SecularBeast comments

@decibel, said: "Europeans did not slaughter 20 milllion chinese. Imperial army did."

You've got to be careful with this kind of claim, decibel. Japan did not 'slaughter' 20 million (or whatever figure the CCP choose to throw around). The majority of civilian deaths in China during the Second Sino-Japan War (1937-45) were due to starvation and disease, not 'slaughter'.

While elements of the IJA were responsible for civilian massacres in some areas, to attempt to portray every death during the conflict as such (as the CCP do), is nonsense. While starvation was a flow on effect of the war, the massive armies the KMT and CCP were marching around the country needed to be fed - and for this they preyed on the civilian population for food as much as the Japanese did.

History is never as simplistic as nationalists choose to portray it to serve their own interests.

'The Australian' newspaper is Rupert Murdoch's media flagship in Australia, and little more than the mouthpiece for the conservative Liberal Party and its far-right agendas. The right wing Liberal Party under Prime Minister Tony Abbott is extremely unpopular after less than a year in office due its US 'Tea Party' inspired social policies which favor corporate interests to the detriment of the rest of the Australian community, especially the lower (working) classes.

As a result, if an election were held tomorrow, the Liberal Party government would be voted out in a political landslide, and are using fear of terrorists and warmongering in an attempt to scare the population and save their political hides. This cynical attempt to foster a loathsome form of patriotism (Abbott's 'Team Australia') against 'enemies' that pose no threat to Australia, is being assisted by the Murdoch press who are amping up the fear via bogus polls like the one mentioned in this article.

Preying on these same baseless fears, he Liberal Party are also attempting to introduce new legislation that would gag investigative journalism (and whistle-blowers), and give even greater surveillance and arrest powers (and lots more money) to Australia's security and spy organizations. It's a disgusting political travesty.

Good grief. Why does Japan have to do anything to cater to the peculiarities of tourists? When I visit Japan, I do so because I like Japan for being Japan, and it'd be downright disrespectful to expect the Japanese to make things just like home for me.

Part of the joy of visiting any foreign country is that it takes you away from your everyday at home existence and presents new experiences - whether that be in food, local culture, ideas, and beliefs. If I want the country I am visiting to change itself to be just like the country I live in, why bother leaving home at all?

If the beliefs of Muslims (or any other group) are so precious that they expect others to cater to their religious oddities, then perhaps tourism and foreign travel should be scratched from their list of entertainment.

A-hem JT. 'China' is not holding military exercises, the PLA are.

The PLA is the private army/navy/air-force of the Chinese Communist Party. The PLA is not a national military force like those of Japan or other democratic nations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iMz-wQ7eeE

Soooo...all the nations who actually fought the Japanese (e.g. UK, USA, Australia) don't celebrate the end of the Pacific War; but the two parties who contributed nothing to the defeat of Imperial Japan (i.e. the CCP/PLA and Korea) celebrate it? Will the CCP and Koreans invite KMT veterans (who actually fought the Japanese) to the festivities, or the Koreans who fought with the Japanese?

It's hilarious that no one can be even bothered to comment on these CCP/PLA incursions anymore. It's an indication of how meaningless and impotent these actions are, an dhow little anyone cares about the CCP's claims on the Senkakus.

@itsonlyrocknroll, @sfjp330, @Zenpun: You're gilding the lily about Russia's importance to Japan as a trading partner.

"According to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, in 2013 the Russian-Japanese trade reached a record high of $34.8 billion. Japan actively buys Russian fuel. In particular, Russia accounts for 10% of Japan’s total liquefied natural gas imports." http://en.itar-tass.com/economy/724579

It's peanuts. The GDP of Tokyo alone is $2.9 trillion.

Despite the intense propaganda campaign, the CCP haven't been able to recruit anyone else into their ridiculous anti-Japan crusade, and are now attempting to draft Russia on the back of trade deal (which wasn't too great for Russia). The CCP can't provide any realistic reasons for others to voluntarily join them in hating on Japan - so now they are turning to checkbook diplomacy (economic bribery and extortion) in an attempt to win support for their absurd crusade.

The CCP are out of their cotton-pickin' minds. What exactly have they ever done to win the respect and/or admiration of other nations and peoples? What have they ever contributed to the well of human knowledge or done for the benefit of humanity or international affairs? Zilch.

Man, President Park is milking this tragedy for all its worth for PR purposes. First to lead the lynch-mob and demand retribution against the company and crew (before any investigation was even conducted), then scapegoat and abolish the coast guard (rather than examining and rectifying any problems they had - such as manpower or equipment shortages), and now blubs about being responsible when there will be zero repercussions for doing so personally or politically. Then again, apart from being the first President Parks daughter, performing this type of political theatrics is all she seems to have going for her as a politician.

“A rat will not be pacified when we hesitate to pelt it for fear of smashing the vase beside it,” it [The China Daily] added.

The only 'rat' is China under the CCP - and ironically, this is good advice for those nations opposing them.

The usual rhetorical blather from the CCP. From their twisted perspective, their bullying Vietnam and attempting to steal Vietnam's territory and resources isn't fueling regional tensions, but others criticizing their theft that is causing the tensions.

The CCP are so used to people at home unquestioningly swallowing whatever codswallop they spout and hienous acts they commit (because they've spent 65 years silencing and intimidating any dissent), that they have lost the ability for presenting logic-based arguments, or for handling criticism from those they can't simply bully into silence (like other nation states).

Puppet Hua's statement is pure sophist nonsense. "Stop making irresponsible remarks and do more things which are conducive to maintaining peace and stability in the region." Here, 'more things' means don't object to any territorial or resource theft by China, don't object to bullying smaller states into submission, don't try to make the CCP accountable to international laws, don't report or criticize the CCPs psychotic behavior, and kiss the CCP's cashed-up butt at all times.

China under the CCP has become a rogue state.

What is it with Park and her need to preempt the outcome of any official investigation and legal enquiry? By leading the lynch mob baying for blood and vengeance she is subverting and tainting the judicial process by pressuring investigators to arrive at her unproven and emotive conclusions, but also casting as yet unproven aspersions and character assassination upon the ferry crew (which again taints the investigation).

While this type of emotive hyperventilating would be understandable for a Seoul house-wife, it's unbecoming for the nations president to act this way: She should be backing the investigators and the judicial process to arrive at questions of culpability based upon facts, rather than attempting them to force them to arrive at a conclusion that supports her emotive ignorance.

@igloobuyer - Yeah, it''s much more preferable to have a TPP with a nation that conducts business based upon party nepotism, bribery, and jailing anyone in business who gets in the way - and a refusal to hold itself to any international standards, currency manipulation, and scaring the bejesus out of everyone in the Western Pacific with hairy chested territorial and resource grabs. What could possibly go wrong?

It takes two to tango, President Park. Take the Takeshima dispute before the ICJ, perhaps? Abide by the the terms of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations? Acknowledge and accept official Japanese apologies and compensation for 'comfort women' via the Asian Women's Fund, rather than deny and reject them to turn the issue into a political football to win votes and promote nationalist rage at home?

With these remarks, Park shows she clearly not fit for the office of President. It is not the Presidents job to lead lynch-mobs, or to prejudge or bias the outcomes of criminal and legal proceedings with emotive and intemperate comments. Rather than pandering to the angst of voters via a low-brow revenge mentality, she should be giving aid and comfort to those affected, and showing confidence in investigators and the judiciary.

@igloobuyer 12:02am - Please don't conflate Imperial Japan's actions in China with Korea, they were two different kettles of fish. The Japanese were never 'at war' with the Koreans like they were with the Chinese - there were no 'Nanjings' in Korea and no widespread race-based brutality. The Japanese viewed Koreans as 'kin' who had to lifted out of their feudalism, and attempted to do that putting in place the same social and political mechanisms that had allowed them to rapidly modernize via a process of 'Japanization'. When after 70 years, the rabid anti-Japan based nationalism of Korea can only point to 'comfort women' as their example of overt Japanese brutality towards them, it is a miniscule issue when compared to the list of Chinese grievances.

What tends to be overlooked in the Korean arguments, is that 'comfort women' were also drawn from the Japanese population. It simply wasn't something the Japanese reserved for infliction upon women from occupied territories. It was a common practice in Japan, Korea, and China, the pre-1945 era for families in debt to criminal organizations to indenture their daughters to those organizations as prostitutes until the debt was repaid. By today's standards, this trade does appear totally repugnant, but it was a culturally accepted norm at that time.

@Strangerland, @Thomas Anderson - You both seem to be operating under the assumption that everything the Koreans are saying is true, and any questioning of their claims over the issue by any Japanese or others is immoral. Time and again in these comment pages, other contributors have pointed to glaring inconsistencies in the stories told by 'comfort women', the involvement of Korean 'pimps' in the trade, and the strict regulations placed upon the operation of brothels and treatment of prostitutes at the time. Most of the objections to the Korean claims comes not from a denial that prostitution existed, they are about the cherry-picking of the facts to paint Japan in the worst light while absolving themselves of any responsibility - that is, that the trade could not have operated without Korean involvement.

The issue of personal compensation was supposedly put to rest in the 1965 treaty signed by President Park's father, but when the issue came up many decades later, the Korean government not only rejected any apologies, but thwarted attempts to pay compensation via the Asian Women's Fund. Now, the game is that not only must the Emperor personally grovel at the feet of the comfort women and apologize (which is insulting), but also that every person in Japan must accept the Korean biased version of events and never question it to satisfy their demands for 'sufficient contrition' (which is a ridiculous notion and at odds with democratic free speech).

The inanity of the Korean position was recently highlighted when one of Abe's sidekicks (Suga) hinted at reviewing the1993 Kono Statement (apology). Up until that time, the Koreans had refused to acknowledge any Japanese apologies, but luring the Koreans to object to the review was a clever way to get the Korean government to admit that an official apology had been made. This political game would not have been necessary if the Koreans had accepted the Japanese apologies and offers of compensation, in good faith, 20 years ago, rather than using the issue to continually fuel anti-Japanese based nationalism at home. Its time to stop these games.

China protests against Yasukuni visit? World protests against China interning 10s of 1000s of Falung Gung practioners in concentration camps and torturing and murdering them, or harvesting their organs for cashed CCP members enriching themselves at the nations expense. CCP - go to hell with your irrelevant hypocritical whining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8xDXvjeuaE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHKHNk7VLg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElHH0vDWpU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nKjGYoXqc4

@Thomas Jefferson @Strangerland - before leaping to any conclusions, familiarize yourself with the basic facts of Korean society (and the lot of the average Korean) before and after the Japanese occupation.

If any Korean can say they would have preferred Korea to have remained an isolated, backward feudal state, ruled by a venal self serving Confucian elite that kowtowed to China, where 30-40% of the population were hereditary slaves and the illiterate peasantry (most of the population were forced to wear identity plates and not allowed travel outside their own villages, and state sponsored religious persecution was the norm (all of which Japan ended) - they're out of their cotton-picking minds. Life was much better for the average Korean during the Japanese occupation than it had ever been under the yoke of the Joseon Dynasty.

The Joseon Dynasty murdered or exiled any one who threatened the status quo, and as I said, it was only a massive country-wide peasant revolt against this oppressive system and Japanese intervention in 1894 that forced social and political change. In the late 19th Century, most of the Korean educated elite calling for reform had either been schooled at Japanese universities or were impressed by (and wanted to mimic) Japan's rapid modernization.

Certainly by modern standards, some aspects of life were tough for average Koreans during the Japanese Colonial Period, but life was positively dire before that time. The modern state of Korea would not have been possible without the education system established by the Japanese, and the post-war academics, managers, economists, techno-crats etc it produced.

These basic facts tend to get buried by Korean nationalists, as it doesn't play to the propagandist narrative of Korean victimization by the Japanese 70-100 years ago.

I doubt few outside of Korea can comprehend the depths that Korean ultra-nationalists have sunk to since 1945 in their witch hunts against anyone even mildly supportive of the Japanese, even more so, those deemed as 'collaborators' (which has been extended to witch hunts and the seizure of assets of their children and grand children).

This hatred of all things Japanese became an article of faith of Korean post-war nationalism, and cares not a wit about facts or reality, and has created an imagined alternative narrative to describe the Japanese occupation which few Koreans dare question for fear of being labelled 'traitors' or 'collaborators'. As this imagined history has been propagated by successive Korean governments (via education and dictum), it gets repeated ad nauseum by those with little or no factual understanding of Japanese occupation.

While there were elements of the Japanese occupation that were repugnant, they are not the whole story. Korean nationalists simply refuse to accept that millions of their citizens embraced the liberation from feudalism (and literal slavery for 30-40% of the population) that accompanied the Japanese occupation, and the opportunities presented by the modernity (and industrialization) they introduced.

The notion that every Korean was bitterly opposed to the Japanese occupation, or suffered under it, is a fallacy - consider these statistics: At the end of the Pacific War in 1945 there were an estimated 2.4 million Koreans living in Japan (roughly 10% of the total population of Korea at that time), and after assisted voluntary repatriation, 650,000 Koreans chose to stay in Japan rather than return to Korea. The decision made to stay in Japan by 3% of the total Korean population is counter-intuitive to the argument of universal suffering or 'slavery' promoted by post-war Korean nationalists.

As @Nigelboy has explained, there was no forced labour until the last year of the war, and prior to that, Koreans migrated to Japan under labor contracts - the same labour contracts many Japanese worked under at the time. To portray this voluntary workforce who migrated to Japan for a job and a better life as enslaved or forced labour is simply re-writing history.

Koreans simply cannot accept that without the Japanese, the Joseon Dynasty would have been content to maintain the status quo of the backward feudal society they ruled, while kowtowing to Beijing, and suppressing any dissent (such as the 1894 Peasant Revolt where the Joseon Dynasty relied upon the Japanese military to prevent social anarchy).

Until contemporary Koreans acknowledge that a large number of Koreans embraced and benefited from the Japanese Gabo Reforms and later occupation (including most of the founders of Korea's modern industrial conglomerates), and embrace the truths of their own history, the inane bitterness towards the Japanese is set to continue.

@Guru29 - I fail to see what recitations of war crimes committed more than 70 years ago accomplishes, other than serve as a useful distraction to crimes committed by the CCP during their time in power (including their questionable territorial claims and self-serving criminality at home in the present). It's pure hypocrisy for the CCP (and its supporters like you) to cry crocodile tears about Japanese brutality 70 years ago and historical distortions/denials, when the CCP has killed 4 times more Chinese than Imperial Japan ever did (so far) and rewrites history in amateurish attempts to conceal the facts from its own people and the world at large - including its debt to Japan which @sfjp330 mentions above.

The CCP claim that 35 million died as a result of the 2nd Sino-Japan War has consistently been debunked as over-inflated. Western historians put the number at around 20 million, while KMT estimates in the post-war period put the figure at around 10 million. It is also wrong to infer that all these people died directly at Japanese hands, as these figures (in all instances) are inflated by including civilians who died due to disease and starvation as a result of the war (and who represent the majority of civilian deaths). The fact is, no accurate records of the numbers of deaths were kept by any of the parties involved at the time, so any figures claimed by the CCP are purely speculative.

If the CCP wants to remind the world of the damage caused to China and its people by the Japanese prior to 1945, the Japanese (and other nations) should be begin reminding the world about the damage done to China and its people by the CCP since 1949 - and which is ongoing. 20 million died during the Japanese occupation (and the majority of those by disease and starvation), while the CCP body count is 80 million and rising each year. The CCP harping on about events of 70+ years ago, are nothing but crocodile tears about the past from a small-minded criminal gang who have no positive narrative to present about their own time in power.

In 1945, Japanese war-criminals were put on trial and executed or imprisoned, the political structure of the country was rebuilt from the ground up to create a truly democratic nation, reparations were paid to all nations damaged by the former militarist regime, steps taken to improve relations with other nations over decades, and Japan has become a model global citizen. One can only hope the same thing happens with the CCP and China.

@Spoony - Indeed. lol.

@oedo1 - Park would have wet herself if Abe had said how much Japan honoured and respected her family for her father's services and friendship to Japan both before and after 1945: For not only serving as an officer in the IJA, but also for signing off on the Japan-ROK reparations agreement in 1965 that absolved Japan from any legal responsibility to pay compensation to individuals.

Park's squawking at the Japanese over past wrongs, is similar to the self-righteousness guilt-ridden rantings of a reformed smoker over the evils of tobacco. She only holds office by virtue of who her father was.

@MASSWIPE - The only Koreans agitating for modernization in the late 19th Century were those who had either been educated at Japanese universities, or yangbang who saw their best chance for independence lay with following the Japanese Meiji model. The Joseon Dynasty had no intention or desire to change the status quo, and at the last throw of the dice Queen Min was prepared to seek Russian support to prop up their rotting regime, rather than modernize.

The Joseon Dynasty would have been finished by 1912 anyway, with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China, and Chinese nationalist had no interest in maintaining feudal tributary relationships with Korea.

Given the resistance to social change by the Joseon Dynasty, the only way Korea could have modernized under its own steam would be via destructive internal revolution. The nationwide Donghak Peasant Revolts in 1894 (which the Joseon Dynasty only succeeded in putting down with Japanese military assistance) are an indication of how bloody internal revolution to unseat the Joseon Dynasty would have been without Japanese intervention in 1910.

Thank you, nigelboy, for attempting to get some facts on the table about the Japanese annexation of Korea, despite the howls of protest and derision.

The 'Korea as eternal victim' crowd (including Korean politicians like Pak) tend to ignore facts that disprove the thesis that Japanese intervention in Korea was 'all bad'. Without Japanese intervention, Korea would have remained a backward feudal society ruled by a privileged minority who kowtowed to China, where 90% of the population were peasants who were mostly illiterate and had no freedom of movement, and 30-40% of the population were literally hereditary slaves - all of which Japan ended as it dragged Korea into the modern world.

The Korean use of mangled history as an emotive bargaining chip in modern political negotiations is fast reaching its use-by date. Unless the ROK wants to return to kowtowing to Beijing and taking their orders from the CCP, they need to drop the historical hyperventilating and work closely with the US and Japan.

The CCP have no respect for international law, and as there is no independent Chinese judiciary it means the law is whatever the CCP chooses it to be on its whims. These facts alone mean that any ruling by Chinese courts won't hold water outside of China and no democratic nation would enforce it. It's nothing more than a propaganda exercise cloaked in a mantle of faux legality.

CCP, get back to us when you understand the concept of 'Separation of Powers', and make it the basis of Chinese society.

Soooo...Park & crew are getting upset about a Japanese review of the official apology that the Koreans refused to accept in the first place? What the hell is 'sufficiently remorseful'?

Its a bit rich to be whining about a few Japanese right-wingers 'wavering', when no matter what the Japanese have done by way of an apology is rejected by Korean right-wingers. The Koreans can never expect 100% of all Japanese to accept their position (no issue ever has 100% support); if they do, they are being absurd.

@igloobuyer - When the CCP (and Mao) waived reparations in 1972 on behalf of their nation and its citizens, it ended any responsibility Japan had towards China in this respect. The CCP can't return 40 years later for another bite of the apple, and any Chinese citizens wishing recompense should be seeking it from their own government.

In civilized nations, we've gotten past the idea of eternal blood feuds, perpetual vengeance, and blaming the sins of the fathers on their children as you are advocating (which is pure backward feudal nonsense). All nations who were in conflict with Japan during the Pacific War have signed off on reparations treaties, and sought to build positive relations with democratic Japan which benefits everyone - rather than continually stoking animosity as CCP China and the Koreas are doing despite accepting reparations agreements with Japan.

The legal system in China is a joke. 'Beijing law courts' will deliver any verdict the CCP orders them to.

I'm surprised the CCP could only find 37 people to 'lodge claims' - and just how many of that small number are the 'academics, lawyers, and family members' mentioned, who were not even alive when the forced labour allegedly occurred?