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> So much it destroyed the military dictatorship and turned the country practically pacifist for a few decades. So I'm not really familiar with the intricacies

> So much it destroyed the military dictatorship and turned the country practically pacifist for a few decades. So I'm not really familiar with the intricacies of, well, any period of Japanese history, but my understanding was that the US military kept a very strong presence in Japan for many years after the allied victory, and both directly and indirectly had its fingers in Japanese politics. I'm eager to hear the take of someone more familiar with the history. I know the US forced Japan to abandon/greatly downsize its military after the victory (not unusual) but due to the Korean War had to accelerate a plan to protect Japan, which ultimately resulted in the "Japanese Self-Defense Forces", that seems like it could be as much a result of pacifism as internal politics and US pressure against creating anything resembling an army.

livueta 5y ago
There's a fairly common argument that Germany and Japan are actually quite unlike in this regard; that Germany truly confronted its history of militarism and came out the other side a more mature polity, while Japan's percieved pacifism is actually closer to some kind of trauma-amnesia where the same lessons haven't really been learned. Part of that is explicitly historical: look at the rapid rehabilitation of arch-conservatives in American efforts to confront the USSR in Asia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course Japan never had a real Nuremburg moment, essentially. The "national psyche" side of things is fuzzier. I don't really trust myself to write on it, so have another ref. Sorry this reference is an archived version of a now-offline blog reposting an out-of-print newspaper's literary analysis of an obscure TV show (familiarity not required), but it's what comes to mind when I try to recall English-lang sources on this sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingonanatomicbomb.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-true-brilliance-of-paranoia-agent-and-why-its-all-about-the-bomb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingon...
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  Right, Japan is still sooo unable to admit to what it did that even today, it's happy to initiate trade wars with Korea over refusing to recognize and pay reparations to the victims of their war crimes. And it would really benefit from a strong and friendly relationship with Korea. It's really weird, childish and baffling. edit: aikinai is entirely correct that Japan did apologize, and made compensation in a treaty, and that it isn't as black or white as my comment above made it sound. In fact, my comment wasn't very good or useful. Still the situation between the two countries baffles me, and I don't understand why recent PMs continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, and maintain such an ambivalent stance... anyhow, an unfortunate situation.
  - aikinai 5y ago
    Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa: "What we should not forget about relationship between our nation and your nation is a fact that there was a certain period in the thousands of years of our company when we were the victimizer and you were the victim. I would like to once again express a heartfelt remorse and apology for the unbearable suffering and sorrow that you experienced during this period because of our nation's act." Recently the issue of the so-called 'wartime comfort women' is being brought up. I think that incidents like this are seriously heartbreaking, and I am truly sorry”. [0] Just one quote I grabbed from a long list of apologies listed on Wikipedia. Also, Japan has paid reparations, multiple times with Korea agreeing each time it settled the matter. “Under the agreement, Korea received $300 million from Japan, as full and final settlement for claims between states, claims between one state and the individuals of the other, and claims among the individuals of the states, including those specified in Article IV (a) of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. Private companies were also considered individuals for the purposes of the agreement.” [1] There are certainly nationalists in Japan who didn’t want to apologize or pay reparations, but most of the population does recognize it and feel remorse, and the government has also officially apologized and paid. At this point, there’s nothing Japan can do since stoking hatred of Japan is a political golden goose in Korea and no amount of apologies or reparations will ever be enough until Korean sentiment shifts and it doesn’t score so many political points at home. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements... [1] https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/the-japan-korea-dispute-over-the-1965-agreement/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/the-japan-korea-dispute-over...
    - AYBABTME 5y ago
      I agree that it's a lot more nuanced than my comment made it out to be. However, I've observed that criticism of Japan has increased more dramatically in recent time, and (not particularly nationalistic) people who used to have a positive outlook toward Japan have often changed their position to a more critical one. I think it's not unprovoked, given that PMs continue to visit Yasukuni Shrine and there seems to be a resurgence in nationalistic sentiment in Japan, which finds its echo in Korea. On Korea's Supreme Court judgement, I can only assume that they did their homework with regard to the constitutionality of their decision. I wouldn't dare assuming that they were malign in intention. If they were, that'd be sad. I do think that both parties would greatly benefit from getting over with it, but I'm a slightly biased external observer in all this, so YMMV.

livueta 5y ago

There's a fairly common argument that Germany and Japan are actually quite unlike in this regard; that Germany truly confronted its history of militarism and came out the other side a more mature polity, while Japan's percieved pacifism is actually closer to some kind of trauma-amnesia where the same lessons haven't really been learned. Part of that is explicitly historical: look at the rapid rehabilitation of arch-conservatives in American efforts to confront the USSR in Asia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course Japan never had a real Nuremburg moment, essentially. The "national psyche" side of things is fuzzier. I don't really trust myself to write on it, so have another ref. Sorry this reference is an archived version of a now-offline blog reposting an out-of-print newspaper's literary analysis of an obscure TV show (familiarity not required), but it's what comes to mind when I try to recall English-lang sources on this sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingonanatomicbomb.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-true-brilliance-of-paranoia-agent-and-why-its-all-about-the-bomb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingon...

AYBABTME 5y ago
Right, Japan is still sooo unable to admit to what it did that even today, it's happy to initiate trade wars with Korea over refusing to recognize and pay reparations to the victims of their war crimes. And it would really benefit from a strong and friendly relationship with Korea. It's really weird, childish and baffling. edit: aikinai is entirely correct that Japan did apologize, and made compensation in a treaty, and that it isn't as black or white as my comment above made it sound. In fact, my comment wasn't very good or useful. Still the situation between the two countries baffles me, and I don't understand why recent PMs continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, and maintain such an ambivalent stance... anyhow, an unfortunate situation.
- aikinai 5y ago
  Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa: "What we should not forget about relationship between our nation and your nation is a fact that there was a certain period in the thousands of years of our company when we were the victimizer and you were the victim. I would like to once again express a heartfelt remorse and apology for the unbearable suffering and sorrow that you experienced during this period because of our nation's act." Recently the issue of the so-called 'wartime comfort women' is being brought up. I think that incidents like this are seriously heartbreaking, and I am truly sorry”. [0] Just one quote I grabbed from a long list of apologies listed on Wikipedia. Also, Japan has paid reparations, multiple times with Korea agreeing each time it settled the matter. “Under the agreement, Korea received $300 million from Japan, as full and final settlement for claims between states, claims between one state and the individuals of the other, and claims among the individuals of the states, including those specified in Article IV (a) of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. Private companies were also considered individuals for the purposes of the agreement.” [1] There are certainly nationalists in Japan who didn’t want to apologize or pay reparations, but most of the population does recognize it and feel remorse, and the government has also officially apologized and paid. At this point, there’s nothing Japan can do since stoking hatred of Japan is a political golden goose in Korea and no amount of apologies or reparations will ever be enough until Korean sentiment shifts and it doesn’t score so many political points at home. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements... [1] https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/the-japan-korea-dispute-over-the-1965-agreement/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/the-japan-korea-dispute-over...
  - AYBABTME 5y ago
    I agree that it's a lot more nuanced than my comment made it out to be. However, I've observed that criticism of Japan has increased more dramatically in recent time, and (not particularly nationalistic) people who used to have a positive outlook toward Japan have often changed their position to a more critical one. I think it's not unprovoked, given that PMs continue to visit Yasukuni Shrine and there seems to be a resurgence in nationalistic sentiment in Japan, which finds its echo in Korea. On Korea's Supreme Court judgement, I can only assume that they did their homework with regard to the constitutionality of their decision. I wouldn't dare assuming that they were malign in intention. If they were, that'd be sad. I do think that both parties would greatly benefit from getting over with it, but I'm a slightly biased external observer in all this, so YMMV.