TOKYO, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- "In recent years, I have increasingly felt that Japan is heading down a dangerous path, and that sense of crisis reached its peak on Aug. 15 this year," Kazuteru Saionji, visiting professor at Higashi Nippon International University in Japan, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Japan's past wars of aggression inflicted immense suffering on the peoples of Asian countries and regions, including China. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan was defeated and announced its unconditional surrender.
Eighty-one years later, Japan's right-wing forces have not only failed to reflect on the country's historical crimes, but have instead moved in the opposite direction, seeking to distort, downplay, and even glorify Japan's history of aggression.
On Aug. 15 this year, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, in her capacity as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, made a monetary offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 convicted Class-A Japanese war criminals from World War II. Before attending the national memorial service for the war dead on the same day, she also performed a remote act of worship toward the controversial shrine from nearby.
"Takaichi's worship toward the Yasukuni Shrine from a distance is tantamount to visiting the shrine in person," Saionji said, stressing that there is no essential difference between the two, and bowing and clapping toward a shrine honoring Class-A war criminals amounts to expressing a distorted view of history.
Saionji said that one could imagine what would happen if Germany had a mausoleum or monument honoring Adolf Hitler and senior Nazi officials, and the German chancellor, president, and other politicians went there to pay their respects. Such an act would likely cause an uproar not only in Germany but across Europe, and the German government would almost certainly be forced to step down overnight.
"Yet such an act can take place in Japan as if nothing were wrong. This highlights just how abnormal Japan is," he said.
In Takaichi's speech at the war memorial ceremony on Aug. 15, she made no mention of Japan's past wars of aggression against its Asian neighbors or the immense suffering they caused, nor did she apologize for Japan's history of aggression, while the word "remorse" was also absent from her remarks.
Instead, Takaichi resorted to wordplay. While her predecessors traditionally used the phrase "must never repeat the horrors of war," she tweaked it to "the horrors of war must never be repeated," attempting to whitewash the history of aggression.
"This is a serious issue. The two expressions have completely different meanings," Saionji pointed out, explaining that "must never repeat the horrors of war" means that "Japan must not repeat them," whereas "the horrors of war must never be repeated" implies "not let the other side, namely countries other than Japan, repeat them."
Takaichi has previously claimed Japan's war of aggression against China was about "self-defense," and her speech on Aug. 15 precisely reflects this erroneous view, Saionji said. "A minor difference in wording conflated 'a war of aggression' with 'a war of self-defense,' and reversed the roles of 'aggressor' and 'victim.' She is openly promoting historical revisionism."
Saionji said that in recent years, a "countercurrent" of historical distortion and revisionism has been gaining momentum in Japan. In some textbooks, terms like "aggression" have been replaced with neutral alternatives, while the notion of "self-defense" has been subtly embedded in the narrative.
Japan's Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which is planning to update its exhibits, will change the description of "Nanjing Massacre" to "Nanjing Incident" starting next March, according to newly released exhibition text for the revamped displays.
Saionji said that the atomic bomb museum should bear the responsibility to "face up to history, learn the lessons of history and build a peaceful future." However, the museum's move not only betrays that responsibility, but also betrays the peoples of Asia, including those in China and the Korean Peninsula, he added.
"No matter how the wording is changed, the historical truth is serious and immutable," Saionji stressed.
For Japan and the Japanese people, what matters most is to remember history, draw lessons from it, and value friendly relations with neighboring countries, he said. "Only in this way can it serve the fundamental interests of Japan and its people." ■
