‘ In the early 1930s, the Japanese government sent about 320,000 people to Manchukuo – officially known as Manchuria. Most of them served in the military or as bureaucrats, along with businessmen and families from rural parts of Japan who…
The Asahi Shimbun: Paris-based filmmaker Kenichi Watanabe completed a documentary on nuclear radiation in time for the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in March. The film, titled “Notre ami l’atome–Un siecle de radioactivite” (Our friend the atom–A…
“At an exhibition commemorating the 75th anniversary of the recovery of the island of Taiwan from Japanese colonial rule held at the National Museum of China, many visitors could be seen gathering around and staring at a black and white…
“On the morning of September 2, 1945, Lt. Cmdr. James Starnes stood on the deck of the USS Missouri, surrounded by his fellow seamen, hundreds of Allied warships and the blue waters of Tokyo Bay.”
“South Korean President Park Geun-Hye muted her criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s war anniversary statement, mindful that she needs to improve her country’s relations with Japan.”
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stopped short of offering an apology in his own words for Japan’s actions in World War II, issuing a 70th-anniversary statement that mixed remorse with some defiant messages.”
“Seventy years after the end of World War Two, some 42 percent of Germans want to draw a line under the Nazi past, a poll showed on Wednesday, as the nation’s complex legacy continues to shape its international role and…
“Nearly a third of Americans cite World War II as the event that stands out when they think about relations between the United States and Japan, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. By contrast, only 17%…
“In the 1980s, the Smithsonian began restoring the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. By then it was a complete mess. Over the years it had been disassembled, spread across multiple buildings, birds had nested…
“In a DW interview, Ian Buruma, Professor of Human Rights and Journalism in the US, and author of several books including “Year Zero: A History of 1945 ,” talks about why views on World War II are so polarized in…
“The head of a history think-tank has criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for referring to women forced by his nation’s military into sexual slavery before and during World War II as victims of “human trafficking.” … “It is absolutely unacceptable…
“A university museum in Japan has broken a seven-decade taboo on discussing the dissection of live US prisoners of war by medical personnel towards the end of the Second World War.”
“This Tomb Sweeping Day, Liu Shouben, a 92-year-old former Kuomintang soldier, can finally tell people about the bloody battles he fought against the Japanese… Liu joined the KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party, in the spring of 1942. He fought a…
“Japan has continued its path as a pacifist nation for 70 years since the end of World War II based on its “deep remorse” over the war, according to a draft of the annual foreign policy report for this year…. The…
“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…