Many American blogs that I have visited seemed to be so much interested in bashing China (and I don't have problems with this) that they disappointingly dismissed any concerns over Japan's persistent historical revisionism and such high profile visits to the notorious military shrine.
The fact that war criminals lie there makes it extremely insensitive to those and their families who had suffered enormously, nay, catastrophically under the evil hands of the Japanese occupying powers.
Bashing China shouldn't be equated to automatic forgiving of Japan's recalcitrance in apologising, or its revisionism adventure.
Koizumi has magnificently and officially apologised in Jakarta and I don't care about the language nuances as it's for domestic consumption, and if Koizumi wants to protect his re-election, that's fine with me. BUt let's continue to keep an eye on her revisionism inclinations.
I must admit that many Chinese (and I am talking about SE Asian Chinese), are deeply suspicious of the "coincidental" and seemingly "coordinated" visit by 80 parliamentarians to the shrine. Again, I put it down (generously if I may add) to mitigating Koizumi's apology for domestic consumption.
Those behind-the-scene rednecks responsible for the hardline revisionism adventures aren't mere KKK, Neo-Nazis or National Front fringe groups. They are core members of the Japanese ruling party, the LDP, and are so powerful that they could twist Koizumi's arms into his visiting the shrine over the last 4 years. Why do you think Koizumi kept going there despite Asian outrage?
That's who and what we should keep an eye on, while not excusing Beijing for its past excesses. The respective Japanese and CCP atrocities should be treated separately. But we get these disappointing confusion over, or deliberate attempts to camouflage the Japanese atrocities with the CCP's.
The greatest disservice to justice for those maltreated during the war such as the 'comfort women' (what an evil euphemism if I have ever heard one) and to our efforts to prevent future Japanese facist militant revival is to indicate to Japan we seem to be more concern about Beijing atrocities than hers. Instead we need to demonstrate that we will not accept any foot in the door to her militant resurrection.
I visited a blog recommended by Richard last week, bloke called Andre, who wrote rather cleverly, telling us to turn our eyes from Japan to Beijing. His mantra was Japan is a democracy and China is not, thus we may trust Japan to maintain control while we must call Beijing to account.
While he has written rather persuasively and eloquently, and the Devil has been known to use the Scripture too, he has done exactly what I have written above, excusing or at least lightening the guilt of Japan on the basis that China has not repented for its own atrocities, and that somehow it's OK to forgive Japan because it's a democracy. He even dismissed the legitimacy of any Chinese grievance against the Japanese war crimes unless they are 80-years old, to have personally experienced the sufferings. That's an idea of the quality of his arguments. As someone whose family had been affected during the war, I feel so disgusted that I didn't bother to drop any comment to rebut his pro-Japanese comments.
The second theme by Andre is the CCP manipulated and manipulates the protestors. What about Koreans (yes, Richard I have read your reason, but nonetheless this remains a fact, namely, that the CCP may have control in China, but not elsewhere, so the outrage hasn't been as manipulated as you may believe).
Just read some Malaysian newspapers to see how the families of Japan's military victims have expressed their outrage over the historical revisionism. There was one by a bloke who lost his parents to the Japanese invasion slaughter while he was just a kid - the first thing the Japanese did after they occupied the country was to execute a large number of Chinese in Malaya and Sinapore for nothing more than having send money to a struggling Kuomintang government in China during the Sino-Japanese war.
He related how he lived as a beggar on charity and the hardship he had to endure, apart from the pain and trauma of not seeing his parents ever again. Please tell Andre about this bloke. And our Malaysian textbooks aren't riddled with anti-Japanese theme. In fact it's the very opposite.
Third issue that Andre brought out was that it's only a 0.3% (I forgot to count how many times he expressed this figure) readership of those revisionist books, so what's the big deal?
Well, for a start the Japanese Education Ministry APPROVED the use of those books. And they certainly failed in their supposed checking of the FACTS that Andre claimed was their only involvement. The reality is there was very strong campaigning by interested parties to introduce those books, by stealth if necessary, and thus it was done.
These right wing lobby groups aren't the fringe groups that Andre wished us to believe, but rather powerful LDP kingmakers who could make Koizumi visit the shrine.
As a reader at Andre's blog wrote, would the USA and Europe ever dare or would allow neo-Nazi revisionism or Holocaust denial-ists to gain official approval for their textbooks? And please don't dismiss this as not relevant - it's bloody relevant as it demonstrates the unevenhandedness of how the West, especially American blogs or officials, treats the two former Axis partners with respect to their war crimes.
David Irving, a British, is a notorious historian specializing in Nazi revisionism. He of course wrote books to deny any damn atrocities the Nazis did, including the Holocaust. When he wanted to visit Australia, the government refused to provide him with a visa, terming him as an undesirable person. I doubt the Australian government will ever deny entry to any Japanese, revisionist that he may be.
I mentioned this before, the Chinese people are like country bumpkins when it comes to campaigning against facism. They not only lack the sophistication and knowhow to run such campaigns effectively, but in any protests behave badly and come across as a band of soccer thugs.
They should learn from the Jewish community how to marshal support and influence the media to ensure facism and evil do not arise again. They should learn how to ensure that no western country and their mainstream media would ever tolerate Japanese revisionism as they won't Neo-Nazi revisionism.
In the meantime, they should stop behaving like thugs and keep their rage under control.