Don Tow's Website

More than 70 years have elapsed since the end of WWII during which the Japanese military committed massive and inhumane atrocities all over Asia, especially in China.  These atrocities included the Nanking Massacre, Comfort Women (CW, or sexual slavery), Biological and Chemical Warfare (BCW), Vivisection on live people (including American POWs), and Slave Labor.

Yet the Japanese government still has not formally acknowledged, apologized, and compensated for these inhumane acts.  And whenever the Japanese government issued some sort of acknowledgement, invariably, a short time afterward it was followed by one or more statements stating the opposite.  Also, many years ago when Japan tried to set up a fund to provide funding to former Korean CWs, it was mostly rejected by the Korean CWs because it was a private entity and was not a government entity and did not come with an official Japanese government apology.

Instead, many Japanese leaders have on many occasions made statements that the atrocities did not exist, over exaggerated, or fabricated by the Chinese or the Koreans.  Many Japanese leaders, including her Prime Ministers, have paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Class A convicted and executed WWII war criminals are enshrined; this is analogous to the German Chancellor paying tribute at a memorial for Adolf Hitler.  Furthermore, starting about 35 years ago, Japan has been revising her history textbooks about WWII history, including trying a few years ago to change American history textbooks on WWII history.

Why?  Various reasons have been offered, including the following.  Japan was really trying to defend herself when the West was trying to cut off her oil supply.  Admitting to such massive and horrific atrocities is too much of an attack on the Japanese character and losing too much face.  Admitting to errors and defeats is contrary to the bushido spirit, or a Samurai way of life.  These atrocities were just consequences of war and were understandable.  The Japanese soldiers were just following the orders of their Emperor, who was considered to be God and could do no wrong.

In this essay, I like to offer another explanation which not only can explain the question posed in this essay’s title, but also can provide a clearer understanding of several aspects of world geopolitics.

Proposed Approach:  In order to understand the Japanese government’s position toward her WWII atrocities, we need to consider what has been the policy of the U.S. toward China from the time that it appeared that the Communist Party would win the civil war in China back in the second half of the 1940s to today.  For the last 70 years, the U.S. policy toward China basically has been a policy to surround, isolate, and weaken China, as we have already discussed in the article “U.S.-China Relationship Can Use Another Anson Burlingame” posted in the December 2016 release of this website.  We summarize the main points of that article:

• In spite of completely inhumane repeated use of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction and in violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (which Japan had signed) that prohibited the use of biological and chemical weapons in international armed conflicts, none of the political leaders or top scientists and medical doctors who were responsible for the world’s largest biological and chemical weapon research center and factory (Japan’s Unit 731 in Harbin, China) was prosecuted for war crimes.  Instead, the U.S. government signed a secret agreement with Japan not to prosecute any of these war criminals in exchange for their knowledge and data on BCW. [1]
• The decision not to prosecute Emperor Hirohito, even though he was a hands-on emperor who was fully aware of and approved what Japan did during the war. [2][3]  If the Emperor of Japan did not do anything wrong, then Japan does not have to apologize for its massive atrocities during WWII.
• The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty was supposed to be the official treaty ending WWII with Japan.  China was the country that suffered the most damage from Japan, yet the U.S. who orchestrated that peace treaty did not invite China [either the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the Republic of China (ROC)] to attend, although over 50 other countries were invited.  Unlike the Cairo Declaration of 1943, the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, and the Japanese Surrender Treaty of September 2, 1945, which all declared that Japan should surrender back to China all those territories, such as Taiwan, that Japan seized from China, this treaty only stated that Japan should relinquish former Chinese territories such as Taiwan, but did not explicitly say that they should be returned to China.
• This intentional twisting of history by the U.S. to the detriment of China has since been repeated on several occasions by U.S. senior government officials that the agreement was that Japan would give up their jurisdiction over Taiwan, Penghu, and other territories, but the receiving country of these territories was not specified. For example, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, co-author of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, said in 1955 “the treaty ceded Taiwan to no one; that Japan merely renounced sovereignty over Taiwan, and that America cannot, therefore, admit that the disposition of Taiwan is merely an internal problem of China.”  Therefore, as early as 1951, it was already fairly clear about the imperialistic intention of the U.S. toward China and their planting the seed to ally with Japan to isolate and weaken China.
• On December 25, 1953, the U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (also known as Okinawa Prefecture) issued, with no legal grounds whatsoever, Civil Administration Proclamation No. 27 and unilaterally included the Diaoyu Islands as part of the Ryukyu Islands whose administrative rights would be handed over to Japan in 1972, thus planting the seed of controversy.
• Although on many occasions the U.S. would state that it does not take a position regarding the territorial sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands, the U.S. would also claim that these islands are covered under the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty.  In other words, U.S. showed itself willing to go to war with China with no moral or legal justification.
• In their book The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet, copyright 2002, Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison described in detail how the CIA encouraged Tibet’s revolt against China and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement, including setting up training camps in the Colorado Rockies, clandestine operations in the Himalayas, securing the Dalai Lama’s safe passage to India, subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War, and continued providing all kinds of financial, intelligence, propaganda, and military support to the exiled Dalai Lama. [4]
• U.S. government leaders and her media have frequently accused China of engaging in cyber espionage.  However, information disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about four years ago clearly indicated that the U.S., perhaps together with Russia, has been the world’s number one cyber spying government, collecting phone, computer, and other personal and private information from both friends and foes, including top government leaders of U.S.’s closest allies and ordinary American citizens.
• Regarding the South China Sea dispute, American mass media and speeches of American political leaders constantly criticize China for violating international laws as specified under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, studying the facts about this issue will lead to the conclusion that, yes, there is an abuse of power, but the country doing the abuse is the U.S., not China. [5]
• The U.S. has accused China of military aggression and creating instabilities in the world, but it is the U.S. that has military bases all around China, and has military alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. The U.S.’s huge 7th Fleet is patrolling the waters all around China with 60-70 ships and submarines, 200 to 300 aircrafts, and about 40,000 sailors and marines.
• The so-called pivot to Asia announced by the U.S. several years ago is really just an intensified continuation of her long policy to surround, isolate, and weaken China.

Implications:  There are several implications that we can draw from this long U.S. foreign policy for  China during roughly the last 70 years:

• Not only that the U.S. has consistently adopted an antagonistic policy toward China, she has also tried very hard in many ways to weaken China
• After the end of WWII, U.S. basically controlled how Japan would reconstruct herself and has great influence on the directions of Japan
• On several occasions, U.S. always chose a policy that would benefit Japan at the expense of China
• For these 70 years, U.S. has always wanted Japan to serve as her front-line pawn to surround, isolate, and weaken China
• U.S. never applied any significant pressure on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for the great atrocities Japan inflicted all over Asia during WWII, including performing vivisection on American POWs [6] and the Bataan Death March [7].

Therefore, we can conclude that a major reason that Japan has not acknowledged or apologized for her massive and inhumane atrocities that she inflicted all over Asia is very much related to the U.S.’ long-standing foreign policy toward China to surround, isolate, and weaken China.  Instead of pressing Japan to acknowledge and apologize for her WWII crimes, U.S. has cultivated Japan to serve as the U.S.’s front-line pawn against China.

In the Best Interests of the U.S. and the American People?  During the 70+ years of the U.S.’s surround/isolate/weaken foreign policy toward China, China might have been surrounded and often isolated, but she is definitely not getting weaker nor isolated. Based on the number of countries showing interest in China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative to interconnect China with most of Asia and Europe and northeastern part of Africa and the related Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China is growing economically stronger, and more connected with the global economy.

Allying so closely will Japan could result in irreparable damage to the U.S.’ claim as an advocate of justice and human rights, since Japan has not admitted and apologized for the massive and inhumane atrocities that she inflicted all over Asia during WWII.

Through various mutual-defense treaties, the U.S. is ready to go to war with China over disputes that the U.S. has no legal or moral reasons to be involved. A war with China would be an extremely costly and protracted war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons. There will be no winners in a nuclear war in the 21^st century between the world’s top two economies.

While competing with China, instead of adopting an uncalled-for antagonistic attitude, the U.S. should work together with China to solve many of the world’s critical problems, such as fighting against terrorism, environmental protection, world hunger, and world peace. At the same time, the U.S. can join China and other countries to improve inter-country, inter-continent infrastructure, e.g., transportation via high-speed trains, bridges and underwater tunnels connecting territories separated by water. Working together on these projects not only is beneficial to the world, but U.S. companies and workers would also share in the benefits of working on these huge, cutting-edge, and profitable projects, which could lead to vast economic opportunities for the U.S.

Instead of adopting a Tonya Harding-like foreign policy to unfairly attack her main competitor, the U.S. should focus its energy to look within herself to improve her country’s competitiveness as a whole, which should bring vast economic benefits to the American people.

In the long run, the current U.S. policy to surround, isolate, and weaken China is not in the best interests of the U.S. and the American people.  The world, especially the American people, must persuade the U.S. government to discontinue her antagonistic policy toward China, and should seek a win-win-win situation, win for the U.S., win for China, and win for other countries and for world-peace.

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[1] See, e.g.:  Factories Of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover-Up, by Sheldon H. Harris, Routledge, 1994. ISBN-10:1568656556.  A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan’s Biological Warfare Program, by Daniel Barenblatt, HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 978-0-06-093387-6.  Article by American medical historian Dr. Martin Furmanski in the book Blood-Weeping Accusations:  Records of Anthrax Victims, by Li Xiaofang, 2005.

[2] Herbert P. Nix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd; 2001.

[3] David Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, William Morrow, 1971.  I thank Adam Jonas Horowitz for informing me about David Bergamini and his 1971 book.

[4] Kenneth Conboy is a former policy analyst and deputy director at the Heritage Foundation, and the late James Morrison was a thirty-year Army veteran and the last training officer for the CIA-sponsored Unity project.

[5] For background information and a discussion of this issue, see Don M. Tow, “South China Sea Dispute:  Abuse of World Power,” China-US Focus, September 15, 2016:  http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/south-china-sea-dispute-abuse-of-world-power.

[6] “Japanese Medical School Museum Exhibits Vivisection Display on American POWs.”  For the full article, see The Japan Time News, 04-04-2015.

[7] See, e.g., Bataan Death March: A Survivor’s Account, by William E. Dyess, Bison Books, 2002. ISBN-10:0803266332, and Courage on Bataan and Beyond: Memories of an American POW who was a slave of the Japanese during WWII for 3 1/2 years, by Abel Ortega, AuthorHouse, 2005. ISBN-10:1420863843