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Are you tired of hearing calls from South Korea and China for Japan to address World War II issues with apologies?

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Fortunately this is pretty much only from the political side as it seems to me from conversations with folks I know in business and industry that this issue affects them ZERO!

8 ( +10 / -2 )

YES! YES! OH GOD, YES!

7 ( +14 / -7 )

Finally a great question is put forth here. YES! China and Korea need to get over it.

14 ( +22 / -8 )

I am as well, which is why I wish Japan would deal with their issues so that the Koreans and Chinese would/could shut up about them.

-8 ( +8 / -16 )

What the ... do you guys tell Jewish people to "shut up" about the Holocaust?

Shaking head in disbelief here.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I can't blame either China or Korea for their constant bleating. Too many Japanese politicians and historians keep changing and downplaying the facts of Japan's imperial rule of Asia. The massacres, the sex slaves, the entombed war criminals. It all adds up create a very tense relationship with the victims of Japan's rule. Yes, it does seem to be a never ending scenario of China and Korea pleading for apologies, but with Japan attempting to change or downplay the history at every given chance this will go on forever.

0 ( +16 / -16 )

It wouldn't change anything if Japan did. China and SK have way too much become used to drawing their victim card. The apology would be a superficial gesture in the current state of affairs anyway, with especially China's expansionism and military proliferation.

11 ( +18 / -7 )

If people in Japan want the demands for apologies to stop, they should FORMALLY -- as in, recognized by all the politicians in the DIET -- apologize, and make it illegal to deny things like sex slaves and the massacres in Nanking, the Death railway, the Baaton March, etc. But they never will, so why should China and South Korea be expected to stop demanding apologies?

-15 ( +12 / -26 )

If the Japanese media would just not give China and South Korea publicity about the issue every time something needs to be negotiated, maybe they would just shut up. Japan is like koi, it surfaces with its mouth open every time they throw out the bait. STOP IT. If they want discuss trade, it is a single issue. If they want to discuss the islands dispute, it is a single.issue. Japan needs to follow the same philosophy with NK. Stop dragging the abducted Japanese into every discussion with NK. Those people will never be returned, and no threat from Japan will bring them home, especially since aid and money continues to be sent to NK to save the children from starving. Kim is a "little fatty" and it is not from fast foods.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Yes, yes, a thousand times times! But I am also tired of the carping about Hiroshima and I never pass up an opportunity to say it to the occassional nut job.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

As Murakami says, Japan should apologize until it is forgiven.

-16 ( +6 / -22 )

Please!

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Do most of you "yes" voters live with a long-term Japanese partner? If so, you would know the importance/ significance attached to genuine apologies (i.e. "We did a very bad thing. I'm very sorry for the way we acted".) That's a whole different kettle of fish to "Shucks, things got really messed up back then...we really regret that"). People in this part of the world pick up on the nuances of this sort of thing. The fact is Japan obviously has a hard time giving a heart-felt apology (because they don't want to?), and it grates on its former victims. Germany actually did worse things, but showed TRUE remorse and, as a result, has been accepted as a trusted partner by its neighbors again. Will Japan ever learn? As long as it continues to act like the eternal teenager on the international stage, it will never be truly respected.

-11 ( +4 / -15 )

German apologized only to the victims of the Nazi. The goverment never apologized for causing the war.

10 ( +12 / -3 )

Sunrise 777, you're quite sure who CAUSED the war, apparently. You might want want to go back to your history books and read about what went on in 1918 at the Treaty of Versailles, and look at the ridiculous system that was in place pre-1914 that allowed that particular catastrophe to happen. The Germans were made scapegoats for an epic screw-up on the part of all the major European powers. Yes, they started WW2, but did they cause it? It's not that simple.

-10 ( +2 / -12 )

As Murakami says, Japan should apologize until it is forgiven.

And what happens when the folks refuse to forgive them, even though they keep on apologizing?

An apology loses it's meaning when the recipient does not care to listen and only demands it due to political reasons.

11 ( +13 / -2 )

CGB SpenderMAY. 04, 2015 - 01:02PM JST It wouldn't change anything if Japan did. China and SK have way too much become used to drawing their victim card.

Agree. However, if Japan had spent the last 70 years atoning for their atrocities as had the Germans, Japan might find more sympathy in the rest of the world every time the Chinese or S. Koreans attempted to play this trump card. The S. Koreans might actually let the matter rest. I have no hope of the "Middle Kingdom" ever getting over it.

The apology would be a superficial gesture in the current state of affairs anyway, with especially China's expansionism and military proliferation.

The two aren't connected however, other than Japan might find allies in SE Asia since most of the countries there loathe the Chinese more than Japan because of the new aggressiveness.

-8 ( +1 / -9 )

Yes... and I don't even LIVE in Japan!

6 ( +10 / -4 )

The "Cenotaph For Korean Victims of The Atomic Bomb" was created in 1970, since a good portion of Hiroshima's economy depended on its large workforce of Korean laborers. But for many years the Japanese refused to allow the monument to be placed in the Peace Park, seemingly in the belief that only Japanese people were allowed to call themselves victims.

Finally, in 1999 the Japanese relented, BUT after a lot of...you guessed it....pressure from the Koreans and others.

Just one of many examples of how if it weren't for all those noisy demands we continue to hear today, then today's generation of Japanese people would have zero knowledge and appreciation of their country's actions during the war.

Keep up the pressure, folks!

-6 ( +5 / -11 )

Apologies have been made, the problem is successive Japanese politicians back tracking and even denying that atrocities happened. When this stops people can move on

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

I think it's a two way street, this one. Japan's apologies have been bumbling, awkward affairs that are seen to lack sincerity and genuine heartfelt remorse. But more importantly, people like Abe have further muddied the waters of these by revisionist and denial sentiments, which is shameless.

But Korean and Chinese politicians are just as guilty for using this as a political football to whip up nationalist sentiment for their own purposes. They find it too easy to lash out at Japan - particularly China, who have done so with one hand whilst happily taking aid and development money in staggering sums with the other.

Poor form all round.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I am just very tired of Japan denying everything that makes them look bad... They WERE bad ! Unfortunately, even if Abe did say "sorry" it would sound as it really is : completely hollow...

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Forget China and Korea for a moment. I want Japan to face up to it's WWII legacy to its own citizenry, and for its own sake.

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

Like many of the people here I am tired of the calls from S.K. and China but until Japan actually admits that what they did was wrong they are going to continue. Not "we regret" not "its unfortunate". It needs to be something like "Japan was wrong and committed several atrocities/sins against many other nations. We recognize the fault in our nations past ask forgiveness for the wrongs of sex slavery, massacre, and forced labor/slavery of conquered peoples."

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

World should know the reality about Korea.

Complaining Neighbor = Korea and China only

They never stop complaining.

It is not about WW2 issue.

Currently Korea is complainig following issue.

Koreans are protesting and ciriticizing UNESCO for admitting Meiji industrial site in Japan to be a world heritage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11508141/Japan-South-Korea-and-the-ugly-Unesco-battle.html

In this website,Mr Sharad Majumdar 's comment has good point. Most of great work was partially of fully done with slave labor. And stupid Korean's comment is trying to associate everything Japan did with Nazi. That the logic they always use. while, Mr Sharad Majumdar 's counter comment is "what about Great wall? (Wasn't that built with a great deal of slave labor?)"

4 ( +7 / -3 )

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is not about Japan. It is not about ww2 either.

It is all about Korea. You don't know much about Korea

Korean use a hatred against Japan to unify thier own people.

=> Territorial Issue, dokdo island.

=> Jealous Korean claims Japanese Cherry blossom, Someiyoshino's origin is from Korea. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/914630.shtml

=> Korean kids are taught at school to hate Japan http://www.geocities.jp/bxninjin2004/data_room/05/cache/02/index.php.htm

=> Japanese dogs,Akita-ken,秋田犬, were mutilated and beheaded on the street by koreans with a big picture of comfort women behind. Crazy protests in public in Korea. (too brutal to put link to that photo, so please image search by youself with keyword "Akitaken comfort woman")

.

Now

Take a look at how world views Japan and Korea. Take a look at how other asian views Japan. .

=========Percentage of people who love Japan a lot in Asia, 2012 =========

Korea 8% <----Low

China 14% <---- Low

Taiwan 49%

HongKong 48%

Thai 58%

Malaysia 41%

Singapore 68%

Indonesia 41%

Vietnam 45%

Filipin 67%

http://news.mynavi.jp/photo/news/2012/11/08/185/images/001l.gif

.

=========World survey 2011=========

[ Positive ]

1st Germany

2nd England

3rd Japan<-------

.

[ Negative ]

1st Iran

2nd North Korea

....

6th Korea<--------

Positive views of Brazil have sharply improved in the annual BBC World Service Country Rating Poll of 27 countries around the world. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_03_11_bbcws_country_poll.pdf

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Is there another case where every leader of a country has to apologize for all this sins of the coountry?

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Yubaru: "An apology loses it's meaning when the recipient does not care to listen and only demands it due to political reasons."

More importantly, an apology loses it's meaning when subsequent leaders want to change it and won't admit to what has been apologized for (and none of the apologies have been formal, keep in mind!).

I bet these same people who are 'tired' or hearing demands for apologies from other nations aren't tired of hearing calls for the abduction issue to be resolved (it's suddenly something that needs to never be forgotten... something that involves the whole world!).

-9 ( +3 / -12 )

Sadly, all three governments are using these issues for their own political agendas, while the media's use this for popular divisive headlines. Yes it's a good practice to have forgiveness for past misdeeds, it's also important to be able to apologize. Having duel citizenship in the UK & US, I have no problem apologizing for my countries extreme mistakes, even though I wasn't responsible for their actions. Abe should appoligize, China & South Korea should except it, and all should move on.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

@Stuart hayward

Having duel citizenship in the UK & US, I have no problem apologizing for my countries extreme mistakes, even though I wasn't responsible for their actions.

At least in Japan, I don't see anyone asking for an apology—especially from someone who has nothing to do with WW2 or any other historical events/civil crimes (WW2 shouldn't be singled out, right?)

Some highschool in Japan had taken their students to Korea and made children dogeza to apologize for Japan's wartime crimes for over 30 years. I guess you would be a proud parent if your child was one of those children who was forced to kneel down in front of total strangers over something he/she didn't do. And all that has done what? Nothing.

Here's a copy and links to Japanese/Korean news articles about Hiroshima highschool dogeza trip to Korea:

http://wkorea.exblog.jp/1170276

4 ( +5 / -1 )

NYtoday: Lol, who said anything about forcing my child or yours to appoligize? Oh, only you. My comment specifically said "I" have no problem apologizing for my countries extreme mistakes.

Government leaders from any country should have the strength & ability to appoligize AND forgive, NOT just have inflated egos, with a chip on their shoulder and a monkey on their back. I've said I'm sorry to people who've bumped into me, it didn't matter that they were glued to their cell phone. I guess you would puff your chest and scream, or want to fight if that happened to you, eh?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

...and make it illegal to deny things like sex slaves and the massacres in Nanking, the Death railway, the Baaton March, etc.

It might not be your cup of tea, Smith, but most of us find free speech to be a positive force in the world. Japan is not China...yet.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

It seems that every new prime minister does not have to apologize big every time as long as he/she is a young generation, however whoever he/she is a prime minister, one would have to show a deep remorse to all people on 15th of August every year.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

They should make a new poll with the question: Are you tired of Japan constantly denying the atrocities they've committed in every single publicity-stunt chance they can get?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

ThePBot May. 08, 2015 - 02:35AM JST They should make a new poll with the question: Are you tired of Japan constantly denying the atrocities they've committed in every single publicity-stunt chance they can get?

Regarding Japan’s attitudes towards China, let’s not forget the many billions in loan assistance which Japan has provided to China over the decades, and which China has eagerly taken to finance its development. It seems odd that China conveniently forgot past aggressions from Japan when such money was flowing its way. China’s continuing problems with its neighbors go far beyond its relations with Japan.

How time has changed. It may seem strange today but Mao Zedong discouraged public discourse about the Japanese invasion and waived reparations. During his reign, Nanking was far from becoming Chinese target for Japanese brutality. Why Japan became a easy target? This was when new communist leaders, transforming their country into a market economy, first began to face the problems of uneven growth, which included social unrest on a huge scale. Honoring the memories of Sino-Japanese War became main focus to the post-Cold War Chinese strategy of finding new foils internationally and fresh ideological legitimacy at home.

As in China, anti-Japanese nationalism in South Korea has large constituency and is a focus of national identity. But it coexists with extreme inequality and unemployment. But Park may discover that in an unequal and fractious country, anti-Japanese nationalism remains the best way to orchestrate national unity. South Korea seems to be following the pattern of China.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

It doesn't make sense for current Japanese politicians to apologize for a war that was not their fault. Perhaps they should apologize for their own efforts to deny/distort history but they shouldn't apologize for the war itself.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I think a better poll would be one that asks whether or not people believe that war time atrocities occurred on behalf of the Japanese towards the Chinese and South Koreans on a large scale and that Chinese and South Korean women were forced on a large scale to become the armies sexual play things.

The issue isn't the apology as such, its whether or not the vast population of Japan acknowledge that the events occurred in the first place or even know about them. Japan seems to be a bit deaf and dumb to the way the international community still views this issue, its not only China and South Korea but several Western countries such as the US, Canada and Australia to name a few, all still feel that Japan has not done enough to educate its current population about its transgressions, but often pays homage to those that committed them, with members of the Diet attending services for fallen officers who have been accused of war crimes by the international community.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It is time to move on, who still holds Germany to account, people have forgiven Germany and understand that the country is not the same as it was during WW2, the same should be applied to Japan.

Being Canadian, I see Japan has become a great nation that is careful on it's conflicts and respectful of others, it's time to close the books and look to the future.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Those who agreed to this poll are clueless. If you are not born and raised in Asia, grew up in China and South Korea, even Southeast Asia, you will never understand. You don't agree because you simply do not understand and do not care, that's why you agree with this poll that you are sick of hearing calls from C and SK. But those of us who disagree understand why this has to be done. Even western countries are calling Japan to make the proper apology. Why is that so? Because they understand and know what's going on. Look at Abe, the leader of the country, do you think he is really sorry? Lastly, put yourself in those people's shoes, imagine someone in your family was killed by JP during WWII, do you think it is really that easy to forgive and forget? Here we are talking about thousands of people being killed and then the aggressor pretends like they didn't do anything wrong. Please think about it. Murakami is spot on, even as a Japanese.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I'm not tired of the calls for apologies, I'm tired of the way people respond to these calls not with a consistent moral judgement, but based on whatever is best for the tribe they support.

It should be very simple: you owe an apology for harmful actions you personally undertook or supported. That means the vast majority of the Japanese public owes no apology for WWII itself because the vast majority of the Japanese public hadn't yet been born when the war was being fought, and collective guilt is not a concept that rationally moral people support.

However, if you deny the existence of comfort women without providing strong evidence to support your claim, if you claim an honest study of your country's history is "masochistic", if you give material and political support to war memorials that in turn use that support to keep historical revisionist museums in operation, if you deny that there is genuine outrage in Korea and China for Japan's war history and try to pretend those calls for apology are just cynical political exploitation- then you've done wrong, and you owe an apology. Not for the war, but for how you've personally acted in response to it.

Don't worry, I won't be holding my breath while waiting for any apologies.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

To continue to demand apologies is to keep the spirit of the war alive. By no means should anyone forgive or forget any group involved in World War II, but to try to alleviate the pains of past conflicts by applying social pressure, by pushing more strife, is to perpetuate the original conflict.

The Japanese definitely did terrible things in the War. So did the US. So did everyone. It was a war. I hate war so much, and I wish we could just all admit as humans that we are sorry to each other. Only when we can all be truly accepting and respectful of all other people will the apologies become unnecessary. I know it's a rosy pink viewpoint, and we may be thousands of years away from reaching a state of mutual worldwide understanding, but I just can't stand it when apologies are forced.

Quoting WWI Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Yes but it will never end because as leaders and regimes change, they don't carry over the same views and policies as we already know.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

does the world still ask Germany to say sorry? why should a nations children say sorry for something they were never evolved in?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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