From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: On Japanese apologies
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 18:53:05 GMT

In article <92232.183350TOGE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> TOGE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Nobukazu Toge) writes:

A very good post. Allow me to add a few points.

>One reason for this was it was way too difficult to evaluate the extent
>of damages done,whether economically or physically, to achieve  reasonable
>1-to-1 compensations.  Another reason was when those Peace Treaties were
>negotiated in '50-'60s Japan did not have enough economical strength to

OK, slight nit to pick here. Relations between S Korea and Japan were 
normalized in the mid 60s, when Japan had the resources to donate a good 
deal of money. You are correct in stating that it was difficult to measure the
damage; recently, NHK released secret documents of the negotiations between
the ROK and Japan re the compensation from the mid-60s. Japanese documents
at the time sate that the Koreans had no solid information upon which to 
base their claims, as these were either destroyed in the war, or in Japanese
possesion. The ROK was forced to take a small ($500,000,000) amount in 
damages.

>pay in the full amount anyway. [Not the case, probably, with PRC when
>the negotiations were made in early '70s.  However, then there were reasons
>on the part of PRC to expedite the agreement, for their domestic and foreign
>political maneuvering, I suspect.

>In short the Japanese government got a bargain.  Hereafter, I understand
>that the stance by the Japanese government is the case is basically
>closed.  Done. Period.  Its standpoint is that it does not have to
>open it anymore, 'cause it's been closed.  Hence, no "apologies", but
>only "regrets".  A clever tactic, but it won't make one feel much
>human warmth.... but that's their operational principle.

And, IMO, a very bad tactic, if, as they say, they want to become a leader in
the Pacific Rim. Simply put, the nations that suffered under Japanese rule
have NOT forgotten, show no signs of forgetting, and Japan is losing a 
valuable opportunity to gain extensive good will in the region, simply by 
refusing to say "I'm sorry, it was my fault, and I won't do it again".

>Another thing to point out  is  in '50-'60-'70s the politically dominant
>in Japan was LDP which are basically conservative capitalists that fit
>well within the framework of the U.S. side of the cold war.  They were
>supported by the majority Japanese, because they are instrumental in
>promoting economic recoverys after the war. They had (still have) a strong

There was also a fear of the Communists at the time.

>Now why the Japanese voters won't dump LDP?  I guess the biggest reason
>is a lack of alternatives.  Do we Japanese think that it's OK?  I don't
>know about everyone but I think that many feel no it's not OK at all.
>I should also say that it's not only the ruling party but also the huge
>bureaucracy that the Japanese has managed to build up. Sometimes they are
>so effective and efficient (e.g. MITI in some areas), but manytimes they
>are so damn hard-nosed and plaguing.

The Japanese bureaucracy was entrenched even before the war. The infighting
among these bureaucratic branches left the government effectively paralyzed 
in dealing with the hard-line right-wingers, who, if nothing else, were 
focussed on what they wanted to do.

As for the LDP, it is entirely possible that they would have been out of 
office already *IF* the voting districts were redone. After every major 
election, a Tokyo and Osaka group sue the government due to representation in
those areas being less proportionally than in rural regions (the misrepresent-
ation is now as high as 3.5 - 1 on a per-voter basis). The Japanese Supreme
Court always rules 1) Yes, this imbalance is unconstitutional and 2) It would
cause too much confusion to declare the results void, so the government must
"reflect sincerely" on redressing this inequality.

>So, IMHO the lack of sincerity by the Japanese government as observed
>by other Asian nations are because of those domestic structures (or
>mechanism or situation, what-ever), rather than the sheer lack of
>sincerity per se [ok, it's a big contribution, too].  And I want to repeat
>that many Japanese (all right, I don't have statistics) feel this is bad,
>but are not quite sure how to nationally mature out of this.

A very good point; my feeling was that most Japanese WANTED their government 
to do something to try and redress the issues (after all, no one likes being
villified for things they personally have no control over) but have no idea
how to bring this about. More pessimistically, they have no feeling that 
their government represents their interests anymore on ANY issue (sound 
familiar?) and the voter turnout in the last election was the lowest ever.

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - These opiini^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w  :q  :wq  :wq! ^d  X ^?
exit X Q  ^C ^? :quitbye  CtrlAltDel   ~~q  :~q  logout  save/quit :!QUIT
^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H  man vi ^@  ^L  ^[c  ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help  helpquit ^D  ^d 
man help ^C ^c help exit ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel "Hey, what does this button d..."