It was pretty predictable all this was going to come up again after Shinzo Abe became the Prime Minister of Japan once again:
South Korea’s president-elect said on Friday that Japan needed to come to terms with its colonial history as tension between two Asian allies of the United States simmered over Japan’s rule of Korea and an island dispute.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a December 31 interview he wanted to issue a statement that would supersede a landmark 1995 apology for Japan’s military aggression, a move bound to raise hackles in South Korea, ruled by Japan from 1910-1945, and in China, where bitter wartime memories run deep.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, confirmed on Friday that Abe wanted to issue his own “forward-looking” statement but also told reporters the 1995 statement by then-premier Tomiichi Murayama would stand.
“The two sides must have a correct view of history and pursue a future of reconciliation and cooperation,” South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye told Abe’s aide, Fukushiro Nukaga, in Seoul, according to her spokeswoman, Cho Yoon-sun.
A “correct view of history” is shorthand for South Korea’s desire for Japan to acknowledge its wartime and colonial excesses, something Tokyo says it has already done.
“The older generation must make the commitment to try to heal the wound, and must not become an obstacle to opening the way for the future generation.” [Reuters]
You can read the rest at the link, but I find the Japanese right wing nationalists who whitewash Japan’s colonial and wartime past as annoying as the Korean Chinboistas. Can we just put all of them on Dokdo and leave them there? 
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7:47 pm on January 4th, 2013 1
So then the question is, what’s this got to do with the US?
8:04 pm on January 4th, 2013 2
So Japan needs to say they are really, really, superlicious sorry for events that occurred about 3 generations ago.
Perhaps they should apologize annually.
9:27 pm on January 4th, 2013 3
You know what Koreans…Shit happens OK. America enslaved blacks for hundreds of years, we whipped them, beat them, and then after slavery for at least another 100 years they would be sub par citizens. And you know what? So what it’s in the past yes we are sorry but let’s just drop the issue and move forward. And that’s how many Black Americans treat that.
My friends Grandmother was an whore to the Japanese soldiers when they occupied Korea. He hates them for it and hates Japanese people cause of what some did Japanese guy did to his death Grandmother. I said “Dude, why are you going let something affect you that happened 80 years ago? ”
Japan should acknowledged what they did was wrong, and say they are very sorry
Korea should know they understand, accept the apology
And then everybody should move right along.
9:41 pm on January 4th, 2013 4
hmm
9:46 pm on January 4th, 2013 5
It would seem more logical for both to concentrate on making the lives of their respective citizens (as in the ones currently living) better. They could even work together toward that end.
10:00 pm on January 4th, 2013 6
Yup just focus on the future what’s done is done. Especially if the majority of the people who where around with this happened to died.
10:02 pm on January 4th, 2013 7
Japan will apologize, but usually in an indirect way like, “We’re sorry about what happened”, so they don’t have to accept any responsibility. The only way they will directly acknowledge their past actions is if they are forced to do so.
Korea, frankly, does not have that power, and that’s why they resort to mosquito-like actions like installing a comfort women monument across from the Japanese embassy in Seoul, or trying to metaphorically wipe Japan off the map by trying to change the name of the Sea of Japan.
10:23 pm on January 4th, 2013 8
Jack: that’s the thing. Japan should formally apologize for it instead of trying to dodge and obfuscate the issue.
10:35 pm on January 4th, 2013 9
Don: That is exactly my point. It’s like Korea. Koreans will never say, “I was wrong” unless they expect a serious beatdown and want to lessen it. Korea is not in a position to put a serious beatdown on Japan, so Japan will not apologize.
10:40 pm on January 4th, 2013 10
This was all United States fault for keeping the same Japanese government in place, after the war was over. It’s like keeping Hitler’s party in Germany, guess what that would have been like for Europe if that had happened. Righting the suffering by Asian people was not a big concern for Americans, but their own national interests in Asia were more important.
11:28 pm on January 4th, 2013 11
#8,
Are they really doing that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan#History
11:52 pm on January 4th, 2013 12
Thank you for the link, Teadrinker. I stand corrected. The Japanese have directly apologized. I must have been reading the Korean reports that criticized the use of the word “regret” as not being “sincere” enough, or something like that.
12:05 am on January 5th, 2013 13
Aren’t therer Korean Comfort women forced to work by koreans in Korea’s 6000 history? This is just political misdirection to take attention away from korea’s real issues. Like divide between rich & poor
12:42 am on January 5th, 2013 14
#12,
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/08/11/2010081101050.html
In other words, they got the apology. Now, they are saying it isn’t enough. It will never end, I’m afraid.
6:10 am on January 5th, 2013 15
See it all begins….Pres Park is paving the way for her campaign to correct old wrongs against her country and her father. More to follow
7:10 am on January 5th, 2013 16
#15,
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
10:39 am on January 5th, 2013 17
Japan should hire a PR company and release a written apology. That’s how Psy apologized and most Koreans think or would say even today that he apologized. I just don’t get S. Koreans and their never ending extreme nationalism.
12:41 pm on January 5th, 2013 18
@#11 -
I’ve seen that link about 1000x but it proves useless, why? Cause the stance on the apologies wavers almost nonstop from the Japanese government. One day some Japanese Prime Minster “apologizes” or rather feels “regrettable” for its past actions on Korea. Then the next day, you see some other member in the cabinet that denies anything ever happened or what not. Their actions are NOT consistent; therefore, the people of Korea and also China do not believe the Japanese are truly sorry. Korea and China still continues to put pressure and then Japan just says “Oh, we already apologized. End of story.” What’s the point of apologizing if you deny it the next day? Just take a look at Germany. How do you apologize for the worst crime in human history? Willy Brandt visited Poland in December 1970 which happened to coincide with a commemoration to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, he joined in and spontaneously dropped to his knees. Brandt didn’t utter a word during his kneefall, and later said in his autobiography, that upon “carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered, I did what people do when words fail them.” Germany has since paid out billions to Israel and to Jewish survivors.
12:42 pm on January 5th, 2013 19
Why can’t South Korea accept Japan’s apologies? Simple. Japan and ROK restored ties and settled accounts during the Park Chung Hee regime. That’s why Japan seems so stubborn on the comfort women and forced labor issues: the normalization treaty included a lump sum payment from Japan to be spent more or less how Park so fit, and absolved Japan from any future liabilities. Much of that money went towards economic stimulus, not compensation. Japan may be legally correct with their positions on the issue, but people in South Korea are frustrated that the Park dictatorship restored ties with Japan in such a way and are somehow hoping for a do-over. Just my 2 yen.
4:44 pm on January 5th, 2013 20
#19 Isn’t it ironic that her fathers regime “accepted the repairations” they still ask for today.
5:31 pm on January 5th, 2013 21
18
Arguably, the worst crime in human history is the genocide of Native American. Tens of millions dead in North and South America and the racism is still there.
5:36 pm on January 5th, 2013 22
#21, and yet the tens of millions killed by Stalin or Mao don’t figure into your calculations? Look up the history of Africa before the White arrived and you’ll find Stalin was a piker.
Apparently you were a real Historian before you “took an arrow to the knee”…
5:54 pm on January 5th, 2013 23
@ #19,
No one is asking for reparations or money. All they’re asking is Japan deal with history honestly, and stop fudging the truth. Is that too much to ask? No, denying Comfort women is not coming to terms with history. Read Park’s speech:
“South Korea’s president-elect said on Friday that Japan needed to come to terms with its colonial history”
10:22 pm on January 5th, 2013 24
Koreans won’t accept apology anyway.
12:05 am on January 6th, 2013 25
So Abe wants to supersede Murayama’s apology, which itself was negated by the Diet when conservatives there fell over themselves to declare it not as a representation of the Japanese government but his own personal statement… and the Korea bashers come along and say that Korea wouldn’t accept an apology anyway.
Japan should first try an official apology, or an imperial apology, where its officials don’t follow it with “But…”
4:08 am on January 6th, 2013 26
#22,
I’ve read that 100 million Native Americans wiped out. But, yes, you’re right that the consequences of colonialism in Africa are immense.
4:30 am on January 6th, 2013 27
Several billion insects killed each day by indiscriminate chemical spraying on the worlds farm lands.
10:42 am on January 6th, 2013 28
#25
Why I think Koreans won’t accept is that Anti-Japan is Korean ethnic identity.
They have hated Japanese for a 1000 years.
Comfort women doesn’t matter, Japanese have been recognized to be sub human in Korean Confucianism sense.
The real reason is simply racism.
5:40 pm on January 6th, 2013 29
#27,
Are you comparing humans to insects? If I was a religious man, I’d tell you to be careful next time you walk in the rain.
2:23 pm on January 9th, 2013 30
On a curious note, Taiwan was an “earlier” colony of Japan but they are not as “enraged” as the Koreans. Like the native Japanese, many Formosans were conscripted to the military and had a not-so-good treatment from the native Japanese but we don’t see the Taiwanese as “bitter” as the Koreans. Looks like the real reason is ethnic pride.
And Korea and Taiwan aren’t the only victims of Japanese aggression. It goes further to the east and south Pacific but no on over there is as whiny as the Koreans. The Battle of Manila in 1945 (100,000 civilians massacred in 28 days) was like its predecessor — the Japanese onslaught of Nanking. What about the Asian and Western POWs? Then there were also massacres in Singapore as the Japanese Army took the island fortress but they are far more calm and diplomatic in addressing the issues.
It could be ego too, the hermit kingdom once thought to be impenetrable was captured by the Japanese. Get over it, Singapore was also thought to be impenetrable but captured by the Japanese in one week.
Comfort women? It happened all around Asia. In Southeast Asia families would let their female children wear pants and half male cuts to avoid abduction of Japanese troops…What Korea is doing is very ethnocentric, as if they were the only ones who suffered the plight. A lot of non-Korean Asians did! Even Okinawans were victims of the Imperial Army and government — Okinawans were forced to have suicide by Japanese troops.
If Korea is serious on letting Japan face its aggressive past, why is it they are not cooperating or involving the other nations in a regional reconciliation? Why is like “Korean” victims of Japan?
2:41 pm on January 9th, 2013 31
jake, just foad, tool
5:40 pm on January 9th, 2013 32
The issue is will the Koreans actually accept a sincere apology from the Japanese? The likely answer is a resounding NO! Wait a few hundred years and it will likely be much easier, or maybe not, as our muslim friends are proving with their 1400+ year crudge against each other (Shia/Sunni).
It’s far too short of a time especially in the asia part of the world to let bygones be bygones. Unless there is another World War and the Korean’s and the Japanese are on the same side. However, only time will tell……
7:12 pm on January 9th, 2013 33
#32. You made the wrong question. The right question is: will Japan finally make a sincere and honest apology? Abe promised the heaven to the Japanese nationalist to win the election, can you imagine him apologizing to Korea now?
He was the leader of the Japanese lawmakers group that promoted visit to yasukuni. If he keeps visiting the shrine he will piss off China and Korea and prove that his reconciliation speech was just a political rethoric, if he stop visiting yasukuni he will piss of his voters and sink its administration.
In my opinion he will try to do both: visiting yasukuni while trying to downplay the meaning of his visit to the shrine. As always two face people.
7:27 pm on January 9th, 2013 34
You mean like somebody named Reagan for visiting a cemeatary with SS soldiers buried there?
I’m not here to say that Japan was not guilty of many war crimes during the Second World War, however that shrine does have many of the leaders and soldiers that fought and died on behalf of their nation. Should those of us that live in the Northern States of the US want the graves of the Southern leaders destroyed because of what they did so long ago?
Emotions are still very raw and it is going to take time for the scars to heal. Otherwise, folks on various sides of this issue will continue to want Japan to pay until the nation is utterly destroyed, no matter what they (Japan) does to say they are sorry.
7:52 pm on January 9th, 2013 35
#34. Korea has no power to force Japan to apologize and they have no power to force Korea to ignore their crimes either. They want to mend ties with Korea? Well they know what is necessary to achieve it. As a friend of mine used to say the criminal forgets its crimes, the victim no. Be brave and good luck Japan.
5:17 pm on January 16th, 2013 36
#31..
Can’t take the truth?
So, tell me, was the Japanese onslaught limited to Korea?
Korea, take a hint from Taiwan and the former short term “colonies” in the “Southern Seas”.
8:29 pm on January 16th, 2013 37
It’s funny how the comments blame Korea for some reason and say its nationalism when Japan still denies most of the war crimes, still celebrates war criminal Hirohito as a national holiday, and worships the dead in war criminal shrine Yasukuni, plus add the territorial dispute with their “ally”. No wonder Koreans aren’t accepting the apologizes. Let Japan keep apologizing, and see who get the last laugh.
8:34 pm on January 16th, 2013 38
Jake, majority of the comfort women or sexual slavery (supported by Japanese government) happened in Korea and China, you can’t deny the history. I think you should read more books about Japanese war crimes , before spewing your stupidity here.
It was Koreans who civilized Japan 2,000 years ago, and to say Koreans hate Japan is not accordance to history. It was Japan who always aggresively attacked Korea, not the other way around.
10:41 pm on January 16th, 2013 39
#38,
It’s not only that. If the Taiwanese chose to forgive, that’s their prerogative. It’s simply asinine to suggest that Koreans, who had a very different experience than them, are somehow wrong because they are still unwilling to let Japan off the hook.
10:49 pm on January 16th, 2013 40
And my advice…Don’t give up and never forget. Justice will be done, eventually. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but it will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_2003
This put an end to one of the longest cases in British courts, dating back to 1760 when Acadian representatives first voiced their grievances.
10:19 pm on February 17th, 2013 41
Pres. elect Pak should appologize a million times every day for the dirty stuff her father did when he was president.
She should appoligize for a 2 star general using the Korean special forces to take over the military after Pres pak was assasinated and making himself president then ruling Korea with iron fists and either outright killing his enemies or placing tehm in re-education “camps”.
Best thing she could do for Korea would be line up all teh bad actors all in one big swoop and procecute them. They would fabricate or dig up enough dirt on pres elect Pak to kill her career, but by then, her mission to make right and serve Korea would be done.
That is the optimal thing to do that no leader before her lacked courage.
3:28 am on February 18th, 2013 42
41- That ship has sailed. Park won the election. Get over it.