japan

    Documents revealed in March that the Japanese government’s long-held position that it had nothing to do with the enshrinement of war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo wasn’t exactly, well, accurate. This week at Japan Focus, Akiko Takenaka has written a great update on these revelations. It’s published with an Asahi Shimbun editorial calling for…

  • Roh Lauds EU, Scolds Japan, and Calls for Regionalism

    Japan Focus republished an April op-ed by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun today. Choice quotes: “[T]he Europeans, befitting of a people who invented democracy based on rational thought, are writing a new history based on the lessons learned from their long string of wars. …”Many scholars define the 19th century as the Age of Europe,…

  • Fun With Abe-Bush Rhetoric

    Shisaku has a snarky roundup of Abe Shinzo’s recent visit to the United States. Here’s the blog’s response to Abe’s hinting that maybe “the past is the past.” “The 20th century was a century that human rights were violated in many parts of the world. So we have to make the 21st century a century…