Should the Chinese forgive the Japanese?

[sreeny]

Have you even read the TextBooks they use in schools within Germany???

Then judge if the way the Japanese write their textbooks are fair or not. You can even check the textbooks in China and any other country with a history like Germany 1942 or Japan, every country downgrades certain aspects of their history.

So why are we only concentrating on Japan.

Well, I live in Germany and I read our history books. It's written in how cruel Hitler was and what the nazis did and that they murdered lots of innocent jewish and our history teacher tells us we musn't forget this part of the history so that it can't happen again.

[MysteriouX]

Well, I live in Germany and I read our history books. It's written in how cruel Hitler was and what the nazis did and that they murdered lots of innocent jewish and our history teacher tells us we musn't forget this part of the history so that it can't happen again.

Actually it wasn't like this up to a few years ago. Several schools in Germany used textbooks that didn't mention the horrifying events of WWII at all or mentioned them only briefly.

[MysteriouX]

To many of you here, these things are just a documentary or history book.

For me many of the stuff that happened were a part of my life.

I was a child living with my parents who were posted in New Delhi, India as diplomats when Indira Ghandi was assassinated by her own bodyguards.

I was living in New York when the Berlin Wall fell and I saw it on the news live. I saw the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and President Bush's declaration of War and the comencement of Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. I saw it on the news live when the Tiananmen Square massacre occured. In 93 when my parents were required to fly to Asia, we were told to take the western route passed Japan instead of going east and flying over middle eastern airspace.

I have walked the floors of the World Trade Center twin towers and even now I remember seeing those executives walking the halls, taking the elevators, I remember the marble tiles that covered the floors and the glass windows and doors which looked out to the yachts and speed boats docked in the pier near the towers. I lived only a 10 min bus ride from those two buildings. When they fell in 2001 I was living somewhere else and didn't believe it when my friends told me, only to find out it was true that very afternoon when I got home.

Many of the people who post here are under 18 years of age or were born and raised in countries far from these events and to them these events happened when they were only infants or before they were born, while those over 18, like myself, Lived through these events.

To you, these events are just something you've read in a textbook or newspaper article or saw in a documentary, but to those who lives were a part of it, we know what it was like living during the Cold War period. As diplomats, my parents were required to travel around in very dangerous environments during that era, I was born in the last decade of the Cold War, not the closing years.

During the cold war, my parents used to describe how both the US and Russia had hundreds of ICBMs aimed at each other and the only thing that prevented an all out war was the threat of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction).

(Do you know that a 10 Megaton Thermo-Nuclear Bomb (Megaton: 1 million tons of TNT explosive power) is considered a doomsday level weapon by many scientists and governments. The bombs dropped on Japan during WWII each had only a 10 Kiloton explosive power. And the US and Russians have thousands of weapons ranging from a low yield 10 kiloton to a hundred megaton nuclear device.)

To these events I didn't have to look into history books or search for documentaries, I lived through them.

So That is why I strongly believe that we should follow a Live and Let Live policy and work to unite the world instead of dividing it by settling old scores.

[MysteriouX]

For any nation, its diplomats are that nation's FIRST and in many situations the LAST line of defense. If we fail, the consequences of our failure can lead to WAR and the death of many thousands of our citizens.

And the life of a diplomat is more dangerous then the life of a soldier. Because we have to live in that country unarmed (meaning not as well armed as a soldier), and our diplomatic immunity and privilages are upheld only as long as that nation's current government recognizes it. If something happens, our primary means of retreat is to get on a flight (if the airports in that country are not closed) and hope we reach safety before the bloodbath begins.

For a soldier, he or she is trained, has weapons, has comrades, has tanks and fighters and destroyers to support them. Diplomats have no such support to call on hand, we have to wait for the soldiers to arrive.

During the cold war, a diplomat of any nation, posted in any Eastern Block and Soviet alliance state, we lived in constant danger and vigilance. And not just in Europe, also in many parts of Africa and Asia and other regions up to this very day, the life of a diplomat has many dangers.

And our life is made especially more dangerous because when we conduct meetings and negotiations with that country's representatives, we have to carefully ensure that our actions or behavior (which would be normal or acceptable in our own country) do not offend them.

During the time around the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a representative from the US had a meeting with Saddam Hussein, but just as soon as Hussein walked into the meeting room he walked out because the posture and way that US diplomat was sitting was in a manner which was considered insulting/rude in Islamic culture. And we always need to be aware is what comes out of our mouths during those meetings represent what we want them to think of our country. In diplomacy ever little careless gesture and slip of the tongue can lead to extreme consequences.

If for any reason a leader of that nation suddenly decided to order his guards to kill us, there is no immediate protection for us. Even if we had the military power to punish that crime, that will happen only after we are already dead.

[MysteriouX]

During WWII, both Germany and Japan was confident that they would win the war.

They were confident to the point that in the Pacific front, Japanese commanders were running unrealistic war game simulations aboard their ships comming up with tactics which were over confident and underestimating the Americans.

Looking at their military archives from that era, there is even one example of where during a war game aboard one of their carriers, they estimated that they would lose a few of their capital ships during a certain engagement with US forces, but then later the commanders ruled out that none of their ships would be lost.

On European conflict, Hitler was so confident of himself that he launched his war over 3 fronts (France, Russia and Italy/Africa). In Africa he had one of his best field commanders Erwin Rommel, who was later allegedly involved in a plot to overthrow Hitler and was forced to commit suicide. During the last days of the war, Hitler became a maniac and refused all advice from his commanders and strongly believed only his plans would succeed.

Both Germany and Japan never counted on America getting involved in the war. And to prevent American involvement, Japan attempted to launch a pre-emptive attack on the US pacific fleet, and once again here they miscalculated a little but also the US themselves were confident they would be safe that they ignored warnings.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was planned by the Japanese so that when they launched their attacks, the US government would have recieved a declaration of war just several minutes earlier, however because the US were confident of their safety, they relaxed a little and the telegram of war arrived only after the attack on Pearl Harbor began. Luckily for the US, their carrier fleet was not in Pearl Harbor at the time, only their Pacific Battleships. Therefore Japan had launched an undeclared war upon the US.

Another part during WWII was Hitler and Japan had originally planned to attack Russia; Hitler from the west, Japan from the east.

During WWII and WWI, nations who strongly believed they would win, especially facist nations, committed many acts upon their prisoners.

[LuNaR]

well thanks for summarizing a chapter in my history book...but anyways im sure my aprent would kno more than u and i personally asked them how it was like. btw i dislike germany the same as japan, but this topic is only about japan so yea...

[MysteriouX]

well thanks for summarizing a chapter in my history book...but anyways im sure my aprent would kno more than u and i personally asked them how it was like. btw i dislike germany the same as japan, but this topic is only about japan so yea...

Learning something and experiencing something are two very different things, they give two very different perspectives.

Thats why I don't think we have the right to judge what those governments did in the past, especially as many of them learned their mistakes and changed.

And I truely doubt if your parents ever had access to military archives and historical databases.

[LuNaR]

Learning something and experiencing something are two very different things, they give two very different perspectives.

Thats why I don't think we have the right to judge what those governments did in the past, especially as many of them learned their mistakes and changed.

And I truely doubt if your parents ever had access to military archives and historical databases.

ok i understand wat ur saying. and a quick question... are u japanese?

[sreeny]

It's crazy how many vote for "Yes. What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." If somebody murders another one. And he isn't punished and he even refuses to tell the truth, although more then 10 ppl saw it. But he just don't want to apologize. Thousands of ppl are shocked. And the familiy of the victim hates him. But after a year many say: "What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." After five years the familiy says: "What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." The murderer is satisfied: He didn't have to pay anything, next time he could do it like this again. Because with the time everything can be forgotten...

[Moinllieon]

It's crazy how many vote for "Yes. What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." If somebody murders another one. And he isn't punished and he even refuses to tell the truth, although more then 10 ppl saw it. But he just don't want to apologize. Thousands of ppl are shocked. And the familiy of the victim hates him. But after a year many say: "What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." After five years the familiy says: "What's past is past, we should forget and move on..." The murderer is satisfied: He didn't have to pay anything, next time he could do it like this again. Because with the time everything can be forgotten...

Good point, except it doesn't make any sense. It's full of bad analogies. Ya know, first of all, Japan was punished and had to "pay". Japan lost a much larger percentage of its population than China during WW2.

I think ALOT of this comes from petty jealousy. Japan, despite being completely devastated during WWII, recovered much better than China and is now, much richer and influential than China is. Even though China won and Japan lost.

And we've covered this before, but how exactly is Japan going to "do it again"? How exactly is Japan going to militarily conquer large parts of Korea and/or China again?

[JamesG]

The China /Japan thing goes back to the late 19th Century when China lost a war and had to hand over Taiwan [Formosa] to Japan. WW II came along and the Chinese leaders Mao and Chung were more interested in keeping an eye on each other rather than fighting the Japanese invaders. Had they joined forces against a common enemy they might have made China too hot to handle for Japan.

[RainingBakas]

Me and my friend had this conversation the other day. She watched that HK series....ummm called "luan shi jia ren" 亂世佳人 <--- that I think.......dammit its making my friends hate Japanese people!!

What I mean is that......people should always forget about bad memories which you hope that never happened and move on. Nothing good comes out of war, revenge and hate. It's better to bury hate and accept, continuing hating only brings grief dontcha think? It's not like they did this again 100 yrs later....plus not ALL japanese people wanted to kill and are bad.....you should blame it on that hella sucky government of theirs..dammit greed starts everything!!

I defended for japanese people because I think that everyone changes overtime, people think differently and everyone deserves a chance to be forgiven. No one deserves to be treated in a racist way.
What matters is now, not before, what happened has happened you can change it by hating japanese people.

and my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave idol is japanese! w00t!!!!! GOGOGOG YAMAPI! YAMASH!TA TOMOHISA~~~~ GOGOGOGOGOO~~
*cough cough, that wasn't supposed to be in there*

[dbx]

Good point, except it doesn't make any sense. It's full of bad analogies. Ya know, first of all, Japan was punished and had to "pay". Japan lost a much larger percentage of its population than China during WW2.

I think ALOT of this comes from petty jealousy. Japan, despite being completely devastated during WWII, recovered much better than China and is now, much richer and influential than China is. Even though China won and Japan lost.

And we've covered this before, but how exactly is Japan going to "do it again"? How exactly is Japan going to militarily conquer large parts of Korea and/or China again?

What happened in WWII isn't really all that different then what happened in previous wars. The technology involved and population levels magnified the body count and devastation levels. This is actually something that Heidigger said and was criticized for, not withstanding his previous membership in the Nazi party. He happens to also be considered one of the greater philosophers of the 20th century. No judgement on Heidigger but I agree with this assessment. If you look at the conflicts post WWII, they have been just as brutal and savage as Nazi and Japanese aggression. People just don't give a shit about the folks that are dying now.

What happened post WWII is very different from Japan vs China. China immediately entered into a civil war that had been on and off since the fall of the Ching Dynasty. Japan had it's modern revolution in mid 1800's, althrough it had lost a major war, it did not lose its national identity or its bureaucratic infrastructure. China had to rebuild from the ground up. China also had to devote a signifigant amount of resources to its national defense. It sent troops to fight the Americans in North Korea, Japan was more or less prohibited from spending on defense.

Why do the Chinese hate the Japanese, well for my generation, when I was a kid growing up, I was taught every day to hate the Japanese from the people around me to the textbook I was reading to the television I was watching. Everyone hated the Japanese, it was the in thing. It had nothing to do with jealousy, especially when most of the folks around didn't know how well off most Japanese were. They wouldn't forgive the Japanese because they lost a relative or parent or grandparent in WWII and before. Chinese is not the only country that feels this way, the Koreans and many many other asian countries hate the Japanese just as much. And their war movies isn't so balanced, it's usually national patriots kill Japanese scum and every one cheers when they brutalize those sons of *****es. I bet you could probably setup a competition for who hates the Japanese more in Asia and get enough to make it a top rated TV show.

[Moinllieon]

Why do the Chinese hate the Japanese, well for my generation, when I was a kid growing up, I was taught every day to hate the Japanese from the people around me to the textbook I was reading to the television I was watching. Everyone hated the Japanese, it was the in thing. It had nothing to do with jealousy, especially when most of the folks around didn't know how well off most Japanese were. They wouldn't forgive the Japanese because they lost a relative or parent or grandparent in WWII and before. Chinese is not the only country that feels this way, the Koreans and many many other asian countries hate the Japanese just as much. And their war movies isn't so balanced, it's usually national patriots kill Japanese scum and every one cheers when they brutalize those sons of *****es. I bet you could probably setup a competition for who hates the Japanese more in Asia and get enough to make it a top rated TV show.

This part I understand, especially with people around my age group, growing up watching movies and tv series against those “日本鬼子”. However, what I don't get is this:
1) After I grew up and learned about history and gain a perspective on things, I got over those stupid, childish notions. Why can't these educated people do the same?

2) What about the current generation of youngsters? They did not have immediate relatives who died during WW2, nor did they grow up with those TV shows and movies. Where do their hate come from?

[LuNaR]

This part I understand, especially with people around my age group, growing up watching movies and tv series against those “日本鬼子”. However, what I don't get is this:
1) After I grew up and learned about history and gain a perspective on things, I got over those stupid, childish notions. Why can't these educated people do the same?

2) What about the current generation of youngsters? They did not have immediate relatives who died during WW2, nor did they grow up with those TV shows and movies. Where do their hate come from?

this is my answer

1)my perspective is japan is the invader, and japan wunt even say sorry, which is so easy?

2)my hate come from reading the book rape of nanjing + other stuff

[Sparky]

For myself, I wouldn't forget what they did...but I'm not going to take it out on anyone living in Japan today. Obviously I can't forget the war though, and if someone Japanese comes up to me and says something in favour of what they did, well, they spoke to the wrong person then.

Also, I don't really see what perspective there is to gain. The point is JAPAN invaded China. It's not like China went looking for trouble in Japan. If you are going to take over China, fine, but there's no need to murder and rape MILLIONS of innocent civilians, some of which probably care nothing about governmental affairs.

Finally, I really doubt the Chinese are jealous of the Japanese...if you spent your childhood running away from the Japanese, or lost a family member to the Japanese, then I don't think you care at all about Japan being more technologically advanced (which, I don't know, it might be, but China still has more potential to become a world power because of its size and population). While technically China won, they really sort of lost. They lost a lot. A lot of people. And those people who died could've meant the world to another person.

[dbx]

This part I understand, especially with people around my age group, growing up watching movies and tv series against those “日本鬼子”. However, what I don't get is this:
1) After I grew up and learned about history and gain a perspective on things, I got over those stupid, childish notions. Why can't these educated people do the same?

2) What about the current generation of youngsters? They did not have immediate relatives who died during WW2, nor did they grow up with those TV shows and movies. Where do their hate come from?

1. Hate is hardly a childish or stupid notion. It might be "irrational", emotional and politically incorrect, but I wouldn't consider someone hateful stupid or childish. As to why people hate, well, there are probably a few reasons. One would be that is that sometimes it feels good to hate, especially in a group where you can all find common ground, harmony and love in your united hatred of some group/action/belief. Hate is always a good political motivator, especially when the object of hatred is guilty of various "sins" past and present.

2. The future generation of youngesters might not be indoctrinated but there are still many avenues of grievence and influence that can cause the future generations to dislike/hate the japanese. It might not be as vehement as it was in the past, but the Chinese and Japanese have rarely gotten along in the entire history of these two cultures. It's kinda of older then the WWII thing, there is a lot of prestige, rivalry and competetion between the two nations and that will continue.

[Ken Cheng]

It might not be as vehement as it was in the past, but the Chinese and Japanese have rarely gotten along in the entire history of these two cultures. It's kinda of older then the WWII thing, there is a lot of prestige, rivalry and competetion between the two nations and that will continue.

Actually, until around the middle of the 19th Century, cultural contact of any kind between China and Japan was minimal. Japan didn't play much of a role in Chinese history until the Qing Dynasty. Up until then, the Chinese knew Japan was out there, but was so far away and so insular as to be considered almost irrelevant.

[dbx]

Actually, until around the middle of the 19th Century, cultural contact of any kind between China and Japan was minimal. Japan didn't play much of a role in Chinese history until the Qing Dynasty. Up until then, the Chinese knew Japan was out there, but was so far away and so insular as to be considered almost irrelevant.

I would disagree. Peasant travel did not really exist in any part of the world. Culture interchange was a luxury of the ruling class, monks and merchantile class. Certainly enough cultural contact existed between Japan and China for Japan to adopt a number of Chinese Characters and characteristics. Some of this cultural interchange probably went thru Korea.

I am not a historian of Chinese/Japanese interchange throughout history thus I can only bring a few things to mind concerning their contact with Chinese/Chinese related forces. 1. Kublai Khan's failed invasion of Japan, 2. Toyotomi's warfare in Korea with the eventual aim to take over Ming China. Althrough neither objective succeeded, they were conceived and acted upon.

If the prevaling knowledge of a far away culture was mystery and uncertainty, the course of actions likely resorted to is hostility and fear.

If you would like to argue that the fact that great cultural interchange will improve Chinese/Japanese relations in the future, I would agree that it will improve to a certain extent. Maybe even to the extent that British and French view each respective cultures, a mix of rivalry, out right hatred and respect.

[Moinllieon]

If the prevaling knowledge of a far away culture was mystery and uncertainty, the course of actions likely resorted to is hostility and fear.

If you would like to argue that the fact that great cultural interchange will improve Chinese/Japanese relations in the future, I would agree that it will improve to a certain extent. Maybe even to the extent that British and French view each respective cultures, a mix of rivalry, out right hatred and respect.

The Chinese/Japanese rivalry is nowhere close to the French/British views. At least, Britain hasn't asked France to apologize for Napoleon.