The whole China-Japan situation makes me angry and very close to hating people. It isn't pretty, it isn't nice, and it is too damn complicated for people to throw mud in any direction. But I am Chinese, and I'd be lying if I said the whole situation isn't getting to me. It is all nice to say that you can't live in the past, that you have to move on, but you can't do either when the past is
not even acknowledged. So, stop making damn judgements about China when you don't have relatives who still remember the Japanese occupation. Don't make damn snipe comments about the past actions of the Chinese government when, at the present time, it is the Chinese people who are angry. And for damn sake don't compare the China-Japan situation to Germany and its treatment of the Holocaust. Japan have
not acknowledged the actions of its own army during WW2. Several generations of Japanese does not know their own history because their government decided to delete a section of their history. There are people in China, in Korea, in Thailand, hell, in most of the South East Asian countries who does remember. So, please, don't make a damn judgement when all you know is that 'Japan did some bad things to other Asians during WW2.'
I'm so sick of the people who don't know anything, who have no personal investment, being all high and mighty. Forgiveness does not come from you. So, back off.
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chasethestars
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Sorry for taking a tangent like this: I may be totally out of order, as I've never taken any class in European history--all my info's from the internet. Yes, I know about the Michael Fay incident.
From what reports I've read, it seems that the textbook isn't popular in Japan either, and probably won't be used in most schools, while most schools try at least to teach a little about Japan's actions in the last century. So it's not like the entire Japan population has its head in the sand. I think it isn't that Japan doesn't admit to her history (except for certain extremists--but then there are also people who deny the Holocaust took place). But I do think they balk at having to do the humble apology(you can't just say sorry, you have to MEAN it!) when it seems to them the world doesn't sympathise with them for being A-bombed, and from what I hear, a lot of the ordinary people in Japan didn't exactly agree with what the Japanese imperial army was doing in China and SEA at the time. So those ordinary people are probably thinking, "It's not our fault!" Then there's also the understandable reluctance to admit that their own people could have done such horrible things (one of the biggest flashpoints is *exactly* how many people died at Nanjing). Add this to the Japanese right-wingers who still feel that they had done nothing that terrible, and you get a nation who continue to be surprised, then annoyed at China's hostility. There's denial, sure, but it can't be easy to deal with the sins of your elders, either. They probably don't appreciate what seems like interference in their internal affairs, too: "we'll visit whatever shrine we want, and whatever we want to teach our children is our own business!"
(Hm. Now I sound like a Japanese apologist...)
Add the rising economic power of China, Japan's own sluggish economy, insecurity, national pride, and you get... people acting stupid.
Regarding comfort women, I do hope it's not some weird financial strategy to wait till the claimants are dead before you start admitting that you want to pay compensation. 'cos as you said, there are just so many of them; how will the claims ever get sorted out? Meanwhile, Japan continues to hold off the claimants by saying, "hey, we compensated your government!"
Japanese. Can't live with them, can't get my manga without them.
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.
Ooh, the great Grade Devaluation Debate! I thought I heard that the top universities in USA are under pressure to give their students As just because an Ivy League degree is so expensive, and that there's grade reform to give fewer As ("only to those that deserve it")? There were protests about the latter, which just goes to prove that college students in USA are no better or worse than the rest.
Sorry for bringing up something this irrelevant, the topic just amuses me hugely.
Imagine if say China were the supreme power instead - you can bet human standards will be gauged according to the China standards
That's a bit scary to think about. But I believe that even the Communist Party might sort of agree that ideally, people should be treated humanely, shouldn't be tortured, or sentenced without a trial (never mind if their own record might contradict this), which is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is about. And China was one of the 8 countries with a representative on the drafting committee for the document.
But we're drifting from the Sino-Jap tensions thing.
My view is that they are acting stupid, and need IQ + EQ injections.
It's been good talking to you.
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.
* very high grade demand
Interesting article. It seems to me that a lot of the objections to the declaration is based on the fact that it purports to be 'universal', by which some people read as "American" or "Western" and balk. I think it's true that there must be certain aspects of culture that the Declaration did not address, but my main impression is the objections have a strong political angle. Besides, I look at some of the countries (other than Singapore?) that DON'T ratify the declaration, and I think, do I really want to be associated with them in anyway (like North Korea)? *g* You're known by the company you keep, and all that.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so I get a bit emotional.
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.
Carry on.
But I'm pretty sure that ideally speaking, the politicians in charge would want to treat everyone humanely... if only because who knows when someone they know might end up on the other side of the prison bars?