Latest 15 of 19 Total Comments Show All

• 

  OssanULTRA at 04:29 AM JST - 1st June

  "‘‘Japan is therefore responsible for the peace and stability of the world.’’ "God help us all."

  Since it is common knowledge that Japan has no desire to become a Superpower and Global Policeman like the United States, obviously this is a poorly translated version of a comment relecting that "Japan has a responsibility towards maintaining peace and stability in the world".

• 

  KenjiYamamoto at 05:15 AM JST - 1st June

  what asia desperately needs is what europe already enjoys - an asian union. europe has already produced an outstanding jet fighter, the eurofighter. not to mention the european space agency with THEIR OWN SPACE STATION, THE COLOMBUS (not to be confused with the us space shuttle).

  and the asians? they don't even stand behind what they are. yeah, japan does plumbing work for the iss (int'l space station - a us run joint really) by shipping out tubes for it, but so what.

  let the orientals just fight each other, they're orientals, what could one expect from a bunch of small ricers?

• 

  yabits at 05:38 AM JST - 1st June

  Two interesting statements:

  It is essential that the Japanese people living in this century accurately understand the grief and bitterness which Japan left to the people of Asia and win the trust of Asian people beforehand...

  and

  Now, anyone still want to say that all Japanese are whitewashing their history?

  There was never a contention that ALL Japanese whitewash history. Now, when the school textbooks reflect the intention that all Japanese students "accurately understand" the grief their nation has caused in the past, then we are getting somewhere.

• 

  NeoJamal at 11:40 AM JST - 1st June

  As a sovereign state, Japan needs not justify undertaking any measure expedient to the defense of its realm short of breaching another nation's territorial integrity and other acts that breach the principles of customary international law. On the contrary, it is those nations that criticise Japan's exercise in arms that needs to justify their pernicious flak that purports to undermine Japan's right to defense. With all the merchandise, funds and corporate management methods that Japan has provided to various Asian states, it is both ungrateful and treacherous act on any Asian nation to impede on acts for the preservation of Japanese interests and territory. That without, Japan would have never been able to confer those benefits to Asia.

• 

  smithinjapan at 06:11 PM JST - 1st June

  rjd: "Wow. This statement ooming from the JAPANESE DEFENSE MINISTER. Now, anyone still want to say that all Japanese are whitewashing their history?"

  Gladly, 'Japanese are still whitewashing their history'. I'd like to add on your comment though and mirror yabits' statement that no one has ever said ALL Japanese are whitewashing history. Just a token few in government. Unfortunately, since they control printed matter in the country, ALL Japanese are SUBJECT to the whitewashing.

• 

  Shumatsu_Samurai at 08:42 PM JST - 1st June

  Just a token few in government. Unfortunately, since they control printed matter in the country, ALL Japanese are SUBJECT to the whitewashing.

  Complete garbage - there is no such control held by a few people in government.

• 

  smithinjapan at 02:44 AM JST - 2nd June

  Shumatsu: "Complete garbage - there is no such control held by a few people in government."

  You've been reading to many government approved textbooks, my friend.

• 

  Shumatsu_Samurai at 04:42 AM JST - 2nd June

  You've been reading to many government approved textbooks, my friend.

  I haven't been reading any. Your assertion that a small group of people control written media in Japan is ridiculous given the government gets trashed by various authors, commentators, etc.

  Produce some credible evidence or stop making things up.

• 

  yabits at 05:41 AM JST - 2nd June

  Shumatsu_S. writes:

  Your assertion that a small group of people control written media in Japan is ridiculous given the government gets trashed by various authors, commentators, etc.

  A rather small group of people within Japan's Ministry of Education does control what textbooks are to be used and what those textbooks say, even though private companies write the books.

  Back to Ishiba-san's statement that the Japanese people must understand the grief they have caused other Asians, credible evidence for the whitewashing of history textbooks can be found at the link below, which whitewashes the Japanese military's role in forcing woman into work as sex slaves. There has been a consistent pattern of expunging the grief that the Japanese military caused others, such as denial of the Nanking Massacre, denial of forced suicides on Okinawa, and presenting Japan's occupation of Manchuria and Korea only in a positive light with no mention whatsoever of war crimes.

  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070311f1.html

• 

  OssanULTRA at 08:58 AM JST - 2nd June

  " the Japanese people must understand the grief they have caused other Asians,"

  Very few Japanese people I know have caused any grief to anybody. Those who did 65=70 years ago have either been prosecuted, or are living out the twilight years of their lives.

• 

  yabits at 10:54 AM JST - 2nd June

  Very few Japanese people I know have caused any grief to anybody.

  And we have the surrender in August of 1945 largely to thank for that fact.

  If a nation with Japan's history wanted to once again be better able to project military power, I suspect one of the first steps would be to expunge a lot of unpleasant details from the history books. That would dupe a lot of kids into believing that Japan could never cause grief to anybody, and is precisely what other Asian nations fear.

  I suggest a long, hard look be given to this concept of "collective self-defense." At first hearing, it sounds like an oxymoron.

• 

  nigelboy at 11:37 AM JST - 2nd June

  I haven't been reading any. Your assertion that a small group of people control written media in Japan is ridiculous given the government gets trashed by various authors, commentators, etc.

  Partly true, partly false. Japan has just enough left wing liberal nuts who pressure the government to instill such ludicrous items such as comfort woman and Okinawa suicides in the textbooks.

• 

  yabits at 12:12 PM JST - 2nd June

  Referring to the grief that the Japanese military brought on people of Okinawa, an Osaka judge had this to say, in a defamation case thrown out earlier this year:

  “The military was DEEPLY involved in the mass suicides,” Judge Toshimasa Fukami said in the ruling. Judge Fukami cited the testimony of survivors that soldiers had handed out grenades to civilians to use for committing suicide, and the fact that mass suicides had occurred ONLY in villages where Japanese troops had been stationed. [emphasis added]

  The defamation lawsuit, filed in 2005, was seized upon by right-wing scholars and politicians in Japan who wanted to delete references to the military’s coercion of civilians in the mass suicides from the country’s high school history textbooks. Last April, during the administration of Shinzo Abe, then the prime minister, the Ministry of Education announced that references to the military’s role would be deleted from textbooks.

  Some 110,000 people rallied in protest in Okinawa last September, in the biggest demonstration in the prefecture since the early 1970s. The protests, as well as Mr. Abe’s resignation and his replacement by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, a moderate, led the Ministry of Education to put back most of the references in December.

  The about-face was an embarrassment for the government, which has always denied accusations by China and South Korea that it engaged in historical whitewashing, and has contended that its school textbooks are free of political bias.

  Japan cannot win the trust of its neighbors adopting the loony attitudes of people who want to whitewash their history.

• 

  OssanULTRA at 04:46 AM JST - 3rd June

  Whitewashing is a wonderful thing. China does it. SKorea does it. We all do it.

• 

  capone at 09:24 PM JST - 3rd June

  yeah...when pigs fly

Register or login to add a comment!