The Japan Times ran a very interesting piece on Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Taro and his connections with wartime forced labor:
While Taro Aso’s public statements as foreign minister have done little to help ease tensions between Tokyo and the rest of Asia, a family connection to wartime forced labor has raised further questions over his ability to oversee good relations with Japan’s neighbors.
During World War II, the Aso family’s mining company used thousands of Koreans as forced laborers.
The legacy of Koreans, Chinese and other Asians being forced into slave-like working conditions across the region during the war, has become an issue in Tokyo’s maintenance of normal diplomatic relations with its neighbors.
Aso’s family background has led some to suggest that his position as foreign minister is untenable.
As they say, read the rest on your own.
(Hat tip to reader)
77 Comments
In my home state, our governor was under fire for his father’s past (he was a Nazi policeman, I believe), exacerbated by some unfortunate statements he had made.
If something similar were all the extent of Aso’s connection to this issue, I would say that the problem should not be one that damns his position as Foreign Minister.
The situation described is not a positive one…
…but it may not be enough of a problem on its own. However, the article suggests a bit more of an active role in this issue on the part of Aso:
This certainly is problematic. It would be nice if Aso had done things differently, and perhaps it is not too late for that. But as things now stand, barring some acknowledgement (as I suggested Park Geun-hye do about her father’s legacy) and/or action, maybe he isn’t the best choice for PM.
Guilt by association? The sins of the father, eh? How …..
KoreanAsianAnd while we’re on that subject see this interesting article in the IHT about the Marmot’s neighbors in Patchogue, name of Hitler: http://www.iht.com/articles/20.....itlers.php
Sperwer, my point above is not that it’s mere guilt-by-association. In the 1970s, according to the article, he had a chance to do the right thing on this issue and he apparently balked at that responsibility.
Mr. As[s]o and his clan will continue to fare well in business and politics, because the whole LDP is a continuation of the ruling powers of the Imperial Japanese Empire. It’s not just a “how Korean” kind of thing. Alright? I know that many prominent Nazis became succesful businessmen either in Germany or other parts of Europe after the war (I guess they weren’t that high in the chain to be blamed for stuff). I have no problem with Mr. Aso being a minister. What I do have a problem with is a problem I have with Japan’s LDP in general. They need to repay individuals for their war time boo-boo’s. Mr. Aso’s family needs to pay back individuals who worked for them. Some of these miners probably are still stuck in Sakhalin island, under Russian rule. Probably living poor as hell, living in a backward country, whereas they could have been brought over to live better in either Japan or South Korea, if post war Japanese were responsible people. I think a while ago, I read about a Sakhalin based Japanese soldier at age 80 plus or so, who wanted to visit his relatives. He’s supposed to be a rare specimen, who deserted his country after the war. That means most of the Japanese troops and citizens in Sakhalin went back to Japan. Then, what about the Koreans who moved from Korea to Sakhalin? Jack-As[s]o’s. They didn’t bother bringing the Koreans back. As long as they right wrong, I have no problem with this LDP poster child from serving as foreign minister or any kind of government official. He could even be prime minister for all I care.
There’s a well-known Japanese animation film called Grave of the Fireflies. My brother said this film made him cry, and it was really depressing and sad. I watched it, because Roger Ebert raved about it. I didn’t cry. I just felt angry when I saw it. It’s not because I’m an insensitive beast. It’s because if it was this bad for Japanese people in Japan, it must have been much, much worser for Koreans doing war time labor in Japan.
you might be tempted to fault the Koreans in Japan for not leaving Japan after WWII. What were they supposed to go back to? An unstable goverment and a 3 year war that killed more Koreans than all of the soldier casualties combined? And at least 20 years of relative poverty?
I have heard thru Korean sources (never confirmed by Japanese sources) that the Japanese treated Japanese citizens who suffered from the nukes and its health effects, but Koreans were not elgible for such services. That’s fucked up. I don’t know if it’s true though.
What’s also messed up is the fact that the Japanese automatically made Koreans in Japan non-citizens after the war. Not that they enjoyed life as Hwang Gook Shi Mins, but they probably got deprived of some post war social services. Japan should bust out the wallet, apologize every single year, set up August 15 as a national holiday and celebrate it ! And pay individuals. Then, you may expect Korean children asking their parents why, WHY, they should hate Japan. Then, the hate will disappaer. Koi is brooding the next generation of anti- Japanese Koreans.
a jap conected to forced labor doesn’t get your ire up like a roh speech providing context to dokto, does it, marmot?
ps spewr, can you tell me what happened to you in korea? some korean lady make fun of you? get chewed up and spit out by korean society? just a weakling? tsk, tsk, tsk, po, po, po, lil expat.
OUR PRIDE OUR DOKTO
Kushibo:
I wasn’t responding to your post: if you check the entry times, i was writing at the same time as you.
Re the substance, you characterize Asso as having an “active role”, which is nonsense. I don’t know if he was even around during the colonial period, but if so he was certainly a child at most. He couldn’t have had an active role in the abuses of the mining firm. He has nothing to apologize for himself. And while it certainly may weaken his credentials as a representative of Japan for him not to have taken action in respect of the responsibilities of the firm when he headed it up a couple of generations later, that doesn’t make him culpable for what happened forty years before. Korea should stop trying to play the blame game - as Roh in his speech the other day disingenuously has suggested it will — and sabotaging all the work that has been done and that reasonable people try to continue to do to build a new relationshio between the two countries founded on cooperative solutions to current challenges.
Pawikirogi/Nulji/ Idjit: none of the above, I just don’t suffer fools (like you) gladly.
Taro is one of the biggest right-wing Asos in the LDP. And he’s a total Aso.
Sperwer, if Aso’s Dad or Grandpa and his Imperial League of LDP’s made things right in their generation, no one would be having this talk…at all. All the fault rests with Japan alone.
Sperwer wrote:
Kushibo:
I wasn’t responding to your post: if you check the entry times, i was writing at the same time as you.
Well, I was responding to your point in general, because…
Re the substance, you characterize Asso as having an “active role”, which is nonsense. I don’t know if he was even around during the colonial period, but if so he was certainly a child at most. He couldn’t have had an active role in the abuses of the mining firm. He has nothing to apologize for himself.
…the Japan Times article itself says that he had an active role in the company in question (he ran it from 1973 to 1979) and chose to deal (or not deal) with it in a certain way:
The forced labor of his forebears’ company was described in the Japan Times article this way:
That’s slave labor in the family-run company Aso later managed, and the Japan Times said he chose to do nothing to address it.
And while it certainly may weaken his credentials as a representative of Japan for him not to have taken action in respect of the responsibilities of the firm when he headed it up a couple of generations later, that doesn’t make him culpable for what happened forty years before.
The inaction and the stalling when (not) dealing with people who were brutalized or otherwise abused went on long after the war ended in 1945. It was still going on in the 1970s when he ran the company, and it was still going on in the 1990s when the Japanese government finally admitted culpability in the Comfort Women issue (and some would say it goes on now by Tokyo’s refusal to compensate the women as a follow-up to belatedly admitting fault, though that is a less clear-cut issue).
Aso running the formerly slave labor-using company in the 1970s puts him squarely in the middle of that.
Korea should stop trying to play the blame game - as Roh in his speech the other day disingenuously has suggested it will — and sabotaging all the work that has been done and that reasonable people try to continue to do to build a new relationshio between the two countries founded on cooperative solutions to current challenges.
I wholeheartedly agree. There should be a return to the spirit of the Obuchi-Kim accord. But neither should this kind of person be suffered gladly: here is a person who is indicative of what is wrong from the Japanese side: a person who not only personally gained from abuses of Koreans, but who has consistently refused to do the right thing about it, both in business and in politics. Is this the kind of person who should be foreign minister?
Like I said, and I drew an appropriate parallel with Park Geun-hye, he can make this right by coming clean about the past he was born into but has not acknowledged (Park, of course, in regards to her father).
Whatever people may think of Aso’s personal culpability/non-culpability for the actions of his family’s cement company, I find it pretty amazing that the Japanese government has made him foreign minister given the history. In addition, Aso is about as tactful as Roh when it comes to making statements. He has made various statements about how the emperor should visit Yasukuni, benefits of Japanese colonialism to the native peoples, how Koreans traded in their Korean names for Japanese ones voluntarily, etc. I think he might be the guy that opposed the idea of a female empress (the current heir to the throne does not have a son) because she might marry a foreigner with blue eyes. At best, the guy seems like an amateur (with baggage) and not the guy you’d want to head the foreign ministry if you’re the Japanese government.
If the report is accurate, it is certainly interesting. The Kyushu mines were some of the most dangerous places to work.
nulji: “OUR PRIDE OUR DOKTO”
How cute…hahaha
Forced labor, Japan, Kyushu mines, abuses, unpaid wages, Japanese politicians tied with WWII leadership - are all old stories. We’ve all heard it before only for the last thousand times. For instance, there have been numerous attempts by Koreans and Chinese to sue the Japanese companies and the government for unpaid backwages in Japanese courts, to no avail - at the same time Japan was issuing their routine WWII apologies. I’m certainly not sure where the news is on this.
cm, the news is that this is Aso’s family’s company, a particularly bad company in this regard, and one he ran while the company wasn’t facing up to its moral (if not legal) obligations. With Aso current the Foreign Minister at a time of testy relations with one or two countries it should be getting along much better, and with him poised to be the next Prime Minister, that is where this is news.
But Kushibo, how many Japanese politicians have there been in the past and present whose families/companies got rich off the backs of thousands of Asian coolies toiling and dying in mines and factories like Mitsubishi? This is not news at all. We all know if they ever end up coughing up ripped off wages alone plus intrest, it will run into hundreds of billions. This maybe news in Japan, the rest of Asia, yawn..
Kushibo:
There you go again.
Although Aso could not have had any responsibility for the actual brutalization of the mine workers iduring the time that such brutalization was taking place, you persist in conflating it his alleged personal culpability for failing to address the issue in his capacity as an executive of the company in the 1970’s with the actual brutalization and thus magnify the extent of his purported moral turpitude thorugh guilt by association. This makes a hash of your purported allegiance to Obuchi-Kim accord, which allegiance has about the same gravity as Roh’s recent speech in which he has said that Korea is no longer looking for an apology from Japan - instead now simply hoping to justify its refusal to negotiate a sensible settlement over the Dokto/Takeshima fisheries/sea bed minerals because of Japan’s crimes. If you really belive that Korea shoudln;t play the blame and shame game, why are you indulging in it?
wjk and Slim:
In the vain hope of forestalling the emission of any more goose shit from the likes of Pawigirogi, let me observe that I have no interest in defending Aso. Conversely, however, I don’t think it serves any useful purpose to vilify him or engage in fault finding generally. The sensible thing is for Korea to sit down and negotiate a deal over the economics of Dokto/Takeshima. That is after all what this is really about, and Korea’s recourse to this weird chauvinist/victim histrionics about a few rocks to which their claim is at best controversial is stupid. The tactics they have devised to avoid doing so are doubly self-defeating, insofar as they both diminish Korea’s credibility with the international community - which one way or another eventually is going to be involved in resolving this matter, whether through the relevant int’l tribunals or diplomatically - and feed Korean han in the sort of self-driven and perpetuating spiral of ever more unsatisfied resentment and ever more self-defeatingly histrionic acting out, of which Roh’s latest is an example.
“Then, you may expect Korean children asking their parents why, WHY, they should hate Japan. Then, the hate will disappaer.”
I’m afraid that almost nothing the Japanese could do would make the hate disappear. It may only dissappear with time and the death of all those who had a direct connection to the occupation (I mean those who lived during those times). When I was in England, I was surprised at how much anti-German feelings there were, even among young (leftist) people.
>
Just for the sake clarification Aso wasn’t just an executive of the company. He (his family) owns the company. It is called ASO Cement Co. Just so no one thinks that Aso taking over the company was the equivalent of Jeffrey Immelt replacing Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric.
It is dissapointing that a guy’s whose family fortune (or at least part it) was built on wartime forced labor has not done a bit more soul searching about his family’s/nation’s history. Given that Aso was not directly responsible for what happened (as Sperwer argues), it would be nice if he had a bit more empathy/sympathy for the victims of the forced labor (since he has profited financially from their suffering).
Anyway it should be interesting if Aso becomes prime minister of Japan. He seems to hold pretty right wing views and appears to be fairly outspoken. Look up some of his quotes. Blow-ups with Korea and China may become even more common. Aso could become Japan’s version of Roh …
Sounds like very Korean thinking to me: “So and so’s grandparents were collaberators with the Japanese, meaning they should be forced from public life and bankrupt!”
I invite you to apply the logic to the United States: Colin Powell’s position as State Department is untenable because his parents were immigrants. How can he negotiate our foreign relations in good faith? His grandparents weren’t even American citizens! And his parents immigrated from Jamaica; clearly his family background makes him inelligible for the job.
Snow the problem is more complex I think.
The problem is that rather the younger generations of Korean (and Chinese) hate Japanese more. I think in case of Korea, persons in the 30ties and 40ties are the most Japan hater I think (among teenagers and person in 20ties their feelings toward japan seems to be more mild).
Generation who directly experienced the occupation feel bitter against that ofcourse, but as they have direct exposure to Japanese (in some case even maintaining their personal ties after the WW2) they don’t overdemonize them. And these generations are also sometimes criticized as “Pro Japan” (that was an explanation that I was given from a Korean).
When I visited Korea back in the 90ies, I had an experience to be suddenly spoken by an old lady in Japanese who asked me “How is ‘Naichi(main land)’ today?” . She told me quite nostalgic about her school time and about her teachers. Don’t get me wrong she also told me about the discrimination during the colonial era, but also she seemed to be happy about her memories in the school.
Another thing that stucks in my mind is that she told me that she got the impression when later visiting Japan, that she felt less discrimination from Japanese than in Korea.
Anyway colonial period and colonial experience is a very complexe one, for both colonizer and colonized. Therefore I think “Post colonial studies” are in fool bloom.
Well, as long as over the top nationalism is the religion in Korea (and other Asian countries) we can expect more idiocy from here on in until doomsday. Let’s just hope that whoever takes over from Roh isn’t half as stupid.
Curzon: This is a bit different. Aso was head of a family-owned company that employed forced labor. Granted, it was before he got there, but he had an opportunity to set things right with the victims, and he didn’t. If you wanted to make comparisons with other major Western companies that profitted from pillaging the colonies (I’m sure there are many Nigerians waiting for their check from Unilever), I could buy that.
“Just for the sake clarification Aso wasn’t just an executive of the company. He (his family) owns the company.”
Makes no difference vis-a-vis the argument I’m making. That’s he’s an owner doesn’t make him personally responsible for how workers were treated before he was born or before he reached his majority. While it may make hm more culpable for failing to take any action to redress those wrongs once he did, time spent negotiating a sensible solution to the current economic issues regarding Dokto/Takeshima now is time much more productively spent than attacking Aso personally.
As a general principle, Japan should follow Germany’s lead to put its wartime abuses behind. Aso as a leader and former executive is not technically or even legally responsible, but there’s always “do the right thing.”
“The story of American POWs of the Japanese, the overwhelming majority of whom were captured in the Philippines, was not a small chapter in the history of the United States. Their surrender to the Japanese was the largest single defeat in the history of the United States Armed Forces to that time. What these soldiers endured as POWs will be told and retold by generations to come. It is not in the best interest of the Japanese state or its corporations to have a troubling legacy of refusing to address this painful history and the larger history of forced labor of which it was a part. The Japanese government and companies should acknowledge the wartime POW forced labor by making related historical records available to the public, offer a sincere apology, and initiate meaningful educational/ reconciliation projects to bring to an honorable closure this tragic event of World War II while some of the survivors are still with us.”
http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=541
You know, better late than never.
“… time spent negotiating a sensible solution to the current economic issues regarding Dokto/Takeshima now is time much more productively spent than attacking Aso personally.”
Huh. This is from an article in the Japan Times. As far as I know, the Korean government has not made an issue of Aso’s past. So the two government are not spending time dealing with the issue.
Anyway this is an “academic” debate among posters on a blog who apparently have nothing better to do. So what does spending time “more productively” have to do with anything?
I think you can have an academic debate about the significance of Aso’s past without reference to the Liancourt Rocks since the Korean government has not linked the two and we’re just wasting time on this blog anyway. Check here for reference to Liancourt Rocks (which is what I am calling them from now on). http://www.lostnomad.org/?p=2679#comments.
“While it may make hm more culpable for failing to take any action to redress those wrongs once he did”
That is my point/argument. Feel free to disagree.
And after all, if you can’t waste time on a blog, where can you waste it?
My god, if it wasn’t for Mr. Marmot (and http://www.boners.com/) I would have nothing to do all day except my job!
You’re missing the point here. Yes, the article that triggered the discussion in this forum appeared in the Japan Times. And while ROKGOV may not have made any official remarks about Aso (I don’t know, I’ll assume this is true), he is a lightning rod for Korean emotopinon on this issue and thus emblematic, in my view, of the insistence of a lot of Koreans, including most notably The Great Pretender and his Roh Nothings, and resident reverse banana pundit wannabes, on treating this issue in ways that are doomed to fail to result in any workable resolution.
For that reason, an academic debate on Aso divorced from the issue of the bird shit islands is of zero interest, as far as I’m concerned. Which is why I don’t disagree with your point - obviously since you quote my own comment — but just think it irrelevant to what’s really in issue.
sperwere wrote:
Kushibo:
There you go again.
Did you read what I wrote, or did you just presume to know what I was going to say and then hit the SUBMIT button?
Although Aso could not have had any responsibility for the actual brutalization of the mine workers iduring the time that such brutalization was taking place,
When did I say he had any personal responsibility for the actual brutalization of the mine workers? In fact, I said:
In other words, if this turns out to be nothing more than his parents or grandparents being responsible, it should not derail his political career. I have said the same thing about Park Geun-hye and about the Uri guy in 2004 whose father, it turned out, was a collaborating police officer.
you persist in conflating it his alleged personal culpability for failing to address the issue in his capacity as an executive of the company in the 1970’s
That was done by the folks in the Japan Times article. And others (note: I don’t think the mistreatment of WWII-era Koreans negates NK kidnapping Japanese three decades later).
with the actual brutalization and thus magnify the extent of his purported moral turpitude thorugh guilt by association.
Bullshit. I have not said they were the same. I have said he should address this if he is to be a better choice for PM:
Do you get what I’m saying here? He and Park both have some skeletons in the closet, even if they didn’t put them there.
I’m not beating up on the guy. I’m putting him in the same boat as Park Geun-hye, who is right now my favorite for being the next president of the Republic of Korea. Both of them have benefited from their respective family’s dubious past — Aso in a financial and a political way, Park in a political way — and with that boost they’ve gotten comes some moral responsibility. It’s called, as someone said earlier, doing the right thing.
After all, both Aso and Park stand to be the respective leaders of Japan and Korea. Yet both of them are benefactors of and representatives of a highly divisive legacy, Park in Korea, and Aso in Japan and in much of the rest of East Asia. With political leadership comes a demand for moral leadership, and if Park and/or Aso cannot address that, then maybe they are not suitable for the positions they are poised to assume. Not just because they will be highly divisive figures, but because a failure to address the painful past associated with the legacy that has elevated them may mean they lack the moral fiber to be in that position.
So you see, it’s not about Aso, or the Japanese right wing. I’m applying it to my favorite for the leadership of Korea (or did you not notice that in my post?), the same as I applied it to the governor of my state and his father’s Nazi past (or did you not notice that?).
This makes a hash of your purported allegiance to Obuchi-Kim accord, which allegiance has about the same
No, it does not. Kim and Obuchi sought to not let the past derail the future; their proclamation also recognized some fundamental things about the past that stand contrary to Aso’s apparent positions.. As a person whose family, whose position, whose ability to rise up in politics, and whose current utterings on these issues all indicate a failure to deal with the past honestly, openly, and morally, it is incumbent upon Aso to do the right thing right now if he is to assume leadership of Japan. The same as Park should do if she is to assume leadership of Korea.
gravity as Roh’s recent speech in which he has said that Korea is no longer looking for an apology from Japan - instead now simply hoping to justify its refusal to negotiate a sensible settlement over the Dokto/Takeshima fisheries/sea bed minerals because of Japan’s crimes. If you really belive that Korea shoudln;t play the blame and shame game, why are you indulging in it?
Go back and reread. What would be so horrible about Aso acknowledging and, verbally at least, making amends for the past wrongdoing of Aso Industries, something he probably should have done in the 1970s? That would make him a much less divisive figure — and therefore a more effective facilitator of positive future relations.
The difference between what Roh has done and what I am saying is night and day, and so far off in intent. Roh is speaking of the past as if the worst-case scenario of modern Japan-Korea relations has come through. I’m merely offering a way that the current FM and a likely future PM could provide a bridge of understanding over a divisive issue that is directly connected with him, whether he likes it or not.
Curzon wrote:
Sounds like very Korean thinking to me: “So and so’s grandparents were collaberators with the Japanese, meaning they should be forced from public life and bankrupt!”
Hardly equivalent (and I’ve gone on record many times saying that no one should suffer simply because it is revealed that their parents, grandparents, or other relatives were supposed “collaborators”; even in the case of the Uri official who was forced to resign in 2004 because of his father’s role as a policeman, it was wrong that he was even asked the question and so I disagree with him having been booted out for his apparent “dishonesty” in answering such questions).
Aso benefited from his family’s fortune, not just financially but politically. It’s a legacy that he has benefited from and so he should at least address the dark side of that, the same as Park Geunhye.
Also, he had a chance to make things right in the 1970s, when he headed Aso Industries, but he did not.
Also, his stated views seem to be in line with apologism for the type of thing his family business seems to have participated in.
I invite you to apply the logic to the United States: Colin Powell’s position as State Department is untenable because his parents were immigrants. How can he negotiate our foreign relations in good faith? His grandparents weren’t even American citizens! And his parents immigrated from Jamaica; clearly his family background makes him inelligible for the job.
How about applying this to Park, as I did even before this post about Aso came out? She is not directly responsible for the atrocities committed under her father’s rule, but she has a moral responsibility to address them, and in doing so, she will be a far less divisive — and therefore more effective — ruler in the future.
“You’re missing the point here.”
Actually I think you and I have different “points.”
“For that reason, an academic debate on Aso divorced from the issue of the bird shit islands is of zero interest, as far as I’m concerned. Which is why I don’t disagree with your point - obviously since you quote my own comment —but just think it irrelevant to what’s really in issue.”
I know it is the current hot topic but the Liancourt Rocks issue does not interest me that much. Call me crazy.
Perhaps my lack of interest stems from the fact that I have not lived in Korea in a while. I think that other than some fisherman and right wingers in Japan, no one outside of Korea pays any attention to this stuff (certainly no one cares). I think ex-pats get infected with a form of the “frog in the well” syndrome when living in Seoul. It is interesting to me when ex-pats make statements about how Roh’s/some other Korean’s behavior is doing irreprable harm to Korea’s reputation on the world stage. Frankly, I don’t think many people on the world stage are paying much attention to things that happen in Korea.
Anyway for what it’s worth (not alot), here are my thoughts:
There is not going to be any deal concerning the rocks anytime soon.
1. Both parties would have to agree to binding arbitration for any international conflict resolution organization to become involved. This is not going to happen for obvious reasons. The only party that could pressure both parties to do this is the U.S. but justifiably or not, we hate these types of international organizations. We’ve opted out of just about every non-economic international court around.
2. The issue is not going to be resolved by force.
So what are we left with … Korea occupying the rocks and not leaving anytime soon.
Every so often to appease the fisherman lobby or the right wing, the Japanese governement will take some action that is “provacative.” The Korean government and Koreans will get all excited (because that’s what they love to do). Eventually, the issue will blow over in the case of verbal “provacation” from the Japanese or the Japanese will back down in the case of non-verbal provation (like this survey ship idea) because 90% of Japanese could not care less about the rocks (and there is no support to do anything real). The Japanese right wing and fishermen will get to grumble about the hot-headed Koreans and the Koreans will get a chance to get excited. The support of the ruling party in both countries will rise with their respective populations (less in Japan obviously). 99.9999999999% of the world will remain blissfully unaware that anything even happened.
… and the cycle will repeat every so often. Once you have seen a couple of these cycles, it gets pretty boring (well not to the Koreans).
How do you do that cool shaded thing with the quotes?
You need to add a little HTML, namely BLOCKQUOTE (see here.)
Kushibo:
Yeah, I read what you wrote quite carefully before writing and punching send. But if you want to stick with that tone, I’ll stop reading altogether. In the meantime, I’m not going to get into a line by line exegetical debate with you. You can point to however many qualifications you care to repeat, but I stand by my reading of the overall thrust of your piece. BTW, I don’t really disagree with the conclusions of your moral inventory taking of Aso, but, again, I think taking other people’s inventory, particularly in lieu of tackling the problem at hand, is a monumental act of arrogant futility, which is what I think is wrong with the position that Korea is staking out regarding the bird shit islands. The ROK is acting like drunk who badly needs a meeting.
Yeah, I read what you wrote quite carefully before writing and punching send. But if you want to stick with that tone, I’ll stop reading altogether.
Well, maybe I read it in a way you didn’t intend, but I didn’t care much for the patronizing tone of “There you again.”
In the meantime, I’m not going to get into a line by line exegetical debate with you. You can point to however many qualifications you care to repeat,
These are not qualifications, this is an overall theme of mine that Aso falls into, joining Park (and to some degree, Schwarzenegger), someone whom I (somewhat enthusiastically) support.
but I stand by my reading of the overall thrust of your piece.
Then you have misread.
BTW, I don’t really disagree with the conclusions of your moral inventory taking of Aso, but, again, I think taking other people’s inventory, particularly in lieu of tackling the problem at hand, is a monumental act of arrogant futility,
One of the underlying issues here is an utter lack of trust (and again, the parallels with Park and the conservative opposition is applicable). The nationalistic rantings of Roh gain traction only because there’s a lack of trust, and the lack of trust is borne out in part because of the lack of people taking moral responsibility (or of some undermining the efforts of others who have tried to do the right thing). How can this (i.e., my recommendations for Aso or Park) be dismissed as futile when it hasn’t really been tried?
which is what I think is wrong with the position that Korea is staking out regarding the bird shit islands. The ROK is acting like drunk who badly needs a meeting.
I’m talking about Aso, vis-á-vis the Japan Times article. I do not support what Roh did, nor do I think the actions or outcome of that has much bearing on what Aso should be doing regarding the divisive legacy he stands upon.
Thanks Robert!
resident reverse banana pundit wannabes,
What exactly did this mean? Is this like an honorary White person?
The article in the Japan Times is a simple smear article. For example, look at the following comment:
What a ridiculous comment! Aso was there to run a company, not to revisit historical issues. If I understand it right, those issues were settled in treaties in 1951 and 1965. And the German Embassy official’s comments are ridiculous and out of line.
Japan was in a war, and it pressed its citizens and colonial subjects into service. How is that much different from a US draft during Vietnam or the way South and North Korea rounded up young men and boys to send them to fight during the Korean war? Even today in peace time, Korea forces young men to serve in the military, makes them work long hours, and pays them crappy wages.
‘you’re a fool.’ spewy
really? you hate koreans, take every opportunity to denigrate them but yet, it’s obvious you spend a lot of time thinking about them. who’s the fool, spewy?
‘international community…’
the scuzzy expat thinks he’s the international community and presents his opinion as the opinion of the world.
****
japan can go ahead and make aso the leader of japan. he’ll be a leader who’ll have zero commnunication with two of the three countries most important to japan.
****
SYMPATHY FOR MR BEVERS
anyone who wants to see how wacky gerry is, should look for a site called ‘notes on the korean language’. you want to talk about schizophrenia? look no further than the polar behavior of this poor soul. here, he obviously hates koreans. there, he loves them.
and take a look at his photo; receding hairline, dark skin, and fat to boot. ya got nothing on kushibo, gerry. tsk, tsk, tsk,
SYMPATHY FOR MR BEVERS
stevekim wrote:
Darn, do you have to get all existential on us!? This hits just a bit too close to reality!
Wow, stevekim, you really take the long-perspective view on things. (Seriously: I’m not being facetious.)
Okay, granted, my reply is totally off topic, but anyhow, your analysis on the Dokdo/Takeshima debate actually seems to come pretty close to the mark. You’re probably right that most of the world is wrapped up in its own issues—and individuals in their own lives, problems, and joys—to pay any attention one way or another to what is ultimately little more than a verbal tit-for-tat over a couple of rocks in a small sea. I would concur that most of what happens in South Korea—or even between South Korea and Japan—goes largely unnoticed in the rest of the world, for better or worse. But that’s true of pretty much any country…TV newscasts have limited time for overseas news stories, so it has to be something (a) big or (b) involving the country or citizens the show is made for; serious newspapers may devote a few articles a week, but many readers are too short for time and will turn to the domestic news, business or sports. The only people outside of Northeast Asia who pay attention to what goes on in Korea are probably immigrants, ex-expats, and a few analysts, academics, and businesspeople…a superset of the sorts of people who read or comment on the Marmot’s Hole.
Anyhow, back to the Sperwer-Kushibo show….
“anyone who wants to see how wacky gerry is, should look for a site called ‘notes on the korean language’. you want to talk about schizophrenia? look no further than the polar behavior of this poor soul. here, he obviously hates koreans. there, he loves them.”
I feel very strange when someone criticize Korea, he is regarded as Korean hater in Korea.And then goes to go ad hominen attack on.
him.
It is ironical gbeaver often criticise this aspect of Korean culture
stevekim:
….Aso could become Japan’s version of Roh …
That’s Hilrarious. Ha ha ha.
Kushibo:
I regret if my invocation of the Gipper’s words gave offense. I guess we both have more than a little tin in our respective ears for humor. And my incendiary jibe about reverse bananas was not aimed at you. As for the rest, it is what it is.
Pawigirogi:
Ah, you poor wounded bir!. I can’t feel your pain, but I can imagine that the torment of your self-loathing is great if it results in your projecting your own self-hatred onto others and interpreting it as aimed at all Koreans. Please, for your own sake, start taking your meds again. Also you might want to look into getting a spot at the new sanitarium that I hear is being built on the bird shit islands for just such sufferers as yourself. The you can leave and live amidst your droppings there.
Mr. Bevers, the issue of Japan’s forced labor in WWII also includes U.S. POWs as I mentioned above. It comes down to personal opinion, but I think you’re soft-pedaling Japan’s moral responsibility in addressing the issue. If U.S. POWs feel so strongly that Japan hasn’t adequately addressed or compensated forced laborers that they went to court over it, then maybe it hasn’t.
Here’s an interesting article on the subject:
http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=541
Kushibo, your description of working conditions for the Korean laborers in Japan sounds kind of similar to conditions for North Korean workers at Kaesong! At least the wages are somewhat equivalent, aren’t they?
Pawikirogi,
Yes, I do have a love-hate relationship with Korea. I love the language, the individual Korean, and almost all the culture, but I hate the “uri-nara” nationalism, the national self-pity, the national self-praise, the xenophobia, and all the stinking lying and truth manipulation in the media, in the government, and in the history books.
Michael,
What about America’s moral responsibility for the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japnese cities, which killed over a half a million Japanese citizens? What about America’s moral responsibility for the nuclear bombings of Hirosima and Nagasaki?
Japan paid a high price for World War II. Many of her soldiers were not even given the chance to be taken prisoner by Chinese and allied forces. Japan paid hundreds of millions of dollars in war compensation, including compensation to their war ally, Korea. The Japanese government and citizens also lost hundreds of millions of dollars in uncompensated assets and investments in Korea and other places.
I think Japan has paid enough, and think it is time for people to stop asking them to feel morally responsible for a war that their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great grandfathers fought.
By the way, Michael, how many Americans do you think feel morally responsible for the firebombing of Japanese cities and for the suffering that occurred in Vietnam? Do you feel morally responsible? And how many Koreans do you think feel morally responsible for what they did in World War II, in the Korean War, and in Vietnam?
I was referring only to forced labor during to WWII by Japan’s companies and government, not addressing the entire spectrum of wartime atrocities. What you’re talking about is really irrelevant to what I was saying.
“Japan paid a high price for World War II.” Well, boo hoo. Go to a meeting of those U.S. POWs that were forced into labor by Japan during the war and tell them that.
”
What about America’s moral responsibility for the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japnese cities, which killed over a half a million Japanese citizens? What about America’s moral responsibility for the nuclear bombings of Hirosima and Nagasaki?
Japan paid a high price for World War II. Many of her soldiers were not even given the chance to be taken prisoner by Chinese and allied forces. Japan paid hundreds of millions of dollars in war compensation, including compensation to their war ally, Korea. The Japanese government and citizens also lost hundreds of millions of dollars in uncompensated assets and investments in Korea and other places.
I think Japan has paid enough, and think it is time for people to stop asking them to feel morally responsible for a war that their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great grandfathers fought.
By the way, Michael, how many Americans do you think feel morally responsible for the firebombing of Japanese cities and for the suffering that occurred in Vietnam? Do you feel morally responsible? And how many Koreans do you think feel morally responsible for what they did in World War II, in the Korean War, and in Vietnam?
”
/ What Japan got was what it deserved. They didn’t get enough. MacArthur protected Japan in the interested of preventing the communist empire from expanding. Interesting that everywhere MacArthur was, communism didn’t spread there. Taiwan may be an exception of where MacArthur was absent. Although I somewhat doubt that Japan would have voluntarily chosen communism, the Soviets would have forced it upon them. Thank the Americans for occupying Japan, basically. Japan didn’t get what it really deserved. Which was a foreign army occupation force that was bent on hate, and mindset on plunder and destruction. Much like the Soviet Red Army that entered Berlin. If Japan had that major butt whooping, they wouldn’t be celebrating their blood stained Japanese Imperial Empire like they do now. No way. In that respect, I don’t like MacArthur, because he went easy on them. US should have jailed or cut the head off of the Japanese Emperor, right there. Japan didn’t pay enough relative to the Germans. I don’t think Japanese women outnumber Japanese men by a 7:3 ratio, who are in their 70s and beyond in age. That would be true for the Germans, who basically had most of their men dead.
I think Americans should be feeling sorry for having chosen to feel comfortable at home rather than to save Vietnam from communism and 3rd world status. That’s my opinion. Thank goodness America chose to make at least half of Korea a part of the free world.
it was more moral for the US to nuke and firebomb Japan, rather than to risk 1 million casualties fighting on Honshu, Kyushu, and other islands, perhaps all the way to Saporro. I think that’s what the stated Japanese resolve was. Up till the very last man, Tenno Ban Zai. No surredner. Death to the last man.
“Thank goodness America chose to make at least half of Korea a part of the free world.”
Well, gee, thanks for that.
“kushibo, your description of working conditions for the Korean laborers in Japan sounds kind of similar to conditions for North Korean workers at Kaesong!”
The description reminds me of the life of Korean military men..
http://jetiranger.tripod.com/B.....id=1172732
“I was referring only to forced labor during to WWII by Japan’s companies and government, not addressing the entire spectrum of wartime atrocities. What you’re talking about is really irrelevant to what I was saying.”
When someone blames someone else without reflecting what he is doing, it sounds hypocritical for those outside Korea.
Michael wrote:
Gerry writes: Well, I guess that answers my question of whether you feel morally responsible for America’s firebombing of Japanese cities, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children. If you cannot feel morally responsible for your ancestors killing hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children, then why would you expect the Japanese to feel morally responsible for theirs?
The idea of a person being expected to answer for the misdeeds of their ancestors is absolutely appalling to me. While we’re at why don’t we just reinstitute debtor’s prisons so we can hold families financially accountable for the mistakes of their forbears. But really, that’s not what this is all about is it?? I mean Aso isn’t a bad candidate for Foreign Minister simply because of his silence on the wartime labor issue. I will go to great lengths to defend what I feel is a very moderate Japanese society that is far more concerned about its internal economic recovery but Aso is a racist, pure and simple. He is one of the architects of the neo-version of the master-state theory. He is as right wing as a wing can get… If anybody dislikes the uri-nara syndrome in South Korea, they can look to Aso for the Japanese version of that which he deals in Spades. He’s a freak!!
Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice, American moral responsibility for fire-bombing and nuking Japan?? Surely, you jest! That responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of those who initiated and carried on the War in Asia, the Japanese war machine. Since when did the Japanese become the only people who can molest and kill in the name of their country and not expect resistence in kind? I guess you think the Americans shouldn’t have fought back. What were we all thinking?! The Nukes saved American lives; lives that wouldn’t have been threatened if the Japanese had stayed in their little wooded forest and kept their Shinto tendencies to themselves.
Mr. Chips,
Why don’t we just nuke Iran, Iraq, and Syria? That will same American lives, too.
You do not intentionally bomb civilians just because you can. That is called a war crime.
Yes you do… And no it’s not a war crime. Its self-defense. So far, Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian militaries aren’t actively waging war against anyone. While extremely suspicious they haven’t yet warranted the response you are speaking of. In 1945, the Japanese did warrant that response and they alone bear the responsibility for the distaster that fell on them I guess you just think that US soldiers should have died instead of Japanese civilians who were, yes absolutely they were, complicit in the war crimes of their country.
With that said, the Japanese of today should not have to pay the price for their forbears’ mistakes and I don’t believe anyone in Asia, or the rest of the world for that matter has a right to demand that the issue be revisited. And if I were Koizumi I would continue going to Yasukuni because he has the right to partake in his national religion and acknowledge all aspects of his heritage both good and bad.
nukes and firebombs put a much deserved end to Japan. I think the US Defense Department made an estimate of how many US soldiers would have to die to claim Japan, based on the high casualty island hoppings, counting the famous Iwo Jima. The number was more than those who died in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the firebombings of Tokyo. Why feel sorry for them? They got away with much worse they’ve done to other people. And now, some Westerners are saying they shouldn’t pay for the sins of their fathers?
Well, if they’re deadbeat fathers (some of whom are still alive in their 80’s and 90’s), made right back when they were in their prime ages, no one would be discussing this.
Any US citizen glorifying and defending Japan should do so after considering the US citizens who suffered under the Bataan Death March.
let’s not be hypocrites about paying for your past generation’s sins. Jewish people today are asking Swiss bankers to pay back what they’ve stolen behind their white collar jobs, in cooperation with Germany.
Wait. That’s okay, and that’s an ongoing struggle, but this situation between Korea and Japan, isn’t?
Hypocrisy !
Perhaps the West is not accustomed to having to pay for the past generation’s wrong doings, but it is pretty historically practiced in East Asian culture.
Not that this situation applies at all, but in China, I think if you rebel against the king, and you get caught/defeated in your rebel attempt, you, your family, your father’s family, and your wife’s family, and your mother’s family were all subject to doom. We can thank China for the idea and the practice.
Koreans aren’t even asking for heads to roll, just asking for right for wrong done.
If Japan doesn’t do it, just expect a new generation of Japan haters.
The goal is to be as good as Germany has gotten with France. It’s all up to Japan.
as a side note, I think in Iwo Jima, 21000 of 22000 Japanese troops died in a losing cause, in the spirit of Tenno Ban Zai. The nuke was the best decision ever made. Should have dropped some near the Yalu or Beijing in 1951. Then, we won’t have Kim Jong Il.
wjk, it is blindness, hypocrisy and ugly jingoism to suggest that Japan was exclusively evil and therefore innocent civilians deserved to have their bodies melted by bombs. And it is even worse to posit WW2 as a battle between the pure and good nations vs the evil nations. Let’s not forget the economic strictures and sanctions that the US and Britain imposed on Japan in the years leading up to the war. Aggressive and destructive actions against other nations don’t always have to take the form of military attack.
You wrote: “Koreans aren’t even asking for heads to roll, just asking for right for wrong done. If Japan doesn’t do it, just expect a new generation of Japan haters.”
Actually, the Japanese government brought up the idea of joint research body (Korea/Japan)to seek and compensate individual victims. It was the Korean government that refused the offer, stating they would take the burden of taking care of the individuals.
“한일협정 회담서 개별청구권 포기”
태평양전쟁 희생자유족회(회장 양순임)는 17일“지난 1961년 한일회담 당시 우리 정부가 일본 정부의 한국인 희생자에 대한 직접보상 제의를 거부하고 국가가 보상금을 받아 지불하는 방식을 택했다”고 주장했다.
태평양전쟁 희생자 유족회는 이날 국회에서 기자회견을 갖고 그 증거로 ‘제5차한일회담 예비회담 회의록(일반청구권 소위원회 제12,13차 회의록)’을 공개했다.
유족회는 “회의록을 보면 한일회담 당시 한국 정부가 노무자와 군인군속을 포함해 징용의 방법으로 국외로 동원된 생존자, 부상자, 사망자, 행방불명자 등 피징용한국인에 대한 육체적.정신적 고통에 대한 보상금 지급을 청구했다”면서 “그러나 한국정부는 일본정부의 한국인 희생자에 대한 직접 보상 제의를 거부하고 국가가 보상금을 받아 지불하는 방식을 택했음이 기록돼 있다”고 주장했다.
유족회는 이어 “박정희(朴正熙) 정권은 그러나 65년 한일협정 체결뒤 받은 5억달러의 대일청구권 자금으로 피징용 한국인에 대해 보상을 실시해야 함에도 불구하고 포항제철과 경부고속도로 건설에 투입했고, 유신정권 때인 70년대 군인.군속 사망자 8천명에 한해 제한적인 보상을 하는데 그쳤다”고 말했다.
http://www.chosun.com/w21data/.....70183.html
genie 201, thanks for the link.
President Park Jung Hee never won a clean election. He seized power by a military coup, and fixed every election since, then, and he almost lost one of his fixed elections, so he tried to get rid of his political foe.
Anyway, what Park agreed to with the Japanese government doesn’t excuse Japan from not recompensing individuals. That’s my opinion, anyway. Japan has an attitude of “here we did this once, and that’s it.” Germany seems to be more like, “we’re always sorry about what we did, here, take this as well.”
The only thing good about Park was that at least he didn’t send all the money to a personal Swiss bank account, but used a significant portion of it to build up South Korea to what it is today. I personally think Park Geun Hye has some blood Swiss money from her father somewhere. Has to be. Park was better than Marcos in that aspect.
True, the ones who win the war dictate history. A distorted, unilateral view of who was good and who was bad. But, I still maintain that the Japanese deserved the nukes.
Say what you may about these East Asians fighting wars with European nations, but the Japanese were ready to suffer annhilation of their population to resist US invasion and turn them running away. In fact, they believed their Emperor was a real god. Not only them, but the Koreans were to believe this as well. Quite forcibly, by the way. Like Caesar was god. The Japanese were fighting for a living god. They were ready to die. Kind of like how the Muslim combatants look at things. Why else would Japan not surrender with the 1st nuke, and take a 2nd nuke? They were ready to die, until, they saw what a horrendous weapon the US had.
Look at what Vietnam did to the US. They probably sufferred horrendous casualties. US ran away, because they didn’t want to suffer 80%+ casualties just to defeat and land on a foreign land. If the Rosenbergs (or whoever sold or gave the nuke info to the Soviet bloc) never committed the death-worthy treachery, Vietnam War could have been over with a nuke on Hanoi. They would have been part of the free world for about 30 years and counting. And quite prosperous. Maybe living better than Korea. Communists called religion the opium for the masses, but it turns out communism was the opinum for the masses. So many wasted years (half a century), on an economic and political model that didn’t allow for any positive growth.
The invasion of Japan could have easily been a Vietnam for the US. US might have been bogged down, sufferred enormous casualties, people at home might have been calling for a return home, and to let those yellow people live as they were. And Japan would have won. Japan would have won, and Korea (being very close) might still be part of the Empire of Japan. Meanwhile, the Soviets might have pushed ahead in the European theater, driving West to plant more Soviet satellites. US might have lost western Europe to communism and been bogged down in Japan, well past 1945.
Thank goodness that Japan got nuked. They wouldn’t have surrendered otherwise. Yes, I know Koreans got jacked by the bomb, too. Who, by the way, were denied proper medical services, according to what I was taught, anyway.
” I think the US Defense Department made an estimate of how many US soldiers would have to die to claim Japan, based on the high casualty island hoppings, counting the famous Iwo Jima”
It’s a shame you are ignorant of the historical fact.
http://www.doug-long.com/summary.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico22.html
If korea really wants Japan to act like German, she had to give all the money that she got by the treaty, with interest added, back to Japan.then Japan would pay reparations indvidually,( That was the the way Japan insisted she would pay.Korea claimed instead she would take care of it.)
WJK, I agree with you on three points.
1. Your sentiment regarding the nukes.
There certainly was an estimate initiated by the Joint Chiefs. Not necessarily of the number of soldiers it would take, but what actions would most affect the Japanese leadership. Contrary, to sky’s claim of historical fact the Defense Department, after much debate, determined that the horror of WWII in Asia must be brought home to Japan. The Navy argued vehemently that only horrific casualties could tear Tojo away from the Emperor. The MAGIC reports that sky’s links refer to only drive that point home. In fact, Tojo had already made it clear that unconditional surrender was not an option regardless of the US policy on retention of the emperor. All of the reconsideration of the efficacy of the bomb in those links was hindsight only. I think it’s clear that their use was appropriate.
2. You brought up the hypocrisy of the west in supporting Jewish claims to the funds in Swiss banks while not listening to victims in Asia. I agree in essence that there has been much greater willingness to listen to the Jewish community. I do not, however, believe it has much to do with German politics. The Jewish lobby has simply been more consistent and unified over the years.
3. You also point out the west’s tendency to move on and forget while the East demands that one pay for the sins of the past generation. While that cultural phenomenon is true it doesn’t make it right. The East does hold people accountable for the sin’s of their parents, ONLY WHERE CONVENIENT. No one in Korea is advocating that the descendants of Yangban pay the descendants of the 노비 (slaves), Koreans who were enslaved by their own people to serve their whims.
There is too much sh*t to go around to start keeping records and tallying up compensation points. The Japanese responded extremely well to MacArthur’s generous and magnanomous “reign” over post-war Japan. Perhaps Asia should have learned something from that example.
One slight point of disagreement - the Bataan Death March is not a particularly good example to bring up when talking about Japanese atrocities, from a Korean perspective, that is. While there are plenty of other examples of the Japanese’ horrific acts towards POWs and civilians, the Battle of Bataan and subsequent Death March isn’t a good one. The majority of guards were Korean and Taiwanese conscripts who, in the words of many prisoners, were eager to please their bosses and who came up with barbarously creative ways to torture that even the Japanese officers were surprised by. There were even some survivors of Bataan who were unfortunate enough to go to Korea later and were captured by North Koreans. Their experience was that the North Koreans employed the exact same tactics of torture that the Japanese did, only to a worse degree. Indeed, there is sh*t enough to go around.
” the Defense Department, after much debate, determined that the horror of WWII in Asia must be brought home to Japan. The Navy argued vehemently that only horrific casualties could tear Tojo away from the Emperor.”
It does not follow that their decision was right.
And
” On July 18, 1945, exactly 19 days before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, in his own handwritten diary, Harry S. Truman wrote:
“Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. (Churchill) of telegram from Jap emperor asking for peace…”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/t.....diary.html
Besides,I don’t understand why someone could say.” Thanks goddness that innocent Koreans and women and chidren got nuked”.
Who said this: ” Thanks goddness that innocent Koreans and women and chidren got nuked”. ??
I couldn’t find it in the comments. Whoever said it, regardless of their other points, spoke out of line.
Regarding Truman’s diary it would seem he was the one who made the mistake, not the Navy. Truman’s last entry on the 17th of July emphasizes that fact. But the mistake was in telling Stalin anything, not in using the bomb. He thought he could beat Stalin’s timeline for entering the war and Truman miscalculated egregiously. The radio transmissions the Navy leaders were concerned about regarded top Japanese military commanders who were trying to force a wedge between the USSR and the US and thought if they could hold out long enough they could force an incident between the two and thus give themselves time to regroup and consolidate. That is what the MAGIC radio summaries project was all about. It was the content of that debate that prompted the Emperor to contact Stalin of his own accord. Tojo clearly indicated to the Japanese Ambassador that unconditional surrender was not an option and that he was waiting to see if the Russians would respond better.
It’s also very telling in the targets he ordered Stimson to go after, specifically steering him away from major residential cities towards war-industrial heavy cities where the populace would have known exactly what their industrial products were being used for. As for any Koreans being present, I doubt that entered into the discussion or if such a notion even occurred to the US decision-makers.