Ah, the humans right issue. We did that in a European history class about 2 years back, and the criticism levelled against the Turkey's so-called poor human rights record was that it was measured against USA's - a completely different culture's. The definition of human right itself isn't as clear cut as it seems - every nation will have its own idea of what constitutes human rights. However, the East-West divide in the perception of human rights had been one of the main crux of the argument in China's case, if I'm not wrong. What may seem barbaric in one country may be common fare in another country because it has always been culturally and historically so. Forced marriages and such issues may be slightly more clear cut in today's world with globalisation, but what about questions like severity of the justice system? That is one area of human rights that has always been debated upon.

An example I can give you is the infamous Michael Fay incident in Singapore. This American teenager vandalised several vehicles and as a result was not only imprisoned but also caned. According to the Americans, it constituted a case of human rights violation. But in the case of Singapore law, caning for such a crime was the norm rather than the exception. You can read more about the incident here:
http://www.corpun.com/awfay9405.htm

But here we have a case of Japan NOT wanting to admit to its own history. We've seen concrete examples and actions following German apology, but more than half a century later Japan is still not willing to admit its part in the Pacific War. It actually makes me quite keen to get my hands on this problematic textbook to read to find out exactly how does one gloss over a war which oneself had perpetuated. Though, my standard of Japanese is just... not there XD;;

I can see where the problem lies in Japan admitting to their mistake, though. Imagine if they do agree to for example compensate the comfort women. The numbers you see in many sources are actually grossly underestimated. It has been suggested that the number of women forced into prostitution during the Japanese Occupation could well number over 500,000 in China alone (official Japanese statistics put it in the range of several tens of thousands only). So imagine if they have to start compensating. It'd be highly amusing if the Japanese started offering compensation a century after the war - most of those who can claim for damages would no longer be around to do that. I hope they aren't planning to do just this.

Gotta love the way we all centre our practices and policies around USA's just because they are the most... powerful(?) country in the world, huh? XD;; Our university system is under fire because while we follow the USA CAP system for grading, there is a very strict bell curve and quota system that is supposedly the Singapore meritocratic system. So what you have are students who are being forced into Bs or Cs just because there isn't enough As to go around whereas in USA you can have a whole class of As and no one will slap you on the wrists for it. The adoptation of one grading system alone can already create so much mess, let alone the US definition of human rights. I personally don't think it's possible for one universal standard of human rights to be agreed upon by all in the near future. I suppose one reason why the USA system is followed is once again due to its political power in the world arena. Imagine if say China were the supreme power instead - you can bet human standards will be gauged according to the China standards.

There was an earlier version of this textbook in Japan as well, and apparently China did have some protests, but on a smaller scale. It was partially helped by the fact that most Japanese schools opted not to use it. I'm not sure what are the adoption guidelines for this new textbook, though.

I just finished a Japanese film module and took the exam yesterday, and we covered the Pacific War XD;; We studied it mainly from the civilian perspective, and what I know of the situation is that the Japanese government forbade the media from passing on any bad news, so all you get are news of victory, sometimes even exaggerated ones to make the people feel good. It was said that because of this, a lot of anti-war Japanese even started to get excited about the prospects of the Pacific War because they looked as if they were just going to swallow the whole of SE Asia without any significant losses. It's mostly due to the media, as well as the strong appeal towards Japanese pride and honour - "serve your Emperor and die for him", that led the Japanese civilians to 'support' the war by not creating any public outcry against it. Again, nothing of significant proportions from the Japanese civilian side took place until 2 years into the war when the amount of Japanese military casualities started to mount. But the real awakening was during the 2 A-bombs. Basically, the Japanese civilian were grossly misled by the media, so to be honest you can't say that they willing encourage the war - they encouraged it under the mistaken conception of victory.

Asians - we tend not to want to 'lose face' by admitting to our mistakes ^^; So I don't expect any concrete recovery actions to be taken by the Japanese government, whether in the form of compensation for the victims or a more honest writing of their own history, to take place any time soon. I just feel bad for those who suffered as well as their family - they have to live with the fact that their suffering didn't exist because the Japanese statistics won't acknowledge their numbers.

Unfortunately, because the grading is so generous in USA, they have a very demand for their postgrad studies as a result. Me, I'm having trouble trying to get into a decent university in the states just because my grades don't look so hot ^^; So their grading system has an impact on those outside of their influence whether we like it or not XD;;

I found an interesting article (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_1999_Summer/ai_55127415) here that you might like to check out. It's about the whole definition of human rights thing - Singapore is among the countries that said that a singluar definition of human rights fails to take into consideration cultural context of each country.

Back on the China = supreme power example, I'd say that probably the human rights issue, if aligned according to their system, may have certain elements that perhaps Westerners might oppose to. I think a lot of people will agree that all humans need to be treated humanely (equally is more subjective), but human rights also include your rights to those which extend outside of your physical body such as rights to property ownership. Cases of property seizure are a grey area from what I know in China, so that's one concern that one might have if we had based the human rights standards upon them. Sure, respect human lives is agreed upon, but what about your other rights that extend beyond yourself? That's where the definition of human rights becomes a huge mess.

I cannot seem to locate a UN source, but here I think I've a webpage (http://www.thinkcentre.org/article.cfm?ArticleID=2486) that says that Singapore does have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined within its Constitution.

naanima is going to hate us for this XD;;

It's interesting that a lot of what is depicted as The Standard is mostly based on Western standards. Perhaps that is why a lot of criticism is levelled against universal standards of any sort as being Americanised. Again, I believe to be a case of America being viewed as The World Power.

Ultimately, you'll probably notice that a lot of these so-called universal standards for human rights, animal rights, etc are all nothing but ideals - to each country it's own way of enforcing it. I like what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands for as well, but since it tends to be rather broad in its statements (e.g. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."), it leaves a lot of ground for people to interpret around.

Ideally... uhh, I'm sure that by viewing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, China would want to treat most peope humanely. The thought of China with supreme power scares me.

Carry on.