How has Japan got away with it?

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Billy

past is past, u can't make someone bow down and say sorry if they don't want to

neleh4you

I don't know how they have gotten away with it but you know what is more shocking is that during the Unit 731, Americans helped them cover up from procecution by trading the sources on human experimentation. (youtube.com). Anyways I agree that the past is the past, however unlike Germans, Japanese are rewriting their history and educating the new generations that they have no fault. I believe that if they can't make things any better....at least don't lie or deny about your past history. In addition, as of this day Japanese are claiming (so called their territory) from Russia, Korea, and Tawain....does this action show that they are truely sorry about the past? They still haven't apoligize to some other asian countries about the sex slave.

Deckard2020

the roman catholic church tortured and massacred thousands of people, yet today millions still slavishly devote themselves to the pope.
Hundreds of Europeans were massacred by the chinese during the boxer rebellion. Is china offering compensation to their descendants?

A curious anecdote- Many german soldiers were sent to Canadian pow camps during the second world war. During the long train ride from the east coast, the Germans initially refused to eat their box lunches. The guards finally found out that the prisoners thought the first box lunch was their food ration for the entire week and that they were saving it. They couldn't believe that they would get three meals a day.

This guy

I think you got your numbers wrong. I think it's supposed to be 100-300 thousand. Million is just too many.
I don't know if it's possible to prove how many were killed. I heard that the population of Nanjing didn't reach that number. Bodies of such a massive number haven't been discovered. I really don't know about it. It could be chinese propaganda, I don't know. It is written as a fact in textbooks in japan but some people seriously deny it.
About 731, they don't teach that in school. The Japanese government got away with that because they had a deal with the US. Which states "the US gets the medical data that was achieved during the tests, and the leaders and doctors of unit 731 walks away with no record"

But still the US killed 800,000 with just 2 bombs. I still struggle to see that as a necessity to end the war.

;';';';';';&

So what do you want us to do? bend on my knees and apologize? my grandparents didn't even go to the war. I know what Japanese did back then was horrible. But what can you do about it? It's been over 60 years since that happened. I don't think money will cover all that up but Japanese helped China and Korea by paying a lot of money to fix the city. When there was huge earth quack, Japanese was the one who helped them. I'm not saying because of that, Japan will be forgiven, but what I'm saying is that it's better off to move on rather than keep talking about past and hating. Somehow many Australian people have problem with Japan. I've seen many Australians who are talking like you. Talking about WW2, and other stuff. It's like leave us alone already. ps. you said Germany have paid up and Japan have not, but what do you mean? so If German paid up, that means you can forgive them? I seriously think that you have something against Japan. Don't need to deny it to make yourself look good.

toto1004

Probably the Japanese have more to offer the world economically so we don't make them have consequences. Chinese don't whine and complain about it, we just make more babies to make up for the loss. Get over it, it's the past.

(By the way, I highly doubt any country teaches an an accurate history about itself, look at America)

I still say get over it. Anyways it's not your fight to fight. My grandma was running away from Japanese and found bullet holes in her clothes later and she's moved on.

If I were you, I'd spend your energy on bettering the present and helping the homeless, parentless children, etc.

Alecram

Japanese are not teaching their youth everything because they have too much shame. Pretty soon, Japanese kids won't even know there was a WWII.

It doesn't matter, because not all Americans even knew what was going on. Japan is secluded and they have their ways to be discrete on certain things.

The past is the past and the Japanese have their pride. Do you hear an apology for Pearl Harbor? No. So what makes you think they'll apologize to the Chinese?

Marvin Straight

I agree with Billy to an extent. The past is the past. We cannot change it. All that a party can do is apologize and learn from the past. We only have the present, and hopefully, the future.

Now, I have asked the same question (despite coming off as anti-japanese, I'm really not, but facts are facts). I believe that it's because there are many jews that are in the media and own many media outlets. If the Chinese owned media outlets, then we'd probably hear more about the japanese atrocities.

In WW2, almost all of the countries did horrible things. British and Americans firebombed Dresden, we all know about Hiroshima, Italians in Ethiopia, Russians raping in Germany, etc. Also, many soldiers were just following orders and fighting for their country that they believed in; not for the joy of killing.

michinoku2001

SCAP made the decision that the military clique was to take the blame and their was to be no retribution against the Japanese people in general. When the Korean war commenced the decision was made in Washington to strengthen Japan as a bulwark against communism. Left wing Japanese people were very disappointed that the USA chose to put many of the same people who led Japan into the war back into power at that time. In fact over 600 Japanese were executed as war criminals after the war. If it was the Commonwealth nations that were in charge of the occupation I'm sure they would have been much tougher. However Americans tend to be magnanimous in victory-that is your answer for better or worse.

bluemoonmemory

Athough you said that the Japanese were not going to surrender so the only other option was a land invasion.

It is just propaganda of the victorious nations. Actually during Jun to Jul in 1945, due to heavy airraid by US Air force, Japan had been no power to continue to war anyway. They lost aircrafts, battle ships and oils and provisions. No allied countries any more. Don't distort anything.

The atmic bombs were thrown just because Russia wanted to invade to Hokkaido soon as German had surrendered and USA wanted to stop Russia going down to Japan immediately.

In addition, Japan paid compensation for the war reparations to Asian 4 countries. China (Republic of China those days) made a peace treaty in 1952 and renounced its rightto claim that time.

P.R. China and Korea were not existing in WWâ…¡that country have no right to claim.

Although you are too sensitive to the killing numbers of Chinese civilian by Japanese army, not only China but also Russia and Polish are almost close but no reliable datas has not been recorded. These are all guessing. Some Chinese civilians might be killed by Chinese army, not by Japanese army. Only God knows.

War crime can't compare with each other. All of those are just evenly horrible, no more or less in degree. Comparison doesn't make any sense. Why do you complain? What is your intention? I smell stink somewhat.

Korean War took more than one milion sacrifices to death in the civilians. Chinese civil war also invited more than one milion's civilian death. Anyway, the number of casualtiies more ore less is meaningless to talk about peace and war because it depends on population density.

Australia was once one of notirous white shupreme principle country those days. I don't know if it compensated to local aboliginis and many coloured people once they lived in there.

So many innocent people have been still killed in all over the world even now. It is sad that we call it war. It is not playing soccer or clicket by combats. Soldiers are not peaceful policemen but just coward killers sometimes.

Zerrah

People who win wars are the one that write history. In my high school history book the bombing of Hiroshima by America was a paragraph or less in my textbook. Later that year, I visited Hiroshima myself and saw people's shadows permanently cast into buildings and heard horror stories of people having their flesh melt and get stuck to their clothing, eventually leading to their death. Did you ever learn about that in school? Americans don't learn about what they did to the japanese just as the japanese don't fully acknowledge what they've done to the Chinese.

It is wrong, I agree with you, but I think we should be just as apologetic about using the atomic bomb on them.

P.S. Many POW in Germany, especially, the Russians, got sent to workcamps to be worked to death or gassed and were treated no better than the Jews. I'm not sure what POW camps you're talking about but they did not treat all POWs well.

PSS. It is true that the government was encouraging an insane and fanatical behavior, but the atomic bomb was awful and had truly terrible consequences. The japanese were running out of raw materials to make weapons and they would have been forced to surrender eventually. We (I'm American) also attacked a city, not a military base, with innocent civilians.

Then why not drop other bombs? The A-bomb was, at its core, a show of power. It was done to show off our military strength and knowledge to the rest of the world, Russia especially. I don't believe it was just done to "end the war."

And yes, I would have objected to a German city getting bombed that had women and children in it. I don't buy in to the whole "Germany is evil" BS. I've read "The Rape of Nanking," which was a real eye-opener on how more brutal the japanese were.

BTW, I had to lol at your school system comment. Yes, our schools are pretty bad. XD I'm in college now, so I get a more in-debth understanding of history...

Glipso

G'Day, firstly, the number of casualties differ, so do the wartime practices - depending on the books you read, It's all controversial, depending on the perspective. In a world war it is very difficult to get exact facts on everything due to the scale of events. We can only assume from what we read and hear.

To be technically and politically correct I will only say there was mass killings during WW2. Figures are not that important. What is important today is what we do from now. What do you think will improve from a simple apology that you seek to gain?

Japan has turned around since the war and currently only hold "self defence military force", they do not initiate in any warfare, they have one of the safest countries in the world, and have made significant contributions towards world economy, world peace and world poverty.

I believe these actions talk louder than any apology by a government personnel.

Take a look in your own backyard today, Aussie battler. Whaling is the controversial topic on the news, today. Why don't you stop taking stabs at history you cannot change, and put that effort into making a difference today to create a better tomorrow for the next generation, mate.

Peace.

Leftcoast USA

It seems like you aren't trolling, so I think you deserve an answer.

If you are versed in the history of WWII, you should know that there was a San Francisco Peace Treaty signed by 49 nations that officially ended WWII, formally ended Japan's position as an imperial power, and allocated compensation to Allied civilians and former POWs. On the basis of the San Fransisco Treaty, Japan paid up all war reparations, and it's a closed affair.

The PRC Chinese government continually inflates their WWII casualty figure and is an unreliable accuser. If you want to bring up Nanking, the supposed casualty there exceeds the estimated population of the city back then, so it's like seeing an automobile accident plaintiff in court.

The US military received all the research results from Unit 731. Unit 731 also made sure that none of the research results went to Soviet hands. The US secretly granted immunity to Unit 731 for this, and no one in Unit 731 was a defendant in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

If there were a 2% mortality rate in German POW camps, there's an upwards of 1 million German soldiers in American POW camps that are still unaccounted for today. If a good part of them perished by American maltreatment of them, the victor of the war really did write history in their favor and got away with it.

I will grant you one thing, though. Japanese memory of WWII does focus on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. That's where all the expensive navy ships went to and where all the zeros got deployed. It was where the relatively liberal navy was. The Chinese continent was the playground of the brutal army, whose contempt for a civilian government isn't remembered fondly even today.

So there was there Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal where individuals were indicted for (A) crimes against peace, (B) conventional war crimes, or (C) crimes against humanity. Class C, crimes against humanity, included mistreatment of POWs and abuse of civilians. One thousand defendants were convicted and executed for Class B and Class C. Many of them were never allowed to see their family or even leave a note between their arrest and execution. This would be the kind of state-sponsored disappearance that a totalitarian regime could only imitate, and it was done by the occupying Allies (mostly US).

Tit-for-tat, there seems to be plenty that America would be happy to sweep under the rug too to appear like a clean victor. But point-for-point, everything that Japan did in WWII was addressed and spoken for between the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Allies (US) pretty much decided that Japan had paid up per the terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and that is closure.

Now, there are WWII Axis powers that really got away with murder. I would cite Austria and Finland.

But I think you and I well know why the US was quick to put Japan back on its feet. The US wanted a strong ally in the Cold War, right next door to the Soviet Union and China.

I do think you're more unhappy that the Japanese don't act guilt-ridden and apologetic when you bring up the subject. The piece of national psyche that WWII's given to Japan comes in the form of a strong distaste for military action and a distrust of military authority. Have you tried probing that side of the equation?

Carl_the_Truth

Your facts are WAY off,pal. The Germans killed far more people than the Japanese. And as far as bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you're wrong about that too. By that time Japan was in shambles.They were running out of money and supplies.The American government had already fire bombed half the country.Japan wanted to throw in the towel without "losing face".But we wouldn't let them.Losing face was very important to the emperor.Russia had their own troops massed and ready to invade Japan.And the Nazis were close to having their own A-bomb.You're also wrong about German POW camps.People were treated like animals,and worse.So what was your question?This "question" should be removed as "ranting".What you've been taught was one-sided.

Robyn

You ask a lot in one go, but do you really think they got away with anything? They have already paid the money that America agreed was suitable, they can't keep paying forever whenever someone suddenly claims they need more compensation because their own government didn't distribute the compensation to those who deserved it. It is actually a fact that Japan paid compensation, whether you like it or not.

I don't know where you got your info about POW camps in Germany, but it obviously wasn't from the same source as the Brits got their info. From what I learned they were most definitely starving as well as being used as slave labour, and many were certainly tortured. 2% chance of death? You must be joking.

>Japan killed more civilians than the Germans did in the holocaust yet you never hear about it.
Again you must be joking. We never stop hearing about how many zillions of civilians the Japanese slaughtered during WWII, and the numbers seem to increase on a rabbit-like scale. I don't hear about the ones the Germans killed very often these days though, maybe because I'm in Japan and don't watch Brit war documentaries.

>where as Germany are fully aware and apologetic about what happened.
Are they? How can you be so sure? Even Britain has been exposed for mistreating POWs for example, within the last couple of years, yet for so long we were all taught how pure and wonderful our side was. We obviously weren't very well aware of the truth, yet our government claimed we knew everything. Reminds me of the behaviour of certain English speaking nations now, not Australia of course though. But If you think Germans know all of their country's past, how can you be sure? What makes you think you know? Do you have access to all the deep and dark places filled with top secret files? And if you think they're all apologetic you obviously walked around Germany with your eyes and ears shut. There are many nazis there now, and sometimes they get media attention by incinerating immigrants.

You might know about the American educational failures, and I'm beginning to learn about the Australian educational failures from you, if you sincerely believe that Japan wasn't trying to surrender. It's called propaganda, and you've been taught it as fact. We were taught it too, but schools all over the world are hotbeds of propaganda. Not just in Japan.

Why are you so surprised that the Japanese people were told to fear the enemy and resist to the death? Surely it's normal for all civilians (and the gun-fodder) to be told that in a war? Off the top of my head I can't think of a time when it was any different. The enemy are always reputed to be inhuman psychopaths with a lust for blood and young virgins. And look at the 'weapons that can be deployed in 45 minutes' lie, but it worked on Americans and the British government.

Are you sure that you're not actually pissed because Japan whales in waters your government wants to claim?

Rabbityama

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "get away with it". Japan is criticized ALL THE TIME for not properly making amends with China and Korea.

People object to the dropping of the atomic bomb not simply because they lack knowledge about the "real situation". Many people are simply against atomic warfare and warfare as a whole. Furthermore, unlike Pearl Harbor, which was a military target, the target of an atomic bomb is an entire CITY. That's massive destruction in a such a short span of time and certainly the bomb doesn't distinguish between military and civilian. Although it's true that women were being trained to defend the homeland with bamboo, a mainland invasion would still have consisted of AIR bombings.

Whether or not more lives would have been lost and which side would have lost those lives is negligible when looking at the motives behind it, because that's NOT why the bomb was dropped. The dropping of the bomb has more to do with the Soviet Union than it does with Japanese agression. Dropping the atomic bomb allowed America to end the war on its own terms, thereby giving it control of the direction that post-war Japan would take. It also marked the beginning of the Cold War, showing the Soviet Union that America was not a nation to be messed around with.

Whether or not Japan has "paid up" definitely depends on where you look. China, Korea, and other Asian nations were barred from the talks ending the war, so the demands America made did NOT consider how the Chinese, etc. would feel and what they might wish for Japan to do. As far as the official demands, Japan DID pay, but it's definitely fair to say that Japan has not done its part in reconciling with its neighbors. Yes, had East Asia been allowed representatives in the talks determining how it would pay, we may not even have any of these issues today.

Australia suffered quite a lot during WWII at the hands of the Japanese (this is MUCH less known in the world than the attrocities committed in Asia), and I know many of Australia's elderly still hate the Japanese, so it's a sore subject... The problem with Japan's education regarding WWII can be summed up in two things (in my opinion):
1. Due to the length of Japanese history, some schools do not even reach modern times in their history classes. This I heard from some Japanese themselves who stated they didn't study modern Japanese history. Without ANY study, one must do research on his/her own, which schoolkids tend not to do...
2. Because the atomic bomb was such a horrific affair, and because it's affects are SO long-lasting and ever-present among those exposed to the bomb, Japan DOES tend to focus more on its role as a victim in the war rather than as an aggressor. Had Berlin been bombed with an atomic bomb, I DO think they would harbor "victim" feelings alongside the memories of agression. No matter how bad the attrocities committed by Japan were or the horrific nature of the Holocaust, atomic bombs are meant to affect the civilians, and I don't think it would be difficult to sympathize with German civilians if it had been Berlin that was bombed, even with the Holocaust. Saying that the atomic bomb is horrific and tragic is NOT saying that everything else is okay. Things like the Holocaust, Nanjing Massacre, AND the atomic bomb droppings all involved massive death over a brief period of time. I think it's difficult and not helpful to rank massive suffering to say that one was more or less horrific than another.

I agree that the lack of teaching about Japan's role as an agressor is a PROBLEM that the Japanese education system needs to do more to correct, but there are some interesting things to think about:
1. America doesn't teach its students about the affect of the atomic bomb, despite being the ONLY nation to use it in warfare. Don't you think it's important for students to learn exactly what a bomb does? WWII is depicted in America as the time when America saved the world. It's glorious. Believe me, there are no American attrocities listed in WWII. Such things would kind of rain on the parade.
2. Peace Osaka is an interesting museum in Osaka that's permanent exhibit DOES include videos, pictures, and information about Japanese agression in Asia and the some of the attrocities committed by the Japanese. I'm not sure how many other countries have a museum like this, outlining the BAD things done by the nation. If there is a museum highlighting American attrocities in America, I'd be interested to know where it is and what exactly it features. I've never heard of such a thing.
3. Do you think Chinese textbooks are accurate? South Korean textbooks? (Do I even have to mention North Korea?) Chinese textbooks are NOT well known for accurate accounts of history, particularly modern history.

I'm not trying to DEFEND Japan, because I believe that Japan truly is NOT doing the best it can to address these issues. I just thought I'd point out a few things. You seem quite passionate about this, but hopefully you can see that the issue on the Japanese side is not as simple as you assume. The situation is quite sad, really, because I think the young generations in China seem to WANT to forgive (there is a lot of intrigue about Japan), but the stubbornness of BOTH governments perpetuate distrust and ill feelings on both sides...

(as a sidenote: There is a growing number of Chinese and Korean youth who *partially* think like Billy: "The past is the past, let's worry about the future". While it can be apathetic, it can also be hopeful and inspiring. I guess it depends on who it comes from.)

Kimi

yeah-yeah-yeah you're right.
"many innocent people had to DIE but it HAD TO BE DONE."
What a smart person you are! I'm very impressed indeed.

BTW I've learned about the history of Indigenous Australians (AKA Aborigine)
It has been estimated that at the time of first European contact, pre-1788 population was 315,000 and have killed up to 90% of them by diseases which European brought or killed as game for European's human hunting or simply killed by European for no reason.
"Nothing except the European they come in and they kill the Aborigines and took the land. I think that's all I know".

Apparently there are no Aborigine that are in the media and own no media outlets.

It is common maneuver to blame others to get away with our own crime, isn't is?

NO country is INNOCENT, don't you think?

nice one

They get away with everything. They even pretend to be Korean making them look bad in the internet. The japanese are sneaky.

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