“When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addresses Japan’s wartime past in a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, the reaction of ally Washington will likely be as much, if not more, on his mind than…
“In his New Year Statement, Japanese Emperor called on the Japanese people to take this year as an opportunity to study and learn from the history of the war, starting with the Manchurian Incident of 1931… Asked whether Abe will…
“As China prepares to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II with a military parade in Beijing in September, the state news media has been hammering away at a central theme underpinning the government’s narrative about…
“The U.S. government, Congress and academics have a very “solid” consensus that Japan should stop its attempts to gloss over its wartime wrongdoings, namely the issue of sex slavery, the South Korean ambassador to Washington said Thursday.”
“Members of an expert panel on the war anniversary statement to be issued this summer by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a heated debate about whether Japan committed wartime “aggression,” according to a summary of their discussion.” Click here for…
By Nippon’s Editor in Chief, Kawashima Shin: “We in Japan see our country’s seven-decade postwar period as having begun on August 15, 1945. But China focuses on September 3 as its V-J day, while Taiwan has celebrated October 25 as…
“Our generation, people over 60, often heard of Guadalcanal,” said Nakagawa Harumi from Nagoya who had the seat next to mine in our minibus. He placed his hand over his chest and continued in careful English, “Just being here, I…
“In advance of a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. lawmakers are pushing Japan to set straight its approach to wartime history, which has frozen relations with neighboring Asian countries.”
“‘Why would he need to change the words? That is why people have doubts,’ said the 78-year-old Kono. ‘He must erase those doubts and the simplest way to do so is to uphold the Murayama statement unchanged…’ Kono also said he…
History a battleground not just for East Asia: “The attempts to rewrite history are designed ‘to undermine the power and moral authority of modern Russia, deprive of its status of the country-winner [of World War II] with all the expected international legal consequences, as well as to…
“With the exception of the march across the Philippine island of Luzon, the battle of Okinawa was the only major American land campaign in the Pacific during World War II…” -Christopher Dong visits war sites, museums, and memorials in Okinawa.
“Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against whitewashing “past crimes of aggression” at a United Nations meeting, in a thinly-veiled barb at Japan’s nationalistic moves to downplay Tokyo’s wartime atrocities.” Click here for Kyodo News coverage. Click here for Yomiuri…
“I myself did not experience the war, but it is important to look back on the past humbly and correctly pass down tragic experiences and the history behind Japan to the generations who have no direct knowledge of the war,…
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ’s view of the past is the biggest cloud hanging over the future of U.S.-Japan ties, according to U.S. lawmakers visiting Tokyo this week…”
“Speaking in Parliament, Mr. Abe pledged to increase efforts to fight what he called mistaken views abroad concerning Japan’s wartime actions, when the Japanese military conquered much of Asia.”
“The comfort women issue is a negative legacy of Japanese history. This makes it even more important to provide students with accurate knowledge about the issue so that similar tragedies never happen again.”
History textbook wars cross borders – This opinion piece in The Japan Times explores how Japan, Germany, China, and the US have confronted their history in textbooks and whether or not any of them have truly escaped promoting a political…