From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.hongkong,soc.culture.taiwan
Subject: Re: An open letter to the Emperor Akihito of Japa
Date: 16 Aug 92 01:01:16 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.japan
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

liu10@husc10.harvard.edu (Eric Liu) writes:

>All the Japanese emperor need to say is that his country was responsible
>for the war and he would like to represent his people to apologize to all
>the people that suffered from the war!  He doesn't even have to say it in
>public;  he could issue a statement!   Is that so difficult?  Up till now,
>Japan has never claimed responsibility for the war and have never showed
>any signes of repentance for their unforgivable deeds!  All they've said
>is that it's unfortunate that they war happened!  That's not acceptable 
>at all to the millions of people who suffered tremedously through the war!
>TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND APOLOGIZE. 

This may come as a real surprise but I have been in Japan for 10
years and during that time I've had many conversations with a wide
variety of people here and there is a "large" (can't say exactly,
but among those I have spoken with approx. 90%) segment who do *NOT*
feel that Japan was responsible for the war.  Instead, they have a
well-developed set of reasons why and how Japan was tricked into the
war and they believe this to be the case. Thus I don't think asking
the Emperor to apologize is going to get anyplace. 

As I said, this may come as real surprise; it sure was a surprise to
me. When I asked people how come the government doesn't voice this
opinion (that Japan wasn't responsible for the war) there were a
variety of answers. I will sum them up by saying that it just isn't
in Japan's current economic interest to say things that will make
trading difficult. 

Perhaps the most curious thing is there was support for the Japanese
position at the time. According to Life magazine of September 24,
1945 (yes, I actually have a copy!) in "Pearl Harbor, The facts were
known ... now is the time to assess their meaning":

  For a long time the offical explanation of Pearl Harbor was that
  we were slugged without warning when we were innocently going about
  our business. Slugged we were, and there is no need to pallitate
  the Japanese behavior. But to say that we were slugged without
  warning is a radical distortion of the truth. 

  As the coming invesitagtions will show, the Pearl Habor case moves
  on many levels. The Republicans will charge--and prove--that the
  Democrats ... have chosen tactics and timing designed to frustrate
  any effective political reaction to it. The "isolationists" will
  charge--and they have have evidence for their case---that Roosevelt
  maneuvered the Japanese crisis in such a way as to invite the
  Pearl Harbor attack when it came.

Now please note that I'm not saying that Japan *was* tricked, I'm
only saying there is a significant number of people here who
*believe* Japan was tricked, and such people also existed in the
U.S. at the time. While this view seems to have been lost in the
outside of Japan, I think it remains very much alive here, even
though it's a relatively taboo subject.. By the Japanese government
remaining relatively silent on the issue, people in other countries
can continue to believe that Japan was responsible, and people here
can continue to believe that Japan was tricked. 

Meanwhile the bottom line is that along with it's preoccupation of
making money, Japan has become an economic giant. I would be
surprise at anything more than a vague reference to "remembering the
lesson from the past" from from the Emperor, and I wouldn't expect
any more than a token request for one as who can afford to bite the
hand that feeds them? 

Realpolitik rules. Such is life. Shikata ga nai.

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087