More than 70 years have passed since Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in World War II on 15 August 1945. The Nazi surrender had come in the two months prior. Wartime suffering and atrocities came to a screeching halt, and the process of picking up the pieces began. For the European theatre, Germany has on numerous occasions accepted responsibility for the suffering inflicted on victims of the Holocaust and on the rest of Europe. Speaking in Warsaw in September 2019, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeir called World War II a “German crime,” for which he asks “for forgiveness for Germany’s historical debt.” In Asia, however, Japan has yet to issue a direct apology.
While an apology for the war remains elusive, the diary of late chamberlain Shino Kobayashi reveals that Emperor Hirohito agonised over his wartime responsibility up until his death in 1989. Newly disclosed documents reveal that Emperor Hirohito was prevented by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in 1952 from expressing regret and remorse. Nevertheless, Emperor Hirohito’s son and successor Emperor Akhihito has expressed “deep remorse” for the war. Apologies do not erase the past nor do they right all wrongs, but they do provide closure to those who wish to move on. Just as wartime guilt appears to have passed through Japan’s imperial family, so has the quest for closure passed through the families of those who had lived through the war.
Offensives in the spring of 1945 saw Hunan and Guanxi retaken from the Japanese. Riding on these successes, Major General Albert Wedemeyer planned to retake Canton in the summer of the same year, but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought a swifter end to the war. Yet, the end of the war did not come swift enough for my great grandparents, who starved to death in 1945 while my ancestral village in Nanhai, Canton was still under Japanese occupation. My grandfather watched them wither away helplessly, and developed a complicated post-war relationship with alcohol that eventually led to an early death. My father’s voice trembles as he talks about the paternal grandparents he never knew and lost time with my grandfather. For my family, World War II was deeply personal, and evidently still is. An apology is not only important to some on a personal level, but is also vital in Asia’s struggle to shrug off the lingering distrust and skepticism of Japan.
On the international stage, Japan’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the atrocities it committed during the war continues to be a stumbling block in international and trade relations in Asia. In August 2019, Seoul announced that it would terminate the 2016 intelligence sharing pact, known as the General Security of Military Information Agreement, with Tokyo. This situation arose out of a dispute between South Korea and Japan over compensation for Korean victims of war crimes committed by the Japanese. In the absence of a formal apology, it is only natural that emphasis is placed heavily on actions that may attest to an iota of remorse. Even then, Japan habitually provides reason for its Asian neighbours to cast doubt over its true feelings about the war. Visits by Japanese leaders to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which honours 1,068 war criminals, 14 of whom are A-Class, have traditionally enraged South Korea and China. Although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not visit the shrine on the 74th anniversary of Japan’s surrender, Abe did send a ritual offering.
The absence of a formal apology from Japan for its role in the war attracts only modest attention in the West. Much of World War II discourse focuses on the European theatre. In the West’s collective consciousness, the Nazi invasion of Poland marks the start of the war, with the Japanese invasion of China two years earlier largely neglected. Furthermore, Germany’s clear stance on its responsibility in the war has enabled Europe to move on. The atrocities committed by Nazi Germany are rarely elicited as political ammunition or a bargaining chip against modern day Germany. Indeed, the Holocaust is brought up for the purposes of commemoration rather than a continuing subject of contention. To the West, the existence of a shrine honouring Nazi war criminals frequented by German leaders and Germany’s refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust would be unthinkable.
Japan’s elusive apology remains a towering elephant in the room which continues to influence Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours. There is no way to silently bury two bullets in the matter in hope of it sinking to the sea floor and disappearing from the world’s collective memory.
