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Japan Survey on China

According to a survey reported in the Asahi today including some 808 responses, some 71% respondents “can’t understand” China’s demand that Japan face the question of its historical conciousness of the war. On the other hand, 48% reported that they believed Japanese prime ministers should stop visiting the controversial Yasukuni shrine (36% say he should continue), which is a 9% increase over last November. About 51% of respondents believed that China’s own history education system was a “large influence” on China’s anti-Japanese sentiment.

In a separate brilliantly stupid move, Koizumi cited Confucius in defence of his Yasukuni shrine visits which include the Class-A war criminals, “Condemn the offense, but pity the offender.”

Sea of Japan

Giving a name to the water between Korea and Japan is always a bit of a sensitive affair. I was suddenly reminded of this today when I opened up the Korean newspaper site Chosun.com and was suddenly presented with a pop-up window with the following text:

The staff of the English-language edition of Chosun.com wish to apologize to readers who may have been offended by a May 2 article on this website headlined “U.S.: North Korea Apparently Fires Missile into Sea of Japan”. We would like to explain that the article was not a Chosun.com article, but rather one provided to us by the Voice of America (VOA), one of our partner organizations.

Due to our agreement with VOA, we do not change either the content or the headline of articles it provides. We recognize, however, that using an article that employs the term “Sea of Japan” may be offensive to some readers, especially considering the sensitive state of relations between Korea and Japan. For this, we sincerely apologize, and the article in question has been erased.

Speaking of Totalitarianism: Linking Fascism and Communism

Another issue that Lagrou takes a close look at in The Legacy of Nazi Occupation is the effective move by anti-Communist forces in the early postwar period (especially from 1947 on) to build a close tie between the Communist enemy and the strong existing anti-Fascist sentiment in the aftermath of the war. This is none other than the development of theories on and propaganda about Totalitarianism. The most famous theoretician of totalitarianism which conflates fascism with communism is Hannah Arendt. I blogged earlier some notes on an article about her by Samantha Power. I’m sure we can all think of other places we have seen this at work, whether it is our own textbooks, the speeches of Truman, or the essays of George Orwell. It is one of the fundamental theoretical building blocks of the deeply flawed binary between the “free world” and the Communist evil empire we struggled against in the Cold War—one which was and continues to be selectively applied as political expedience requires.

Lagrou focuses in on the specific ways this link is found in the postwar resistance/veteran associations, the associations of wartime victims and generally how, “the memory of Nazi persecution became the battle horse of anti-Communism.” (269) Lagrou notes that the early postwar anti-fascist organizations and the anti-totalitarian memories of the cold war shared one major feature in common from the start:

“They systematically obscured the specificity of the genocide. The anti-fascist discourse assimilated all victims of fascism with anti-fascists. The genocide was not recognised as distinct from the overall anti-fascist martyrdom….The anti-totalitarian discourse was more exclusive; its freedom fighters were mostly recruited from nationalist resistance circles, who did not admit victims of the genocide to their clubs. Above all, not only did it obscure the genocide, but genocide was strictly incompatible with its aim. An assimilation betwen Nazi persecution and the Gulag essentially required the omission of genocide.” (285)

In other words, in the Cold War anti-totalitarian rhetoric, the general oppression and the concentration camps (for forced labor, PoWs, and Jews – all mashed together in one category) of Nazi occupation were placed in parallel to the Gulag as its central and most powerful symbol. However, as Lagrou and I’m sure others show, however, this is requires forgetting the specificity of the holocaust—the memory of which resists all attempts to be dragged into a simple Fascism=Communism equation.

Of course, the anti-totalitarian discourse of our own side in the Cold War certainly shares parallels to a similarly reductive discourses related to fascism and imperialism that were popular under Communism. However, it might be worth reminding ourselves of the interesting early postwar genesis and historical consequences of some the most compelling ideas of recent generations. In this specific case, the rapid shift to a dominant anti-totalitarian ideology equating fascism with communism greatly served the radicalization of anti-communism in Western Europe and as Lagrou shows throughout his book, had devastating consequences for Communist resistance fighters or other Communist victims of Nazi persecution repatriated after the war.

A Different Kind of Anti-Semitism

I have blogged once before about a fantastic book by Pieter Lagrou called “The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965 . The more I look at it, the more I think of it as a potential model for the kind of study I would like to do for my dissertation on the postwar memory and condemnation of treason or wartime collaboration in East Asia.

In his chapter on “Patriotic memories and the genocide” he discusses the remarkable “reversal of memories” in Western Europe from a memory of wartime Nazi atrocities that marginalized or completely ignored the unique tragedy of the Jewish experience of the war in favor of a discourse emphasizing the hardships of deported laborers and atrocities in retaliation for resistance activities. Lagrou tries to explore this reversal by asking whether or not anti-Semitism continued in the aftermath of war and whether this is enough to explain the lack of attention to the holocaust and the Jewish wartime experience.

While I won’t retrace his arguments, he has a fascinating passage showing how an awareness of the genocide was not “at all incompatible with a continuing, traditional, anti-Semitic discourse. He finds the following passage in a 1945 book by a Dutch author, Leo Hendrickx in liberated Belgium:

“Even if we accept that the power and influence of Jewry in our modern society are not imaginary, yes, if we even willingly admit that the righteous resistance and fair measures against numerous Jewish practices positively benefit Christian society, then it still remains no less true that no Christian of conviction can approve the phenomena that present themselves nowadays under the universal as well as meaningless name of anti-Semitism….The Jews were guilty of the murder of the Son of God, but Pontius Pilate was no less guilty when he nailed an innocent to the cross out of cowardice…Of course, the Jewish problem is a burning question, but those who wish its solution from the perspective of hatred and often of angry envy have rejected Christian love and with it their Christianity…Christian love requires a different struggle, a different anti-Semitism. The mass murder of the Jewish people is the clearest proof that national-socialism is not anti-Semitic, but anti-Christian. Of course the Christian world will have to fight its war against Jewish hegemony, but in a struggle according to its own principles and not according to the whispering of some evil spirit…The freedom we yearn for must not lead to licentiousness and anarchism, because they are the trump card through which the liberal-Jewish hegemony can establish itself.” Gekneveld en Bevrijd (Maaseik, 1945) pp. 140-1 (in Lagrou p257) My italics.

Common People

While struggling character by character through a particular difficult assignment for Chinese docs class today in Cafe Gata Rojo this afternoon, I got suddenly and completely carried away by a fascination with a song playing in the cafe called Common People (iTunes link), originally by the group Pulp. In this case, it was performed by the bizarre but unusually effective combo of William Shatner’s spoken voice (Yes, that William Shatner) and Joe Jackson singing. Nothing terribly original or deep in its contents, but I guess I was in a thoughtful mood today. The song is about a extremely wealthy woman who “loves learning” and says

“I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you.”

The song tells of her failed attempt to truly experience life as a “common person” partly because she can never experience the mental state that accompanies a life severely limited in opportunities by financial and other restraints.

But still you’ll never get it right,
‘cuz when you’re layin’ in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.

Her desire to bridge the unbridgeable is not appreciated by the “common people” either,

‘cuz everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks
It’s all such a laugh
And the chip stains’ grease
Will come out in the bath
You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why

I especially love that first line, “‘cuz everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh.” Isn’t this something all of us who have been “tourists” of other cultures and communities either as students, anthropologists, or as scholars, are guilty of at some time or other? When we stand on the outside, feeling so detached, but unknowingly tied to something we think we have left behind, we can find so much we see to be silly or comical.

While I was prompted to think about cross-cultural experiences, the same goes for the cross-class element emphasized by the song and the deep contradictions of the politically active intellectual. I’m reminded of the Japanese intellectual historian Victor Koschmann’s summary of Sartre’s take on the intellectual’s inevitable contraction of Hegel’s “unhappy consciousness,” which he says is ultimately a “perpetual inner conflict between what the intellectual is—a petit bourgeois—and what he or she aspires to, which is truth and human emancipation.” (see his essay “Intellectuals and Politics” in Postwar Japan as History for more on this)

Nationalist Sites of the Day

It was a toss up so I am going to post both.

First we have www.Kokueki.com (National Interest). Sayaka pointed this very interesting site to me. You can get all your Japanese nationalist news here, but don’t worry, the site’s mission is to “transcend ideology” in order to concentrate their focus on Japan’s national interest 「イデオロギーを超えて純粋に国益を論じる場」. Everything they write is for the Japanese nation 「すべては日本国のために」. Notice the flags at the top right, which include the Taiwan nationalist flag and the Tibetan flag. Supporting these two nationalist independence movements shows one of the interesting alliances between, for example, Taiwan’s ruling pro-independence nationalists (as opposed to the until recently Chinese nationalist KMT) and the Japanese right-wing. The Taiwanese nationalists save a fairly warm place for Japan in their historical narrative of Taiwan’s colonial history. While they don’t usually reject all the negative aspects of colonial rule, this period is a key transition point for them during which “Taiwanese” identity becomes unique through its long exposure to Japanese culture. This is followed by the cruel and barbaric invasion by the Chinese nationalists at the close of the war when the, “dogs went home and the pigs arrived.” Japanese nationalists naturally find a unique connection with this constituency who occasionally have pleasant words to say about their “civilizing” influence on the island.

Don’t miss out their newspaper review section (click on the 国益のリンク集 link to left). There you get all the newspapers described, and there are no surprises. ◎ “There is no newspaper which considers national interest more than Sankei” 「これ以上の国益新聞はない」. Yomiuri is listed as most read and it gets a △. ×Asahi and ×Mainichi are the evil newspapers that are not recommended. The former we are told, regrettably rejects Japan in its discussions of history-related issues and is totally irresponsible. It used to be the most militarist before the war. What happened to it?! 「歴史認識においては、日本を否定する言動ばかりが目立ち残念である。過去の教科書誤報問題では、国益を著しく損ねた。しかしながら、訂正をいまだしておらず無責任である。　戦前は、最も軍国主義的な論調が目立っていた。いかに変化したか？」. Mainichi is somewhat better, especially their education section, but like Asahi they fall short with respect to the history question. 「歴史認識においては、朝日同様に日本を否定する言動ばかりが目立ち残念である。教育に関する記事は、充実している。」

Runner-up is the Korean Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities or Minjok.or.kr. If I read it correctly, the Korean title is actually something like, “the institute for research on national problems” These trouble makers are, of course, anyone or anything which collaborated with the Japanese during the colonial era. You may have heard mention of this institute in various news reports lately and I think they are actually getting some funding from the Korean government for their efforts.

As soon as I can read Korean well enough, I will be sure to read all I can on this site, and perhaps pay them a visit since my own field of research is related to traitors and treason in modern East Asia. You can find out information on this site about the 친일인명사전 or “A Biographical Dictionary of Traitors” (or “pro-Japanese” elements). They also have an archive section, and other information…lots for me to look through some day.

Japanese Bakery

One of the many fun things about Japan is that a very large number of bakeries in Japan claim to be “Scandinavian” bakeries (occasionally, they claim to be French). The puzzled Scandinavian visitor who enters them will, of course, find nothing (except perhaps a long loaf of fresh Parisian bread) which is remotely recognizable to them, or, when they are, will be shocked to find out what lurks within the walls of a delicious-looking pastry.

It was thus amusing to me to find a small Chinese-run “Japanese bakery” here in Cambridge, MA (in Porter Square). With the exception of a few unfamiliar items, however, it did, in fact, sell authentically “Japanese Scandinavian” bakery products.

T’aengniji, A Classic of Korean Geography and Geomancy

Continuing my study of pre-modern Korean history for class, today I read through the English translation of a classic work on Korean geography and geomancy called 擇里誌 (택리지), written by Yi Chung-Hwan 이중환(李重煥) in the mid-18th century. A partial English translation is available as Yi Chung-Hwan, Inshil Choe Yoon trans. T’aengniji: The Korean Classic for Choosing Settlements (Syndney: Wild Peony Pty Ltd, 1998)

The book was written to help yangban elites choose their residences in accordance with the natural laws of geomancy but it remains popular today, presumably for its extensive content on all aspects of Korea’s geography and its often entertaining historical anecdotes. There are sections dedicated to the eight major provinces, describing them in detail and criticizing them for their perceived weaknesses. I think it is safe to say that the book is overall thoroughly pro-Gyeongsang (except for the coast, for reasons I will discuss below) which it claims has the best geomantic qualities.

In addition to describing each province individually, it also discusses the character of the peoples who live there, the development of factionalism in the Chosŏn dynasty and the variety of terrain and scenery in Korea. In this little gem of a book, we can get a window into the growingly fixed perceptions of regional difference domestically, but also some interesting comments on the dynasty’s relationship to China (中國) and Japan (倭). Below are just a few interesting lines that I found particularly memorable. In some places, I looked up the original classical Chinese (which is the writing system used by Korean male elites for most things in pre-modern Korea) to find out what terms they were using.
Continue reading T’aengniji, A Classic of Korean Geography and Geomancy

Yomiuri and Asahi Editorials

Sayaka has some good commentary about some of the editorials in Yomiuri. Here are a few lines from recent editorials from Yomiuri and Asahi to give you a sense of their flavor. I have just skimmed them all so if I missed any important statements in them, feel free to email me.

I am not doing full translations of this so it is better to read the Japanese if you can, but for everyone’s benefit I quickly made some half-translations that often change the original wording and skips some material:

April 14th

日本の動きを牽制（けんせい）するための政治カードとして、歴史問題と反日デモを利用していることは明らかだ。…これは明白な国際法違反だ。「外交関係に関するウィーン条約」２２条では、侵入や損壊からの大使館の保護、大使館の「安寧の妨害」や「威厳の侵害」の防止に、その国は「適切なすべての措置を執る特別の責務」を負う。

English Summary (not full translation): It is clear that the Chinese are using the history problem and protests as a “history card” to constrain Japan… [the attack on the consulate] is a violation of international law.

April 17th

中国政府は「デモは、歴史問題での日本の誤った態度に不満を持つ市民の自発的な行動だ。責任は中国側にない」との主張を繰り返している。こうした無責任な態度が、デモの暴徒化を助長している。…江沢民前政権以降、中国政府は徹底した愛国「反日」教育を行ってきた。いわば自業自得ではないか。町村外相は１７日に訪中し、日中外相会談を行う。外相は、謝罪と補償を改めて迫るだけでなく、反日感情の政治利用ともとれる中国政府の姿勢を直接ただし、是正を求めるべきだ。

Summary: The Chinese claim the protests are a spontaneous reaction to Japan’s attitude to the history question and isn’t their fault. This is an irresponsible attitude and only contributing to the protests. China has supported nationalist policies in China since Jiang Zemin’s regime. Isn’t this a case of “you reap what you sow?” Not only should Japan ask for and apology and compensation but we should confront China about its political use of anti-Japanese sentiment.

April 18th

李肇星外相から、謝罪はなく、「歴史問題が中国人民の感情を傷つけている」と、事実上、デモを容認した。…　「歴史」認識の問題について、中国側は小泉首相の靖国神社参拝、歴史教科書などを問題視した。だが、いずれも、日本の内政問題である。…日本の歴史教科書は、中国のような国定教科書ではない。一党独裁の全体主義国家のように、歴史観、思想・信条の統一や、検閲はできない。…考えるべきは、歴史的事実としては疑問のある内容も多い「反日」愛国教育の問題ではないか。

Summary: The Chinese haven’t apologized but have essentially consented to the protests. They complain about Yasukuni and the textbook incident but in both cases this is a domestic issue. Japan’s textbooks are not government issued textbooks like China’s. We can’t censor them in the way a totalitarian dictatorship does. Shouldn’t we be focusing our attention on the anti-Japanese nationalist education in China with its historically dubious content?

Compare them to some selections from the Asahi (on average longer) editorials related to the protests:

April 12th

アジア、とりわけ中国との関係は、日本の外交にとって最重要の柱のひとつとなってきた。侵略戦争の過去をどう清算するかというだけではない。体制の違いを超えて隣の大国と安定した関係を築くことは、将来の日本の安全と繁栄のために欠かせないという判断があったからにほかならない。…９０年代に強調された愛国教育が、若者たちの心に反日意識を植えつけた面も否めない。そうした点は、中国にも十分考えてもらわなければならない。わけても暴力の取り締まりについて、中国に強く注文をつけるのは当然である。　しかし、日本政府はそうした中国の問題点を見据えたうえで、効果的な外交をしてきただろうか。残念ながら逆だったと言わざるを得ない。その根底にあるのが小泉首相の靖国神社参拝だ。首相は「戦没者に追悼の誠をささげ、不戦を誓う」と説明する。だが、中国侵略の責めを負うＡ級戦犯を合祀（ごうし）した靖国神社である。参拝をやめてほしい、という中国側のたび重なる要請を聞き入れず、なお参拝に意欲を見せるという姿勢が、どれほど中国の人々の気持ちを逆なでし、「過去を反省しない日本」という印象を広げてきたか。…首相はことあるごとに「世界の中の日米同盟」を強調する。だが、アジアでの足元が定まらないままでは、結局、米国の力にすがるだけの国になってしまいかねない。

Summary: Japan’s foreign relations with China and Asia are very important. It isn’t just about dealing with the aggressive war of the past. Creating a stable relationship with our strong neighbors is important to the stability and prosperity of Japan. We can’t deny that the nationalistic education has increased the anti-Japanese sentiment amongst the young and we need to get China to realize this. Of course we need to complain to the Chinese about the violence but has the Japanese government really done effective diplomacy for dealing with this? No, on the contrary, we have things like Koizumi’s trips to Yasukuni. It is the same Yasukuni which has A-Level war criminal enshrined in it and we continually ignore the wishes of China and thus spread the idea that we are a Japan which doesn’t regret its past. The prime minister has emphasizeded a “US-Japan alliance situated in [the global environment] but as long as we don’t take care of our relations with Asia, we are ultimately forced to be a nation that clings to America.

April 13th

中国の報道　事実を伝えてほしい …われわれはデモの激しさに驚き、投石を制止しなかった当局の姿勢に怒りを感じている。日本政府の抗議に対し、非を認めようとしない中国外務省の態度には失望している。　同時に日本のメディアは、なぜこんなことが起きたのかをさまざまに分析し、歴史問題に対する真剣な対応を小泉首相に求めたりもしている。　ところが、当局によって報道が統制される中国の多くの人々には、それも知らされない。知っているのは、事件の直前まで中国のメディアが繰り返し報じた大量の日本批判だけではないか。…愛国教育などによって、多くの中国人は侵略当時の日本軍の写真や映像を繰り返し見ている。その半面、武力による紛争解決を禁じた憲法を持ち、核兵器は持たず、戦争に加わることのなかった日本の戦後史はほとんど知らされていない。靖国神社や一部の歴史教科書の問題ばかりが強調される現代日本への認識には、相当な偏りがあるのではないか。…今回の事件とともに、日本社会の多様性をありのままに知ってほしい。このメッセージが中国の多くの人々に届くよう願うばかりだ。

Summary: We want the Chinese Media to tell the truth. We are surprised at the aggresive nature of the protests and the rock throwing….the Japanese media has analyzed its causes and urged Koizumi to address the history problem. However, most of the Chinese people are simply unaware of our efforts. All they hear is the Chinese media’s repeated criticism of Japan…Because of their nationalist education most Chinese know see plenty of pictures of the Japanese military from the period of the war of aggression. And yet, they know nothing of the Japan in the postwar period which has adopted a peace constitution, abandoned violence, and which has no nuclear weapons. Isn’t it true that China’s perception of Japan is overly biased towards consideration of the Yasukuni and history textbooks issue? We want China to give its people the message that Japan is in fact a very diverse society.

April 16th

日中会談　まず投石事件に決着を…厳しいやりとりは避けられそうにないが、まず中国側が投石事件への責任を明確に認めることが会談を進める前提になる。一国の大使館が夕刻から深夜まで被害にさらされていながら、警官隊は制止しなかった。それにもかかわらず、中国外務省が「責任は中国側にない」としていることに日本国民は憤っている。…日中間において歴史問題が重要であることは私たちも訴えてきた。だが、たとえ反日デモの背景に歴史問題があったとしても、大使館が被害にあうのを黙認した責任は免れない。

Summary: We must engage in negotiations on the premise that China takes responsibility for the rock throwing incident….The police did not stop them. Not only that but the Chinese government claims they have no responsibility to take in this issue and have further angered the Japanese people. We have also admitted that the history problem is important for the Japanese to consider but even if that is the cause of the protests, they must accept responsibility for the damage to the consulate.

April 18th (This link will not be right after tomorrow)

　日中会談　「愛国無罪」の危うさ…中国側は、反日デモが度重なる破壊行為に及び、日本人のけが人さえ出ていることを軽く考えすぎていないか。…一連のデモで、参加者たちは「愛国無罪」と叫んでいる。愛国主義の行動に罪はない、という意味だ。そう叫べば、政府が手を緩めることをデモ参加者たちは知っている。共産党や政府自身が「愛国」を宣伝してきたからだ。

Summary: The danger of “Patriotism is Innocent”…Hasn’t the Chinese side taken the damage and injury to the Japanese too lightly? The protesters all yell that “Patriotism is innocent” Actions taken in the name of the nation are not crimes. The protesters know that if the cry this out the government will loosen its grip. This is because the Communist party and the government have themselves made the cry for “Patriotism”

It is obvious to see Asahi’s efforts to maintain a balance and some sympathy with China’s calls for Japan to confront its history better. But I also detect and increasing frustration in their editorials and articles as they turn their focus increasingly to the China side.

The Textbook Feedback Loop and Masochistic History

A number of people have noticed (see for example the translation in an article over at EastSouthWestNorth) that the new edition of the controversial textbook is not the biggest concern. Other textbooks approved this year may be dropping some of their coverage of wartime atrocities. As countless commentators have pointed out (but few news articles do), the controversial “new” textbook’s first edition was adopted by almost no one. And yet, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies in bookstores all over Japan.
Continue reading The Textbook Feedback Loop and Masochistic History