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| AsiaViews, Edition: 40/V/Oct/2008 |
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| Historical Dialogue & Reconciliation in East Asia |
| The impact of wars can be long-lasting, and can become a serious impediment to fostering good relations between nations that once went to war against each other. Experts believe the study of history and historical interpretations are often at the core of the process of reconciliation. This was the theme of a panel discussion held at the Asian Voices seminar on September in Washington, DC, co-hosted by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, with the Sigur Center of Elliott School and co-sponsored by the George Washington University. The following are the abridged comments of two among five speakers in the panel: Professor Mitani Hiroshi of the University of Tokyo, and Professor Bu Ping, who is Dean of the Center for Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. |
Professor Mitani Hiroshi
This year we saw a cooling down of the controversy on historical memories in East Asia that had swept this region for several years in the early 21st century. Changes in the political leadership of Japan in September 2007 and in Korea in February 2008, enabled the governments in East Asia to shelve historical problems through diplomacy and hand them over to history specialists.
In the spring of 2005, when young people in Seoul, Beijing and other major cities in China demonstrated against Japan, I worried about the possibility that nations in East Asia might have fallen into a vicious cycle of antipathy that no government can control. The historical controversy seemed to invite further conflicts in international relations. Fortunately, this wildfire stopped and political leaders seemed to realize the dangers in exploiting historical memories to gain the support of domestic public opinion.
Yet, the problem of historical memory remains unresolved. It has even spread beyond an issue between Japan and its neighboring nations. Korea and China recently disputed over the ancient states of Koguryo and Bohai. National histories in East Asia are now in conflict with each other. There are deep gaps of historical memories in East Asia that will continue to evoke controversies from generation to generation.
Let us briefly look at the history of historical issues with reference to its political context and analyze the problems involved. There are six major issues that have evoked harsh controversies in recent years: the Nanjing mass atrocities, comfort women, the Tokyo war crimes tribunal, the Yasukuni Shrine, post-war reparations and history textbooks. But here, I’d like to talk only on textbook issue.
It is a relatively new phenomenon that nations in East Asia have begun to pay attention to the historical memories of neighboring people. After World War II, China and Korea created national histories in which Japan and the West played major roles as villains in modern history. However, before 1982, they seldom paid attention to the historical memories among the Japanese. At one point, both nations made protests as they perceived that the Japanese Ministry of Education forced the textbook publishers to rewrite their draft to replace the word “invasion” with “advance.” Here, I will not analyze why they made this protest, but I point out that it happened almost 40 years after World War II rather than during the years when many, many people who have suffered from Japanese invasions were alive.
The Japanese government responded to these claims sincerely. The spokesman, Kiichi Miyazawa made a statement that the government would stand by its expressions of regret for wrongdoings of the past which it made upon normalizing relations with Korea and China in the 1960s and 1970s. Also, the next cabinet authorized the addition of a clause that demanded that, “In dealing with events in the modern and contemporary history of relations with neighboring countries of Asia, textbooks should give appropriate consideration to viewing them from the standpoint of international understanding and international cooperation.” The prime minister at that time decided on these moves because they sincerely regretted the Imperial Japan’s invasion and they wanted to have the international society welcome Japan not as a mere economic power but as a political power.
Since the mid-1980s, it was customary for neighboring nations to criticize severely every time Japanese textbooks were revised. The authors became more attentive to these sentiments and included descriptions of the activities of Imperial Japan, such as the Nanjing atrocities, the forced mobilization to Japanese mines and so forth. Also, the Ministry of Education began to shed the strong ideological standpoint it had taken during the 1960s and 1970s. The change was partly because various judges criticized them for their arbitrary authorization process during the famous lawsuits by historian Ienaga Saburo and partly because there emerged a non-LDP cabinet in 1993. Today, the ministry still hides behind the transparent standards and procedures in textbook authorization while keeping its power to control textbook policy as a whole.
In the early 1990s, a number of former comfort women in Korea and other countries came to seek redress and dignity as human beings. Some scholars call it sexual slavery, and the Japanese Imperial Army’s comfort woman system was indeed a most inhumane and shameful institution, one that the military employed to maintain its organization. So, in 1993 all history textbooks for high schools included a brief description of this incident and most textbooks for junior high schools followed suit. However, this move evoked a strong backlash in Japan. When non-LDP Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa announced his regret and apology for the bad acts of Imperial Japan including this particular one, many LDP members criticized him as unpatriotic.
For some politicians, such criticism might simply be a means to recover their power and organize a comeback but for others, such as recently, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other younger politicians, it was the starting point of a broader intent to exploit historical memory. They found it very effective to appeal to this kind of nationalism to gain support from public opinion. Their criticism was fuelled by the anti-Japanese campaign that Chinese leader Jiang Zemin began in 1995.
On the other hand, the addition of the comfort women issue in secondary school history textbooks evoked not a few criticisms among the wider Japanese public. Major question was raised as to whether it was proper or not to teach such sexual cruelty to junior high pupils before they receive adequate sex education. Apparently swayed by this criticism, only eight textbooks for junior high schools removed the account of comfort women in the next version, while most senior high school textbooks retained it.
Yet, a more important reaction to this controversy was the launching by some intellectuals in 1997 of a popular movement to publish a history textbook that would describe Japan as an impeccable nation. They succeeded in organizing grass roots support for their “Tsukurukai” society by appealing to the Japanese populace, suffering from anxiety and uneasiness caused by the long economic depression of the 1990s. They maintained that Japanese history belonged to only the Japanese and that it was shameful to allow foreign interference in Japan’s national history. They claimed they were simply behaving as Chinese and Koreans did. Although this movement at first was not connected to the hawks in the LDP, the two groups gradually began to cooperate with each other.
The history textbook controversy in 2001 marked the start of harsh debate on historical memories in East Asia. When the Ministry of Education authorized the Tsukurukai textbook after demanding the revision of 137 parts that violated its standards, both Japanese leftist intellectuals and Korean and Chinese public opinion began to criticize the Tsukurukai and the Ministry of Education. Within Japan, a serious dispute emerged between the Sankei newspaper supporting the Tsukurukai and the Asahi newspaper, the established leader for leftist intellectuals. This controversy even involved TV shows and radios, making it a national issue. Nationalist discourse seemed to have overwhelmed Japanese public opinion. However, the educators and the public who were responsible for the selection of the textbooks in the schools made unexpected decisions. The share of Tsukurukai textbook, it turned out, was only 0.04%, practically nothing. Contrary to the impression created by the media, Tsukurukai totally lacked the power to prevail in the textbook market.
This textbook controversy in 2001 revealed several important problems and changed the setting of discourse. First, it became evident that the political dichotomy of the left and the right was not as effective. Most people supported the status quo after World War II: peace and prosperity under capitalism and peaceful relations with neighboring people.
Secondly, during this controversy, I found that ordinary Japanese lacked knowledge of what Imperial Japan did to neighboring people. This does not mean that Japanese history textbooks did not present the subject. The problem was that ordinary Japanese adults failed to remember even though they read the textbooks. For example, they learned that Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and began colonial rule from textbooks. However, it was difficult for them to realize what it meant for Koreans. Even I have to confess, as a historian of Japanese modern history, I realized this only when I heard a Korean historian say, “A part of our history is the history of another country.” I think it is most important for the Japanese to think about historical facts from the others’ points of view. For this purpose, I am now editing a series of modern regional history of East Asia titled Modern History for Japanese Adults with Professor Kawashima and Lim Jie.
Thirdly, international movements emerged to overcome the discrepancies in historical memories in East Asia. Although cooperative researches on modern East Asian history had already begun in 1890, the 2001 controversy accelerated these attempts. Most of them shared a clear goal: to prevent Japanese educators from adopting the Tsukurukai textbook during the next revision and to have the Japanese public be made aware of the evils of what people did in the past in the name of the Japanese Empire. The most famous project of this kind was the publication of A History for the Future in 2005, edited by historians from Japan, South Korea and China.
International relations in East Asia actually worsened during the same time that these international efforts took place. Tensions culminated in the massive anti-Japanese demonstrations in Korea and China in the spring of 2005. One of the direct causes was Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. I would like to point out that neighboring people interpreted Koizumi’s repeated visits as clear evidence that Japanese nation as a whole wanted to overlook their sins during the first half of the 20th century. This view was understandable.
But Japanese public opinion at that time split in half according to the public opinion polls taken by newspapers just after Koizumi’s last visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. Although half of the Japanese people supported it for various reasons, another half was critical of it because they thought it improper to offend our neighboring people who continuously asked not to do this.
Yet, the successor of Prime Minister Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, continued to harass neighboring people. Although he claimed to be a friend of South Korea, he continued to refer to the comfort women issue as if he wanted to whitewash it. True, he did not deny the public announcements made by the former Japanese government. But, his ideological stance on Japanese imperial history was clear enough to increase the doubts of neighboring people toward the Japanese nation as a whole. Even American people were embarrassed every time he referred to this issue last year. It was not until Mr. Yasuo Fukuda assumed prime minister that I felt relieved from the fear that Japanese leadership might bring more conflicts with East Asian people in spite of the wishes of Japanese majority who prefer to live in peace with neighboring people.
I would now like to turn my attention to the conditions of historical memories along with neighboring people. There exists among Japan’s neighbors a strong tendency to neglect Japanese efforts to face its evil past. This February at Stanford University, I heard an editor of history textbooks from Beijing say that Japanese textbooks tried not only to conceal their evil activities but also to praise the Japanese invasions. He said this was based on the Tsukurukai textbook. Is it proper to represent Japanese textbooks by referring to a practically unused textbook? He also neglected the fact that it was absolutely impossible to praise Japanese invasions according to the standards set by the Ministry of Education.
Understandably, Chinese people still doubt Japan to this day. I think it is proper to denounce some Japanese who try to whitewash the invasions and oppression. Yet, I was very disappointed to find out that Japan’s efforts to improve textbooks were totally hidden from the Chinese public, even the elite. If this situation continues, the Chinese people will go on believing that all Japanese shamelessly continue to avoid recognizing its evil past. We, the Japanese who engage in history education, need the recognition of our efforts by the neighboring people or encouragement instead of neglect.
Thinking about the future of historical memory issues in East Asia, there are several tasks to be taken care of. One, we should not utilize historical memory for politics or diplomacy. Doing so will only reinforce the existing antagonism between nations in East Asia, among future generations.
Secondly, we must pay more attention to historical education for adults, not children. It is not children but adults who engage in political controversies. Our efforts to publish a series of East Asian Modern History for adults will offer some clues to solve this problem.
Thirdly, we must make comparisons of history textbooks in East Asia. In the long run, textbooks will continue to play significant roles in forming national memories. In order to understand present national memories and to promote reconciliation among future generations, it is not adequate to just analyze Japanese textbooks. Stanford University’s project for comparative studies of Chinese, South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese and US textbooks will offer precious insights in this respect.
Lastly, we must begin efforts to overcome national histories. As mentioned earlier, there is a territorial controversy on ancient history between China and the two Koreas. National histories will continue to be the source of international disputes in East Asia. We will not reach reconciliation if academics in East Asia lack the courage to be responsible for nurturing transnational imagination. One of the solutions may be to write about a regional history that presents historical images from other nations’ viewpoints as well as describe the emergence of a shared world.
Professor Bu Ping
During recent years, international dialogue as well as mutual understanding on historical perceptions have been debated around the world.
There have been efforts between Germany and France and between Germany and Poland to create a common history textbook and these efforts have been a model for nations around the world where disputes still exist.
However, at the same time, in the East Asian countries of China, Japan and South Korea, scholars and teachers have been making joint effort to create a common historical perception.
For example, starting in 2001, thanks to the grant given by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, young historians in China and Japan got together and for four years, they have debated and researched and created the publication Contentious Issues in Modern Sino-Japanese Relations.
In 2002, the scholars and the teachers of China, Japan and South Korea established a forum called Forum on Historical Perception of East Asia and Peace. By 2005, they completed a modern and contemporary history textbook called Contemporary and Modern History of China, Japan and South Korea, published simultaneously in the three countries. Today, some schools are using this textbook as a side reading material.
Japanese and South Korean scholars also published a book called The Recent History of Communications between Japan and Korea.
Scholars in the private and public sectors, are also making efforts to reduce this historical perception gap among governments. Starting in 2002, the first joint historical research began, between the Japanese and South Korean governments. By 2005, the first phase was completed and now they are in the second stage.
At the end of 2006, the governments of China and Japan also started a joint historical study.
Ten scholars each from the Chinese and Japanese sides, were members of this joint study committee. There were also the sub-committees on ancient and modern contemporary histories. I represent the Chinese side and I am the chairman of the Chinese side of the committee, and Professor Shinichi Kitaoka of the University of Tokyo represents the Japanese side.
The joint study we refer here involves first, the selection of the theme of research and based on the theme, scholars from both sides must write theses and based on the theses, we carried out debates.
The joint study this time selected seven themes on ancient history and nine themes on modern contemporary history. There are 16 themes altogether. Japanese side and Chinese side both have to present 16 theses; that means that there are 32 theses available.
As you very well know, between China and Japan, there are many gaps and imbroglio on the history surrounding the war, so for the modern and contemporary history portion, not only the nine themes selected with determined keywords to write down.
Both Japanese and Chinese scholars, each scholar have to write theses based on the theme and keywords given and all 32 theses have been completed. The Kanji used is over 800,000 characters. We plan to publish this by the end of this year.
The most important significance of this China-Japan historical joint study is that a peaceful and stable research environment was created. Before we solve all the perception gaps and problems, it is necessary for each side to listen to the other and debate.
So far, both sides have gotten together 10 times and had their debate. Of course, disputes still remain, but the ambience is very friendly.
The issues and problems of historical perception between China and Japan, a majority of them are related to the war of 60 years ago. When we analyze them specifically, we can summarize them into three levels.
One level is political and diplomatic. This is something that the two governments have to resolve.
The war is over, however, it is necessary to summarize the lessons learned from the war. Of course, it is the official view of the Japanese government that it accepts responsibility for the war.
Nevertheless, some Japanese politicians have not actually accepted this. They continue to pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine, and sometimes they utter delusionary words, expressions indicating they have not accepted responsibility for the war. Consequently, sometimes political problems arise between China and Japan, and between Korea and Japan.
The second level is the emotional level. This is something people from both countries have to resolve.
The people of both countries who have experienced war, may have different experiences depending on where, which country they are from. Their perception, however, is to emphasize the victimization aspect of the war.
For example, the images that Chinese people have about the war would be summarized as the Nanjing massacre, bacteriological war, chemical war. And the images that the Japanese have are the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, air strikes over Tokyo, and so forth. Of course, these are all facts.
However, the fact that the Japanese emphasized their victimization of their war experiences gave the Chinese people the impression that Japan does not really accept its responsibility for the war.
The third level is the academic level. This is the problem that scholars and academics of both countries have to resolve.
Insufficient historical material, insufficient empirical study, these are the remaining problems and there still exists other academic problems.
The remaining problems for example are the number of victims at the Nanjing massacre, the Tanaka memoranda-type of written material.
However, when we talk about three levels, political, emotional, and academic, there are no strict partitions separating them, therefore they influence each other very strongly.
If the politicians take advantage of those issues that have not been solved by academicians and scholars, they can become political and diplomatic disputes between the nations, and people’s power can be very strong. The governments and scholars have to be very careful and mindful of the impact on the emotions of the people, otherwise, the situation can become very dangerous.
In order to promote the mutual understanding of historical perceptions, the responsibilities of the scholars become crucial because people have historical perception more accurate than scholars. Yet, people have less opportunities to have direct interchange of ideas.
It is incumbent on the academics who participate in the international exchange to make efforts to promote mutual understanding of historical perceptions. Scholars have to have borderless perception and communicate the accurate and real situation of the other sides to their own side. This is the ultimate significance in borderless historical perception.
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