YUAN CHEN
TOKYO, Aug. 22
Japanese leaders' visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where war criminals are enshrined, are criticized by China on the grounds that the visits represent a militaristic attitude. The Yasukuni Shrine is a place for mourning the dead. It is a bit farfetched to say that visiting the shrine means the revival of militarism. Even if the name tablets of the Class A war criminals are removed from shrine, most of the tablets will remain and thousands of Japanese will continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine each year.
To decide whether or not militarism is reviving in Japan, we need to look beyond acts of mourning the dead. More importantly, we should evaluate the country's present military capabilities and war preparations.
Judging from its current situation, Japan doesn't look like a county ready for war. There is no such atmosphere in the country. There are few soldiers and few politicians with a military background. Moreover, Japan always insists on remaining nuclear free.
Japan has strong economic power, which enables it to have high-tech military capacity, but it is no longer a country that can initiate a battle alone. There are still U.S. troops stationed in the nation. At most Japan can only support the military actions of others; for example, it sent troops to support the United States in the Iraq War.
Japan invaded China, so it makes sense for China to worry that Japan might do it again sometime. It's good for China to be prepared for this. But it doesn't make sense for Chinese people to oppose the revival of Japanese militarism by opposing Japanese visits to the shrine. Visiting or not visiting the shrine will not determine the revival of militarism. It could be more dangerous if Japanese leaders decided to review the country's military power but refrained from visiting the shrine. It is not logical to oppose the shrine visits because one opposes the revival of militarism.
In addition, many Japanese people hold the view that dead people can be released from blame. They think that once criminals are punished, their cases are closed. The most we can do to a murderer is to kill him or her. The victim's family cannot do anything else even though they may still feel resentful toward the murderer. It is human nature for the murderer's family to set up a name tablet to mourn the murderer who was punished by death. As long as the murderer's family doesn't try to reverse the verdict, the victim's family should just let it go.
In the case of Japan, its Congress accepted the Potsdam Agreement in 1951, acknowledged the Tokyo Trial, and signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty. They haven't regretted accepting all those agreements.
Regarding the fact that a group of Japanese, including some politicians, had the tablets of the Class A war criminals secretly brought to the shrine (in 1978), we cannot explain this as an attempt to revive militarism. In fact, some Japanese people don't think that the war was completely wrong, and don't think that the Tokyo Trial was fair, but they still accepted the result of defeat.
Why can't we Chinese just learn from the Americans, who take this matter lightly? It is not worthwhile for China and Japan to keep up this diplomatic battle only for those few Class A war criminals, who are dead.
It is reasonable for international society to punish war criminals if they commit crimes against other countries. But the countrymen of the criminals should be able to decide themselves how they will treat the criminals. In Japan, there is no law banning the people from visiting the shrine. Every Japanese citizen, including the emperor, has the freedom to decide whether to visit the shrine or not. It is the decision of the Japanese government whether or not to make an official visit to the shrine. China and other countries cannot decide that for Japan.
After all, it is the Japanese people's own business to decide whether to visit the shrine or not. Actually, the Japanese people among themselves have different points of view too. For example, Showa Emperor Hirohito did not approve of putting the tablets of Class A war criminals in the shrine and refused to visit it afterward.
Once an outside country gets involved in the issue, it becomes a confrontation between race and race, and the matter of visiting the shrine becomes a test of patriotism. As a result, those Japanese who actually oppose such visits have to keep silent, which is a common situation today.
(To be continued)
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(Yuan Chen is the pen name of a Chinese scholar who has lived in Japan for 20 years. He is also a freelance writer on China's politics and current affaires. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.newcenturynews.com. ©Copyright Yuan Chen.)
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