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Statements Archive |
LAST UPDATE
July 11, 2005
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| May 12, 2005 |
Joint Statement: Japan Should Avoid Collision Course with Asian Neighbors |
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Peace Boat's Kushibuchi Mari joined spokespersons from three other prominent Japan-based NGOs to issue a joint statement to the international press at the Foreign Correspondent's Press Club in Tokyo on May 12, urging the Japanese government to take steps to avoid clashing with its Asian neighbors over issues of historical recognition and anti-Japan demonstrations in China. The NGO representatives also included Muto Ichiyo of the Asian Peace Alliance (APA) Japan, Mushakoji Kinhide of the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), and Nishino Rumiko of Violence against Women in War Network Japan (VAWW-NET) Japan, who spoke on behalf of 16 individuals from Japanese civil society who initiated the joint statement. Sixty-four organizations and 724 individuals have also added their endorsement to the statement which calls on the Koizumi government to take responsibility for the hostile relationship it has created with its neighboring countries.
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Perception of history and anti-Japan demonstrations in China
The relationship between Japan and its neighboring Asian countries has fallen into an alarmingly serious crisis. In the past few years Japan, under the Koizumi administration, has drifted visibly to the right, has taken one action after another to rationalize Japan’s imperial past, and has thus taken a collision course with its neighboring Asian countries. We see the massive anti-Japan demonstrations staged in many cities throughout China since early April as a direct response from our Asian neighbors to this hostile choice made by Japan. President Roh Moohyun of South Korea, referring to such recent Japanese political activities, said that it was a great tragedy for the whole world to have to live with those who glorify their past – one of aggression and victimization. As long as Japan as a whole adheres to the position the Koizumi government takes, the relationships between Japan and other Asian countries will be marred, giving place to hostility and distrust. We do not want to see this happen.
In 1995, Japan, in the form of a statement by then Prime Minister Murayama declared, “following a mistaken national policy, Japan advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.” Murayama then stated, “In the hope that no such mistakes be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology.”
This extremely belated statement, coming 50 years after the end of the war, certainly represented Japan’s official commitment to Asian countries. As such it is a statement that binds Japan’s external relationships. Even the Koizumi government cannot deny this. Koizumi even wanted to use it to tide over the current crisis when he read the text at the Asian-African summit held in Jakarta on April 28. But in reality, Prime Minister Koizumi, ever since he assumed power, has been deliberately sabotaging this commitment, at the same time arrogantly rejecting all criticism that he was repudiating it, and defiantly justifying his posture. The actions of Prime Minister Koizumi that most symbolically tore up the 1995 commitment were his repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which he dared to carry out while ignoring protests from Japan’s Asian neighbors. Suppose that Germany held a religious establishment where Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering were enshrined together with war-dead German soldiers. Such an institution does not exist, but imagine for a moment that it does and anticipate the reaction from European societies invaded by Nazi Germany were the German prime minister to visit such a mausoleum to pay respect to all those enshrined? If we postulate such a situation, we would immediately understand what an insult and provocation Koizumi’s visit to Yasukuni has been to neighboring Asian people, who were on the receiving end of Imperial Japan’s colonization and aggression. The Prime Minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine is not a domestic affair sealed off from foreign intervention, but is a grave state act and hence a diplomatic act. China, South Korea, and other Asian countries victimized by Imperial Japan are therefore fully justified in their criticism and protest of this act.
Furthermore, the Japanese government, in close collaboration with rightist forces, has been both overtly and covertly promoting a set of policies for the reinstatement of the glory of Japan’s imperial past through the repudiation of a critical reflection on Japan’s modern history. These policies are being implemented through the imposition of the Hinomaru flag and the Kimigayo anthem, both symbols of Imperial Japan, on school education, the imposition of a “patriotic education” by means of the “diary of reflection” (kokoro no note), and a commendation of a particular history-falsifying school textbook. The South Korean President rightly pointed out that although Japan has apologized more than once, it has recently begun to nullify its apologies. In this context, the Japanese government has begun to take one provocative action after another on a series of extremely sensitive issues that are disputed with neighboring countries involving territorial claims and resources development. It is clear that the general deteriorating state of relationship with neighboring countries is the consequence of these deliberate actions taken by the Koizumi government.
But inside Japan a different picture is presented. It is as though the real issue is of the Chinese anti-Japan street demonstration getting out of control. Foreign Minister Machimura, while ignoring the Chinese government’s position that Japan was politically responsible for causing this situation, defiantly demanded Chinese apology and compensation for material damage done to the premises of Japanese diplomatic missions and Japanese business edifices. This approach to the issue dominates the political arena and media world. There is a large outcry that the Chinese police condoned stone throwing by mobs, that the Chinese people responsible for the disturbance should be punished, and that the Chinese government’s anti-Japan “patriotic education” is the root cause of the problem. Some knowingly comment that the Chinese youth demonstrating are in fact expressing their frustration with the Chinese government and using Japan merely as the pretext. Totally absent from this kind of discourse is serious discussion as to whether or not the neighboring countries’ claims of Japan over the Yasukuni, school textbook, and general history issues are legitimate.
We read in this attitude self-centeredness, arrogance, and insensitivity, which will boomerang back to us. The Liberal Democratic Party and the Koizumi administration are currently focusing their energies on their project of revising the Constitution, and we are alarmed that one of the strategic goals of this project is the reinstatement of the “Japanese Empire” as Japan’s glorious past. Now the explosion of “anti-Japan” sentiments in neighboring Asian countries has made it crystal clear that the reinstatement of the glories of the empire would decisively damage Japan’s relationships with the rest of Asia. The danger is in the Japanese political world and the media’s reluctance to squarely look at this reality.
The LDP-promoted constitutional amendment is aimed at remaking the postwar Japanese state by the repudiation of the pacifist principle of the current constitution (Article 9) complemented with the rehabilitation of the honor of the Japanese empire. Thus they want to create a new state with legal armed forces and the right to belligerency and dream of a Japan that will sit in the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member and will participate in the U.S. Empire’s strategy of global domination as a full status military power. Along this path, Japan has already introduced a series of military laws such as emergency laws in order to better adjust Japanese systems to the U.S. global strategy. This process of remilitarization has made neighboring countries and peoples wary of a potential military threat from Japan in the foreseeable future, and this awareness has freshened their memories of and brought new relevance to Japan’s past aggressions.
The LDP’s Constitution Drafting Committee has disclosed its plans for the amendment. In the section detailing what is to be written in the preamble of the new constitution, worked out by a subcommittee presided over by former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, is the reinstatement of the legacy of the Japanese empire. The relevant part reads: “The Japanese people have been working to bring prosperity to the nation in the spirit of harmony (wa) and laboring to always make history with the Emperor as the symbol of the unity of the nation. The Japanese people have vigorously developed their nation by enduring a number of ordeals and overcoming a number of hardships such as the last war.” Here “the last war” is perceived as nothing but a heart-warming story of the Japanese nation “enduring ordeals and overcoming hardships.” There is no room here for Murayama statement and his perception that Japan “caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to Asian nations.” Nor is there the determination expressed in the preamble of the current constitution that we shall not allow the horrors of war to again visit us “through the action of government.”
Protest and criticism from neighboring Asian countries have told us that the empire-reinstating course of action has already become bankrupt, for we in Japan can hardly live in an ocean of Asian distrust and hostility.
We must pull Japan back from this wrong path.
The Koizumi government therefore should step down, and take responsibility for the hostile relationship it has created with neighboring Asian countries through visits to the Yasukuni shrine and other actions. The Japanese government should review their whole range of policies in reference to the Murayama statement and rescind all policies and actions that encourage the decriminalization and glorification of the aggression and colonization of Asian countries by the Japanese Empire, and policies such as the imposition of the flag and anthem and biased school textbooks. The rightist forces promoting these goals should be dislodged from positions of power. The Japanese government’s campaign for the United Nations Security Council permanent membership should be immediately suspended. We do not think an Asian country distrusted by other Asians is qualified to be a leader in the world. Last but not least, the project of revising the constitution for the elimination of the pacifist principle and reinstatement of the legacy of the Japanese empire should be discarded.
We will achieve these goals through joint efforts with the majority of the Asian people wishing for peace and justice in Asia. |
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| Jointly initiated by:
- HANASAKI Kohei – Sapporo Free School Yu, Co-President
- HIROTA Shizue – Catholic Sister
- KOSHIDA Kiyokazu – Hokkaido Peace Net
- KUMAOKA Michiya – University Lecturer
- KUSHIBUCHI Mari – Peace Boat, Co-Director
- MUSHAKOJI Kinhide – International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), Chair
- MUTO Ichiyo – Asian Peace Alliance (APA) Japan
- NAGASAWA Masataka – Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace, Executive Officer
- NISHINO Rumiko – Violence against Women in War Network Japan?iVAWW-NET?j Japan, Co-President
- OGURA Toshimaru – People’s Plan Study Group (PPSG), Co-President
- OHASHI Masaaki – Lecturer at Keisen University
- OTA Masakuni – Ethnic Issue Researcher
- TAKAZATO Suzuyo – Okinawan Women Act against Military Violence
- UKAI Satoshi – Lecturer at Hitotsubashi University
- YOSHIMI Syunya – Lecturer at Tokyo University
- YAMAMOTO Toshimasa – National Christian Council in Japan (NCCJ), General Secretary
- Endorsed by 724 individuals and 64 groups, including Peace Boat
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