In his book, “In Defense of the New Pro-Japanese,” Kim Wan-seob, a Korean born and raised in Korea and a former student of History and Political Economics at Seoul National University, makes claims almost identical to Isihara. According to Kim, a great many Koreans at the turn of the century believed that the only way Koreans could escape the political and economic backwardness of the Chosun Dynasty was to merge with Japan, a rising power at the time.

Kim says that Koreans believed so much in the hope that Japan offered that 170,000 Koreans volunteered to fight on the side of Japan against Russia during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. He also says that a pro-Japanese organization known as the Unity and Progress Society (”Iljinhoe”), which had as many as 1 million members at one time, advocated merging with Japan. Considering that at the time Korea had a male population of only about 5 million, half of which was probably under the age of twelve since Koreans only had an average life expectancy of 24 years, 1 million members was 40 percent of the adult male population. Then when you ask yourself how many of the remaining 60 percent were so busy just surviving from day to day to care one way or the other, 1 million members suddenly becomes a very large number.

The Korean government tried to ban Kim’s book in Korea, and when that failed, they had it labeled as “adult reading material,” which meant that it could not be sold to minors and had to be wrapped in plastic. I bought my plastic-wrapped copy in the Kyobo Book Store in Seoul in July, but when I went back to the store this October, I noticed that it was no longer wrapped in plastic. Maybe the Korean courts have ruled in Kim’s favor?

All over the world people distort history. In Paris, their war museum has ZERO mention of the Vichy goverment, the efficient rounding up of Jews by the gendarmes, or the fact that French troops killed 667 American soldiers landing in Morocco and Algiers, but has plenty of material devoted to le resistance. In Vietnam, the propaganda is thick at their war museums. In Vietiane, the French are evil imperialists and the Americans evil counterrevolutionaries. The War Memorial in Seoul depicts all Chinese troops as either wounded or dead and Koreans as untouched - every frigging one of them - in the old battles (check the big paintings). Anyway, it’s what makes it fun to visit these places - you learn more about the host country.

Actually, the Chinese have exaggerated the Rape of Nanking story for political gain. Estimates are that Chinese civilian casualties were in the tens of thousands, not 800,000, which is the number cited by both Chinese Nationalists and Communists. The Holocaust is well-documented because of its systematic nature and meticulous German and other European records of Jewish citizens who never returned to their homes. The Chinese estimates were known, by Western sources, to have been blown out of proportion even during the war.

I can understand the blase Japanese attitude towards the rape of Nanking, especially vis-a-vis the Chinese - the Chinese also killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans during their invasion and subjugation of Tibet without suffering anywhere near the amount of criticism suffered by the Japanese. Note also that China has always been an empire built upon conquest and maintained by brute force - everything the Japanese did during the Sino-Japanese War has been carried out on a larger scale at some point in history by Chinese conquerors. In the mid-19th century, when China complains a few thousand of its troops were killed in battle by Western troops seeking to open the country to trade, China massacred about 100,000 Taiping rebels after they had surrendered. Take Chinese griping with a grain of salt - thousands of years of (expanding) Chinese empire have seen Chinese atrocities unimaginable to the Western mind.

Look, I’m not saying the Japanese are blameless here - of course, they are not. What I AM saying is that they are hardly alone here in whitewashing and/or distorting their history, especially in East Asia. South Korea’s Independence Hall in Chonan is hardly the most culturally sensitive or historically accurate museum in the world, and Korean textbooks intentionally skirt issues of collaboration and the role of Koreans in both the War in the Pacific and Japan’s colonization of Manchuria. And China is the last country in the region that should be taking the Japanese to task for its expansionist history. Chinese histories of Tibet, for example, would be easily recognizable to those familiar with European historiography during the colonial era, and ironically enough, bears quite the resemblence to European histories of China written at the time of the unequal treaties. And to be blunt, when the Japanese PM visit the Yasakuni Shrine, it might be insensitive, but hardly threatening to regional peace and security. However, every time Beijing reminds the Taiwanese, the Mongolians, or Far Eastern Russians that they reside in “historically Chinese territories,” or the North Koreans decide to show the world “the power of the Korean race” by firing a multistage missile over Japan, that DOES represent a threat to regional peace and security. And that’s the point I was trying to make.

I know it doesn’t make your job any easier when Ishihara runs off his mouth, but ultimately, the nations of the region need to come to grips with their own histories without worrying about what politicians in traditional rivals are saying. And besides, with so much stupid shit being said from all corners, I find it difficult to single out Ishihara for abuse.

Some other fun ‘facts’ that are written in the Shrine are: America started the war with Japan because an order had been issued to naval forces that said they could fire back at Japanese if fired upon, therefore with that “act of war” Pearl Harbor is an acceptable response. Another is that the Rape of Nanjing was because the Chinese Communist party ordered their members to fight to the death but once they were taken care of “residence could once again live their life in peace.” What do you think the Japanese response would be if an American president were to visit the Museum of the Atomic Bomb in Los Alamos every VJ-day and in the museum it said that dropping the bomb was for Japan’s own good? Or if the Japanese internment exhibit at the Smithsonian said that the internment was for Japanese Americans own safety? The most disturbing thing that I witnessed there though was a fellow American noting that the Chinese have really exagerated the Rape of Nanjing story for political gain. As a friend of my commented that is about as sensitive as saying that the Israeli government really has exaggerated the holocaust for political gain. Both of these are completely insensitive and ridiculous statements.

Finally, I too wish the xenophobes would be ferreted out and I spend alot of time here trying to convince Chinese people that Japanese people aren’t evil. It is a little hard though when high profile Japanese politicians continue to behave in their own idiotic xenophobic fashion.