CBS News/Seoul

Seoul, South Korea

        The chief reason is not meterological, but ethical. A certain island nation guilty of colonizing a dozen of its neighbours -- and killing millions of them -- in an arc of aggression stretching from Pyongyang to Rangoon remains a moral pariah. In 1945, WW 2 in East Asia ended with the Japanese high command quietly signing a surrender document aboard the battleship USS Missouri's gray deck in Tokyo Bay while Asians cheered the sounds of their shackles falling off. Yet Japanese officials and their society have largely failed to analyze how and why they waged war -- nor have they properly atoned.

        The several ramifications are deep and negative. This essay is the fruit of a professional journalist's years of study and reflection on this cardinal subject. It scrutinizes how lingering, sometimes raging, mistrust of Japan has undermined or compromised the spread of liberal ideals such as cooperation and democracy in no less than four germaine areas: Japans relations with its Korean neighbors, its ties to America, its interaction with the world community and finally Japan's sense of democratic self hood -- a too often overlooked sphere. The analysis melds three variables. These are political analysis of how countries relate; the human factor, which comprises feelings of hurt or trust; and finally some personal experiences, too, which highlight the color and telling details in a subject about real people -- who deserve to be chronicled as such.   

                             

Part 1: Japan and its Neighbours

 

        I see them every Wednesday afternoon standing at the Japanese embassy's front gate when I leave my office next to that facility to buy lunch. They are a group of elderly women who gather weekly to hold placards and shout slogans demanding that Japan apologize and compensate them for forcing them into sexual slavery. Most are in their 70's or higher. The faces which were smooth as rose petals when the Japanese forced them into servitude are now creased with lines that bespeak the leaden passing of decades during which their pain and anger tore at them inside. But they all wear pink, blue, yellow or green hanboks (tranditional Korean dresses) and resemble a human rainbow. During the rainy season, liquid bullets pelt them. The summer's humidity causes visor-clad supporters half their age to guzzle cans of isotonic drinks. Yet they have appeared regularly for over ten years. Clearly, when an octogenerian heart is set on winning justice, even wobbly legs can turn to iron.

The embassy is a squat, four story structure of brown bricks. The flag that it flies is fastened to its roof so that it is not fire bombed. From my office's sixth floor corner window, I note the emblem is self sequestered -- like someone who suspects he has much to be ashamed of? Most conspicuous are security features: a long, high wall, the buses of security police parked 24 hours per day  and above all the camera. Its a rectanbular, metal contraption festooned to the brick work that scans the front through a red lens. The Japanese officials within -- they never greet or console the protesters -- view their ex-victims through that mechanical, bloodless eye. 

        Given Tokyo's well documented refusal to apologize or to compensate the comfort women, relations between Japan and both Koreas remain strained. South Korean polls conclude that about two thirds of Koreans distrust their ex-colonial overlord.

        Does that surprise anyone? During the 1965 normalization talks between Seoul and Tokyo, the Japanese negotiator yelled that Korea deserved all it got and that Japan had done wonders there. Rather than paying Korea direct compensation, Japan opted for $800 million worth of aid, some of which built  the Pusan-Seoul expressway on which Japanese imports speed to the capital's markets. The big winner? Japanese industry. 

In 1996, Japan proposed a "forward oriented" relationship predicated on a final, concrete apology after which Korea would foreswear insisting on contrition. Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean president, accepted the deal in early 1998. This analyst doubted it would work straight off. That spring, at a closed session of the leading Korean Institute of Defense Analysis convened so that I could present my views, I predicted that Japan would take, but not give. While living in Japan during the mid-90's, I observed that the country was renationalizoing. For Korea to expect real remorse then was akin to demanding a man on a down escalator head up. In addition, I noted that Japan wanted Korea to lift import restrictions on Japanese popular culture products. Finally, it seemed apparent that with China ever stronger, Tokyo sought to woo Seoul as a counterweight. It seemed far sighted to predict that if Seoul fell for Tokyo's siren song, the former would project weakness -- and one day feel betrayed.  

        Isn't that exactly what transpired? President Kim stopped fighting for the comfort women and in return Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi apologized, but within a few years, Japanese revisionist comments were again making headlines. Now Japan is minting money in the Korean market with no real concession (although it has failed to swing Korea away from the northern collusus that borders it.) In 2003, Korean officials used the very expression "feel betrayed."

What are the concrete implications? To start, it is hard for Japan to actively defend the Korean peninsula. Japanese ground troops cannot be stationed there, with the burden falling on Koreans and Americans, even though Korea is Japan's protective buffer. Therefore, the national security equation is skewed such that the small and distant protect the strong and near.

However, Japan earns hundreds of millions of dollars in Korea.  There is little wrong with profiting when one invests. But is it honorable to take from a bowl when one does not cook?

        In addition, the unresolved tensions infuse unrelated issues with hostility, jeopardizing resolution. For instance, the two countries are at loggerheads over ownership of Tokdo/Takeshima island. Nationalists in Japan will push their claim to assert their power, garner publicity and shift Japan rightward. Meanwhile, Korean leaders feel equal compulsion to stand up to the "bullying." The relatively minor issue could be shelved or defused through a co-ownership scheme, but for yesterday's fire burning in too many bellies on both sides.

        Plus, the two Koreas will be united one day. Decades apart will ensure that the physical Demilitarized Zone will give way to an invisible -- but equally cleaving -- mental version. What will suture that broken Korean heart? Unfortunately, one glue could be anti-Japanese sentiment. Is it hard to picture pan-Korean politicians and an eager public will stomp their feet on the common ground of resenting Japan? This will not only hinder human and economic ties, but could additionally trigger a panicky or opportunistic backlash from Japan. It will engender symbolic and substantive standoffs, higher defense spending and also block or slow the emergence of a united East Asian community modeled on North America or the new Europe.  

Finally, isn't it unnatural for two neighbours who have shared so much culture to be so alienated? Japan’s bedrock culture largely entered that island nation from China through an ancient Korean kingdom called Paekche. Japan is to Korea and China as Italy is to Greece as the son is to the father. Yet in 2003, South Korean high schools preparing to send their pupils to Japan cancelled the sojourns the betryal. In contrast, after the war, over 2,000 French and German cities twinned to exorcise the demons of hate from their collective soul. Japan and Korea cannot attain this. While one cannot quantify friendship, what reasnoable person or competent diplomat abjures it? With historical animosity unresolved, however, Koreans continue to categorize Japan as the country that is closest on the map -- but farthest away in spirit. 

                                   

 Part 2: Japan and the World   

 

        In 1956, Japan joined the United Nations. Its gift was a large, bronze bell. When struck, its curved and inscripted shell would emit deep gongs resonating through the air that symbolize a spreading peace. However, Tokyo conspicuously failed to join in UN peacekeeping operations (PKO) because suspicion deriving from its wartime rampage prevented its troops from venturing abroad.

        After the 1991 Iraq War, which Japan did not join in, the US pressured Japan to do more for international peace. However, when Tokyo proposed legislation to permit Japanese soldiers from joining in PKO, Asians grabbed the megaphone. Singapore's first minister, Lee Kuan-Yew, intoned that tempting Japan to venture abroad was like offering liquor filled chocolates to an alcoholic.

         While Japan does, in fact, have personnel serving under the blue UN flag now, it remains an econimic giant, but political dwarf. The world's second largest economy, one that has benefitted so copiously from the international system's openness, does too little to maintain it. This is unprincipled, ensures global hotspots do not cool as readily and generates tensions with those smaller, trusted countries that take risks in the hell's kitchen of world geopolitics.

             

                         Part 3: Japan and America

 

        Boosters of the Japanese-America relationship often smilingly assert that the cowboy and the geisha have an ideal alliance. However, a dark clould now hangs over the alleged love fest. The US Congress has just passed legislation that calls upon Japan to resolve the comfort women's plight. 

        This is welcome because Washington and many Japan experts do not engage Japan's war crimes with the same fervor shown for studying -- and usually lionizing -- the country's schools or industry. Too many American scholars and journalists have deliberately or implicitly allied with their Japanese counterparts to turn Hiroshima into a shrine of Japanese nuclear martyrdom, largely overlooking the redress movement's efforts to similarly recall and honor the victims of Japanese fascism. Again, note how many Americans pen tear-stained or self-accusatory words about the bombed Japanese city compared to the very few who specialize on the sex slaves. Therefore, the new law somewhat rights the imbalance.

        So what is the downside? Expect it to fuel resentment in Japan. The right wing there will denounce the measure as Japan bashing and wield it as a crowbar to leverage the public mood toward backlash. However, sober Japan experts argue that only "gaiatsu" or outside pressure produces results. Tokyo does not act, but reacts. This is partly because elite, control bureaucrats dominate public policy. The press is house broken through the "press clubs" system of journalist-officialdom implicit collusion that discourages tough minded reporting. The public has displayed the "higaisha ishiki" (victim mentality) stemming from the A-bombs.  

        Unfortunately, this is a a long term, lose-lose scenario. Even as the US ramps up the pressure to get results on war responsibility because Japan evades it, the Japanese public feels arm twisted -- and becomes less likely to "surrender" the next round. Japanese-American relations will be tenser and more retributive overall. For those who prize harmonious ties, Japan must be a more open society under equitable, pro-active leaders starting with the long neglected issue of imperial guilt.

For now, however, we can expect a Japan that tilts right. Note that the war time generation that can testify to its abuses is dying. The China challenge will encourage many Japanese to vote conservative. The tired economic field yields the harvest of desperation. A thoughtless -- easily manipulted -- younger generation hears mainly demagogues like Shintaro Ishihara because the progressives are cowed or deracinated. The forced congressional act will combine with these trends like a new ingredient splashed into a toxic cocktail and produce an illiberal drink.

        Finally, this seasoned diplomatic observer asks, “What if Washington pushes Japan toward a more muscular foreign role without Japan atoning?” Then the US will be resented in Korea and China especially because the very country that America sees as a sheriff these others adjudge to be a villain. Seoul and Beijing usually see Washington as breaking Tokyo’s chauvinism, but that appraisal could turn negative if neo-con pressure on Japan to “do more” is unmatched by exhortations that it “win trust.” In America, this is an often overlooked, but seminal, dimension of the history issue evident to those here.

 

                                           Part 4: Japan and Itself

 

        Finally, does the Japanese public value democracy? It is not mechanical. Instead, democracy issues from attitudes toward human rights, truth telling and justice that animate courts, colleges and the media, making it like an acorn which -- if nurtured -- transmutes into an oak tree. Sadly, post-war Japan is closer to the seed than its full culmination. Administrative vice ministers have heaved or elbowed the national parliament and even prime ministers out of the dohyo (sumo ring) of political competition. Although some journalists like Katsuichi Honda dig for the truth, most are agents in the process of national consensus formation (nemawashi), relaying information from the top without sufficient probing. The schools focus on passing exams, not developing confidence, debate skills or worldliness. Overall, Japan's twin ideologies have been Japanism, or militant groupism, and GNPism, or unfettered industrial expansion. What if Japan faced its war guilt? To be sure, this would be akin to water and sunshine striking the germ. Imagine a Japanese prime minister who is a moral leader, activist collegians, a press corps that is a watch dog rather than temple dog and a court system that protects victims of appalling rights abuses.  Wouldn't these be symptoms and cause of a new Japan that is confidently democratic?

                                            

  Conclusion