Japan's soul-searching over its wartime crimes lags far behind Germany's
- By Cai Hong
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E-mail China Daily, August 24, 2015
Germany has taken painstaking efforts to achieve reconciliation with the countries Nazi army invaded.
But Japan's soul-searching over its wartime behavior lags far behind that of Germany.
While Abe may think that he has succeeded in achieving a closure for Japan's war past by using the words "aggression", "colonial rule", "deep remorse" and "apology" that people had urged him to say in his address marking the 70th anniversary of the World War II, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party he is leading is showing its true colors, putting Abe's sincerity in doubt.
Japanese cities' boards of education are busy deciding on the textbooks for local junior high schools for the next four years before the month ends. A group of LDP lawmakers close to Abe have asked the local legislators from the party to sway the boards in their assemblies. They are trying to have more textbooks with a conservative slant used in Japan's schools.
Yokohama and Osaka have picked the textbooks published by Ikuhosha Publishing House, which is affiliated to the conservative Japan Society for History Textbook Reform.
Ikuhosha's history textbooks differ from others in their version of Japan's modern history, stating that while Japan started the Pacific War to "secure natural resources in the southern region", the nation also aimed to "liberate Asia, which was under the colonial rule".
Japan's textbooks have drastically changed as a result of the Abe Cabinet's "reconstruction of education".
Abe needs to realize that it is not the way Germany has dealt with its war history if he takes Merkel as his role model. Japan should stop saying one thing but doing another.
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