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Japan lawmakers revise wartime policy
Japanese lawmakers approved Tuesday a resolution that plays down Japanese militarist policies in World War II, about two weeks before ceremonies take place across Asia marking the 60th anniversary of the war's end on August 15. Though expressing "regret" for JapanåK½ï¿½s wartime past, the resolution omitted
the references to "invasion" and "colonial rule" that were in the version passed
on the 50th anniversary, the New York Times reported. A right-wing vandal seemed to capture a growing sentiment last week when he tried to scrape off the word "mistake" from a peace memorial in Hiroshima that said of Japan's war efforts: "Let all the souls here rest in peace, as we will never repeat this mistake." At the same time, China is spending $50 million to renovate a memorial hall for the victims of the Rape of Nanjing in 1937, when Japanese soldiers killed up to 300,000 civilians, at a time when details of it are disappearing from Japanese school textbooks. Chinese televisions are broadcasting hundreds of programs on China's resistance against Imperial Japan. åK½ï¿½The two countries find themselves playing out old grievances in a new era of direct rivalry for power and influence. Never before in modern times has East Asia had to contend with a strong China and a strong Japan at the same time, and the prospect feeds suspicion and hostility in both countries,åK½ï¿½ commented the New York Times article written by Norimitsu Onishi and Howard F. French. China has experienced 25 years of extraordinary economic growth, extending its influence throughout Asia. But just when China's moment in the sun seems to be dawning, Japan is asserting itself: seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, transforming its Self-Defense Forces into a real military and revising its war-renouncing Constitution. In Japan, major newspapers have published articles defending the Class A war
criminals convicted by the postwar Tokyo Trials, and a growing number of
textbooks whitewash Japan's wartime conduct. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi makes annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where war dead including Class A
war criminals are enshrined. "On the one hand we have a victim's mentality, and on the other we don't see this much smaller country as being worthy of comparison with us," the paper quoted Pang Zhongying, a professor of international relations at Nankai University ChinaåK½ï¿½s northern port city of Tianjin. "The reality is that they must accept the idea of China as a rising military power, and we must accept the idea of Japan becoming a normal nation, whether we like it or not." The conservative news media of Japan have helped demonize China, as well as North Korea, to soften popular resistance to remilitarization. Sankei Shimbun, Japan's most conservative daily, recently ran a series about China called "The Threatening Superpower." Hiromu Nonaka, 79, who retired as secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) about a year ago, said the present situation reminded him of prewar Japan, when politicians manipulated public opinion to rouse nationalism through slogans like "Destroy the brute Americans and British," the newspaper reported.
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