hankyoreh

South Korean Independence Day, or what the Japanese call the “anniversary of the war’s end,” is one day closer today. Because the two countries take such a different view of August 15, things tend to be particular tense on both sides of the sea this time of year. This year, the waves are particularly rocky. This year, we greet the anniversary with the most militarist, right-wing administration in Japan since the Second World War, a government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that believes Japan did nothing wrong except to lose the conflict.

During a visit to his home prefecture of Yamaguchi on Aug. 12, Abe said it was his “historical mission” to amend Japan’s Constitution. “I still haven’t accomplished what I set out to do,” he said. “The battle starts now.” He used similar language right before last year’s election for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, saying it was the “ultimate grief” to be unable to pay respects at Yasukuni Shrine with his first Cabinet in 2006. He seems to be expressing his determination to continue on down the path of militarization and right-wing extremism, whatever concerns might be coming from neighboring Korea and China.

Abe’s statements this week dashed hopes that after his party’s resounding victory in the House of Councillors election, he would avoid any historical disputes that were likely to stir up bad blood with Japan’s neighbors and focus instead on his country’s economy. There have been other unmistakable signs of a more aggressive foreign policy approach: Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso’s remarks about Japan needed to take a lesson from fascist Germany on how to amend the Constitution, or the launching of a flat-topped destroyer called “Izumo,” the name used by a warship that took part in the 1937 bombing of Shanghai back during Japan’s imperial invasions. The same goes for the appointment of onetime ambassador to France Ichiro Komatsu, an advocate of Japanese exercise of collective self-defense rights, as Director General of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, which is in charge of interpreting the Constitution, or the apparent inevitability of an Aug. 15 Yasukuni visit by State Minister of Administrative Reform Tomomi Inada and other Cabinet members in the face of widespread Korean and Chinese objections.

It’s obvious why Japan’s neighbors have been so opposed to and anxious about these moves to amend the Constitution to legalize the possession of a standing military, and all the signs of intensifying nationalism. Japan hasn’t made a clean break with its imperialist history, nor does give any reason to believe it will do so.

Indeed, it would be bizarre for the countries that actually suffered a country’s invasions to simply accept it denying they happened at all (arguing that “no definition of ‘invasion’ has been established”) or calling it “normalization” to excise from its history the story of the comfort women, living international symbols of human rights abuses.

Instead of viewing Aug. 15 as a “day of the war’s end” that paints it as a victim of war, Japan needs to accept it as a true defeat. Only then can it leave behind its reputation as the root of discord in East Asia and become a true friend to its neighbors.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]