Benjamin Lai is an expert on modern Chinese military and the author of The Dragon’s Teeth. Here, he explains why Abe Shinzo’s visit to Pearl Harbour is more than a remembrance event.
Abe Shinzo, the current Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to Pearl Harbour is much heralded as a giant step towards reconciliation between two former enemies who have now become strong political and military allies. I can’t help remembering a similar incident between two former adversaries commemorating a long forgotten battle from the First World War. Back in May, the Princess Royal and the German President Joachim Gauck supported by sailors of the two countries attended a solemn and touching ceremony in Orkney for the centenary of the Battle of Jutland. While the British and German event was just an act of remembrance, the visit by Abe to the Pearl Harbour is not without an ulterior agenda.
This visit by Abe is really a desperate effort to shore up Trump’s commitment to military support for Japan. However Pax-Americana does not come cheap, and Japan has to bear the burden for America’s protection. Today this burden on the Japanese taxpayers is a whopping 70% of the U.S. garrison bill not to mention incidental spending such as logistic support for U.S. forces in Afghanistan which was not included in the former. Trump has hinted that this number will go up. It is against this backdrop that makes Abe travelling to America twice in the space of a month!
While Abe is willing to make this gesture, the Government of Japan had never made any gestures to countries in Asia where she had laid waste during the war years. The Japanese may retort this accusation by pointing out that Japan was the largest giver of aid, AKA ODA (Official Development Assistance). These grants/loans were generously dished out by a rising Japan during the cold-war era with an understanding that it is “substitution” for war compensation. However, the small print stipulates that it’s government-to-government aid and the money is destined for development projects like dams and roads and NOT to compensate people for the loss of properties and lives. Desperate for money, many Asian countries including China took Japanese ODA loans, giving her economy a much-needed boost but it also acted as a channel for Japanese exports. While the state was rewarded, the people got nothing.
As America marks this historic event this year with speeches and wreaths as well as “reconciliation” between former enemies, there are no such niceties between China and Japan. For China, her grand commemoration will be set for next year on 7th July, the 80th anniversary of China’s “day of infamy” where Japan openly waged war in China, after years of slicing up China that began in 1894! Abe will not be attending even if he is invited.
Since Xi Jinping became the President of China, slowly and without hype, the nation’s war museums were all given a new lick of paint and displays reinterpreted to put the emphasis on China’s “forgotten” role in WWII as part of the Allies and the enormous sacrifices she made. This new jingoism must be seen in the light of what the Chinese see as a dangerous rise of Japanese conservative force over the last twenty years, a force that bears the hallmark of militarism that eventually took Japan to war. While Germany was truly de-Nazified, where today even the display of the smallest Nazi symbol will get you jail time, this de-fascism process was never roll out in post-war Japan. This has much to do with America using Japan as a base to combat Communism in Asia. As such, many of the wartime Generals and politicians were never punished and this includes Abe’s maternal grandfather Kishi Nobusuke, an ex-cabinet minister under Japanese wartime leader Tojo, who was once remanded in Sugamo Prison under charge of being a Class A War criminal. In the post-war period, Kishi went on to serve as two-term Prime Minister. Therefore ultra-conservatives with their militaristic views were allowed to persist in Japan and over the years allowing them to become more vocal, especially under Abe’s administration. Bit-by-bit the less insatiable part of the Japanese wartime actions were sliced from history, with euphemisms such as changing “invasion” into “advances” and “battles” re-categorised as “incidents”.
During Obama’s visit to Hiroshima earlier in the year, a poll by a Chinese media found that 90% of Japanese, especially amongst the young, sees that dropping the atomic bomb as a U.S. war crime – but are yet to recognise the part their country’s militarist leaders played in bringing it about. The way Hiroshima’s museum chooses to interpret the event in August 1945 is a perfect example of such a point-of-view. Today any Japanese who choose to be vocal on the issue of war responsibilities, like retired teacher Matsuoka Tamaki, or the late Azuma Shiro is hounded and threatened by pro-militaristic factions.
Under the tutelage of generations of conservative politicians, Japan has outgrown her passive role as America’s Asian base into an active partner in the containment of a rising China. The containment of an ambitious and rising Germany by Britain, then the World’s policeman was only concluded after two costly world wars, the loss of an empire and the gradual decline of a weakened Great Britain. China is rising and this process is inevitable. If this containment policy by the U.S. persists, supported by a new generation of Japanese who were all educated using revisionist textbooks, the future between China and Japan is not going to be a yellow-brick road. Minor clashes may snowball into a nightmare scenario of yet another Sino-Japanese War or worse.
For more about the China’s relationship with Japan, check out Benjamin Lai’s latest book, The Dragon’s Teeth: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army—Its History, Traditions, and Air Sea and Land Capability in the 21st Century.
Published by Casemate Books, The Dragon’s Teeth is available from: http://www.casematepublishing.co.uk/index.php/the-dragon-039-s-teeth.html
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