08.23.07
Guest Blogger: The Yasukuni Shrine
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Yesterday I visited the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is where the Japanese honor their fallen war heroes. This has stirred up a great deal of controversy in China which regularly accuses Japan of “whitewashing” the history of World War II atrocities. Before I give my thoughts on the shrine, I want to let the shrine speak for itself. The following passages were taken verbatim from displays in the museum at the Yasukuni Shrine.
The China Incident
A Sino-Japanese relations is once stabilized with the conclusion of the Tanggu Cease-Fire Agreement in 1933. It deteriorates again, however, with the acceleration of the North China autonomy movement instigated by the local Japanese armies in North China and the revival of terrorism incited by the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-Japanese policy under the instruction of the Comitern.
The prevailing anti-Japanese atmosphere in China helps spread the small incident of Chinese shooting at the Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge into a full-scale engagement covering all of North China. After the Second Shanghai Incident, which is again triggered by the Chinese side, Chiang Kai-shek resorts to the strategy of consuming Japanese forces in the vast battlefield covering the entire Chinese mainland. Chiang persists for eight years and succeeds in joining the ranks of victors.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident
On July 7, 1937, while Japanese troops were conducting night maneuvers near the Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Beiping (Beijing), shots were fired at them. Shots were also fired at the Japanese reinforcements who arrived the next morning. A battle was subsequently fought against the Chinese at Wanping. The Japanese government decided to prevent the hostilities from escalating and the local forces signed a truce with the Chinese on July 11.
The Nanking Campaign
The purpose of the Nanking Campaign was to surround and occupy the capital, this discouraging the Chinese from continuing their resistance against the Japanese. Garrison Commander Tang Shengzhi ignored the Japanese demand to surrender. He ordered his troops to defend Nanking to the death and then escaped. After the confused battles, Nanking fell on December 13.
The Wuhan Campaign
In a joint Army-Navy operation, the Japanese advanced up the Yangtze River and attacked the strategic conurbation of Wuhan (Hankou, Wuchang, and Hanyang). The Central China Expeditionary Army attacked Wuhan in October. A perfect care was taken to secure the safety of residents and historical and cultural monuments.
The China Incident Campaigns
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident on the night of July 7, 1937 led to further hostilities, and eventually all of North China became a battlefield. When the Second Shanghai Incident erupted in August 1937 and Chiang Kai-shek joined the Communists in fighting Japan, the Japanese government abandoned its efforts to prevent incidents from escalating. The result was a full-scale war between Japan and China. Chiang moved his capital to Chongqing to continue all-out resistance. The Japanese attacked the former capital Nanjing, Xuzhou, Wuhan, and then advanced to South China. Since neither side ever declared war against the other, the Japanese refer to these hostilities as the “China Incident.”
The World Situation on the Eve of World War II
On the eve of World War II, the nations of Europe were reluctant to halt Germany’s aggrandizement of its empire via military force by fighting another war. But German invasions of Poland convinced Great Britain and France that they had no other choice. Their declaration of war against Germany marked the beginning of World War II. When German troops invaded France, all of Europe became a battlefield, and Roosevelt was convinced that the US should enter the War. The USSR implemented an aggressive expansionist policy immediately after the partition of Poland, invading Finland, forcing Rumania to cede Bessarabia and Bukovina, and annexing Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Soviet actions had repercussions in Asia as well, one of which was the prolongation of the China Incident.
Japan’s Quest for Avoiding a War
The United States helps the Chiang Kai-shek government to continue the war with massive assistance, which has adverse effects on US-Japan relations. To strengthen Japan’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the United States for the purpose of avoiding a war, the Konoe Cabinet decides to sign the Tripartite Pact which Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke strongly promoted.
Japan’s Economic Situation
Once an underdeveloped nation, Japan made a concerted effort to adopt advanced technologies from the West, and was rewarded with a significant increase in productivity. Nevertheless, it continued to depend on other nations for those advanced technologies, including machine tools, and relied on imports for most raw materials. Japan was importing 90% of the oil and other energy sources needed to support economic activity. Seventy percent of those energy sources came from the US. Therefore, if the flow of imports from the US should cease, Japan’s survival hinged on locating a new supplier of resources.
coljac
said,
August 23, 2007 at 10:35 am
Wow. After reading that i’m not quite clear how the dastardly Chiang managed to goad the peace-loving Japanese army into a massive invasion of the Chinese unterior. He must have been pretty devious.
What a load of bullshit. If there were any doubts about Japanese unwillingness to confront painful or inconvient historical facts, this ought to dispel them. No wonder shrine visits are so controversial.
Jason
said,
August 23, 2007 at 11:48 am
Well golly gee, the Japanese invasion of China was just a big old misunderstanding!
I know too much about this history to not let this piss me off. Where is Ienaga Saburo when you need him, man!
chris
said,
August 23, 2007 at 11:50 am
A more balanced Japanese view from NHK
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5eYVkG6i5XU
F Rollins
said,
August 23, 2007 at 3:46 pm
The Japanese government is a bunch of lying scoundrels.
Big surprise.
So is the Chinese government and so is the US government.
Therese
said,
August 23, 2007 at 10:07 pm
YA SU KU NI
sldjflsk fj
Alan
said,
August 23, 2007 at 10:27 pm
I’ve heard that Japanese don’t usually invent things. They merely take other people’s inventions and make them better. I guess that statement isn’t exactly accurate. Japanese certainly are great at inventory history.
Alan
said,
August 23, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Darn it, Japanese keyword. I meant to type inventing history.
Don Allison
said,
August 23, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Ben: I’m just wondering if you ever settled up with that poor, little Chinese Bank Teller who mistakenly handed you 100 kuai too many awhile back. You had initially showed great glee in her and the bank’s mistake and had attempted to rationalize not returning the money (which clearly didn’t belong to you) via some bogus logic of “well, the bank screwed me, so I’ll screw the bank.”
Tell us all, please, Ben, tell us, that you were a bigger man and returned the money as the Teller requested. To have kept the money would have been morally long, don’t you thing? Please, Ben, tell us it isn’t so that you kept the money…”ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
wylly
said,
August 24, 2007 at 1:05 am
Gosh, in Wuhan “a perfect care was taken to secure the safety of residents…”
I guess things were a little too “confused” in Nanking for that chivalrous nicety.
Why does Mr. Allison keep pestering you?
Don Allison
said,
August 24, 2007 at 1:56 am
Heh, I’m done pestering Ben. I just wanted to be his conscience for the past week. Live and learn, Ben. And have a great life ahead of you. May you walk a path you will be happy with…(there I go again, sigh…more things of the conscience). Seriously, live long, prosper, and make a difference. Don A.
owshawng
said,
August 24, 2007 at 11:10 am
Those descriptions are really offensive. Wonder if they got Karl Rove to write them? No wonder there is still so much bad blood between china and japan.
Wei
said,
August 25, 2007 at 12:27 am
Don, you are on the wrong page, sorry to say so.
BTW, God would leave us human beings some room for error–that’s Humanity you see?
Kris
said,
August 26, 2007 at 1:27 am
Does anyone else find Don A. just annoying? My guess is Don isn’t shaming Ben, just making himself look rather obsessive. At least from where I am sitting.
James Chiang
said,
August 27, 2007 at 4:33 pm
The passages at the Yakasuni Shrine you listed are totally different from what Chinese textbook says.
Benjamin Ross
said,
August 27, 2007 at 10:29 pm
James-
Any chance you could translate some of the passages from a Chinese textbook on the events surrounding World War II? Might be interesting for comparison.
Chiang
said,
August 29, 2007 at 10:10 am
-Ben
I’m sorry that I forgot what extactly the textbook says because I read it more than ten years ago when I was at school. But I’m quite sure that what it says is definitely opposite to the words at the Yakasuni Shrine.
As a Chinese, I don’t trust the words at the Yakasuni Shrine. But I think Chinese textbook is a little subjective too.
BTW, I noticed your flag is the Stars and Stripes now.
cc
said,
August 29, 2007 at 3:35 pm
The people who worked out the Yakasuni text and the people who believe it are really humurous.
Michael
said,
September 3, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Japanese people as individuals are usually very nice- provided they aren’t in what they view as a higher position than you… can you say hostel owner?
The Japanese people as a culture and a nation should be restricted to the islands that gave rise to them. Once they conglomerate in large numbers outside the boundaries of their own super-restrictive society, they turn into crazy, uninhibited monsters.
They’re so used to their warped rules, that when they’re given freedom as a group, they don’t know what to do with it. They lose all sense of perspective, judgment, even humanity. The rest of Asia (not just China) knows this all too well.
The Japanese in Japan, as individuals, can’t even imagine committing the atrocities they did outside their borders. As such, there is a major disconnect between the Japanese individual, and Japan as a whole. A flawed society, and an island nation… insecure in both senses, a lack of proper perspective.
It’s why the Chinese like to tack a “small” behind Japan: 小日本。
Silly little Japan.
Iris
said,
November 22, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Gear up for grub with a tripleheader of pigskin, including a meeting of brothers in Dallas. Everybody knows it’s been a rough year for her, but find out who else had issues
Lyn
said,
October 14, 2009 at 3:54 pm
a few years late of this convo, but i agree with michael.