Russia Insults Japan

As reported in this article from the BBC, Japan has imposed sanctions on Russia, in concert with most of the rest of the Free World after the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin sent one of his closest aides to visit the Northern Territories, reaffirming Russia's determination to hold on to these parts of Japanese territory. Prime Minister Abe, in a rather naive move, had been trying very hard to win the friendship and approval of Russia in the hope that they would begin serious discussions about returning the Northern Territories to Japan after illegally seizing them at the end of World War II. Japan had held off from enacting the sanctions agreed to by other leading countries in the world for fear of offending Russia over the incursions into Ukraine at a time when the Abe government was trying to win favor with President Putin. Now, Russia has made it clear that they will make no concessions and have even insulted Japan on the world stage by saying that Japan is incapable of managing its own foreign affairs. Clearly, however, the only mistake made here was Abe thinking that he gain anything from the President of Russia.

The entire thing was a naive and useless exercise. What Russia wants in the short term is a market to sell its energy and weapons and in East Asia the massive population of China means that they have a far larger market than Japan, with its smaller and rapidly shrinking population, could ever have. Additionally, when it comes to weapons, Japan already has or has access to far superior weaponry than what could be purchased from the Russians. So, Russia has drawn closer and closer to China and as Chinese influence in Moscow increases so it becomes more assured that Russia would never show any consideration to Japan. Russia has handed over hundreds of square kilometers of territory to Communist China but will not budge at all on the issue of the Northern Territories with Japan. The simple fact is that there is nothing Japan has that Russia really needs and it is in the interests of Russia to keep Japan dangling on promises, to keep Tokyo trying to please Moscow and this latest "charm offensive" by Abe has sent the signal, unfortunately, to Russia that Japan will make concessions in exchange for nothing concrete but merely the hope of something in the future.

So, Russia has come out looking stronger and even goes the extra step to speak out in such a way to humiliate Japan as much as possible. Without conceding anything, Russia was able to exploit the hope of the Abe government to induce Japan to break ranks with her closest allies to hold off on actual sanctions in exchange for nothing but the possibility of future good will. Then, after Japan had gone out on a limb in diplomatic terms to try to keep Russia happy, the Russians have slammed the door in Abe's face and publicly humiliated Japan which is now rushing to catch up and join in the sanctions regime that was given little more than lip-service in the beginning. The problem between Japan and Russia is a fundamental and long-term one that really neither side can do anything about, which is why there has been almost constant friction between the two countries since they first came into contact with each other. In the long-term, problems between the two countries come down to geography. As always, Russia would still like a warm-water port or the exclusive use of a warm-water port on the Pacific. This has been a driving goal of Russian foreign policy in East Asia for centuries. However, the problem is that even if Russia managed to gain such a port from China or Korea, Japan is still placed geographically to shut off access to such a port and render it useless. This is why Russia once tried to seize Tsushima island and it is why, so long as geography is the way it is, Japan will find it impossible to please Russia without giving Russian security and national interest priority over those of Japan.

Honorable Enemies Become Lasting Friends

Anyone who studies the late war in the Pacific will know the name of American Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. It was Admiral Nimitz who led the American naval campaign that ultimately forced Japanese forces out of the South Pacific area. However, Admiral Nimitz was not someone who was anti-Japanese and after the war worked to make sure that America and Japan became fast friends. (Especially after the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, many in the US began to realize that favoring China over Japan in their foreign policy had been a costly mistake) He was very forthright in his opinions and did not hesitate to say in public that there was no military justification for using nuclear weapons against Japan. He told the New York Times newspaper that Japan had already started to try to make peace with the United States before Hiroshima was bombed and so the use of atomic weapons had no impact on the Japanese defeat. Also, Admiral Nimitz, as a student of naval history, had great respect for the naval forces of Japan and particularly admired the great Admiral Heihachiro Togo, famous all over the world for his stunning victory over the Russian Imperial Navy. After World War II, the flagship of Admiral Togo, the Mikasa, had deteriorated badly and Admiral Nimitz joined with the Japan Times to lead a campaign to restore this historic battleship of symbol of Japanese national pride. The campaign was a success and the ship is again on public display today in Yokosuka.

Later on, military and civilian leaders in Japan wanted to show their appreciation for what Admiral Nimitz had done for Japanese-American reconciliation and to do so in a way that reflected his great respect for Admiral Togo. To do this, they had built in Fredericksburg, Texas (the hometown of Admiral Nimitz) a traditional Japanese garden identical to that of his hero Admiral Togo which is called the "Garden of Peace". Today this garden is part of the Admiral Nimitz Museum and the National Museum of the Pacific War in the small hill country town of Fredericksburg. Admittance is free for all veterans of World War II, whether American or Japanese.

Scotland, Japan and Korea

HM the Emperor in Scotland

Next week Scotland will hold a referendum on whether or not to leave the United Kingdom and become an independent country (or at least as "independent" as one can be within the European Union). The coalition supporting this movement are certainly no friends of monarchy or time-honored Scottish traditions. The "Yes" vote supporters consist of socialists, communists, Irish republicans and people who have simply made a habit of hating England. Given the disreputable characters who support the break-up of the United Kingdom, it should probably be no surprise that the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, recently came out in support of Scottish "independence" (see this article in the Daily Mail). This should be reason enough on its own for anyone in Japan to support the "No" vote. Elements in Russia have also voiced support for Scottish so-called "independence" because they feel it will strengthen the position of the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine in terms of world opinion as they try to claim independence from the rest of the country (prior to joining Russia outright or in all but name). What does this have to do with Japan? Indirectly, more than one might think, especially with the position of powers such as Russia and North Korea. These countries support the break-up of the United Kingdom because they want to see countries like the UK weakened. As a friendly country with a long history of good relations between the Japanese Imperial Family and the British Royal Family, the dissolution of the United Kingdom is something Japan should oppose for the same reasons that powers like North Korea support it.

There is also the concern of this idea becoming fashionable and that is something that could cause Japan considerable trouble. Many news reports are already circulating about the example a "Yes" vote in Scotland could set for independence-movements in Quebec in Canada, in the Catalan region of the Kingdom of Spain or for Flanders in the Kingdom of Belgium. There are plenty of other examples as well. Consider the so-called "Ryukyu Independence Movement" (琉球独立運動). Here also is a former kingdom that was united with another monarchy and which existing countries today would like to see push for independence as a way of weakening Japan. Only recently, elements in China said that the Ryukyus should not be considered part of Japan at all. It would be very easy to imagine China giving active support (perhaps clandestinely) to a pro-independence movement in the Ryukyus both as a way of weakening Japan and to gain control of the Senkakus without risking war with Japan and the United States. All of these are reasons why the loyal monarchists of Japan and the United Kingdom should stand together in opposing these secessionist movements. It is a dangerous world and countries which are successful always attract enemies and if these enemies lack the courage to oppose a country openly, they will do it with subterfuge by supporting movements that make their enemies weaker and leave them open to outside manipulation. Now is the time for monarchist solidarity, support the "No" vote in Scotland!

(Also, notice in the Daily Mail article the source of Koreans in Japan who are loyal to the DPRK, a foreign power, rather than being loyal to HM the Emperor. Traitors in one country supporting the traitors in another country.)

The Image of Japan

Recently The Yomiuri Shimbun ran this article on the efforts of the Abe government to repair the "tarnished" image of Japan in the international community. This is an important issue and not just because of the way other countries think of Japan. That is superficial and on matters of great importance it is often essential not to allow the opinion of others to get in the way of doing what is best for the country. A perfect example is the recent emphasis on national security. It is essential that Japan take all steps necessary to defend against aggression even though it can be expected that some countries will accuse Japan of returning to "militarism". However, what is of vital importance is the reason behind the campaign by some foreign governments, particularly Communist China and South Korea, to spread a negative image of Japan in the rest of the world. There is not much that Japan can do about what China and Korea say; they are foreign countries over which Japan has no control. What the Japanese people can do is to control what they say and how they react.

One important point is to avoid the temptation to do to other countries what China and Korea are doing to Japan because this is self-defeating. The reason is rooted in what drives China and Korea to vilify Japan in the first place. There is a deeper purpose behind campaigns such as that from South Korea to publicize the Comfort Women issue in countries around the world, particularly the United States. Have you ever wondered why Korea would go to the expense of putting up several of the Comfort Women statues in cities across America and place advertisements in major publications accusing Japan of having run a sex-slave operation in World War II? It is not simply to make Japan look bad but to have a real impact on American foreign policy and the foreign policy of other countries where the South Koreans spread and publicize this issue and their false image of Japan. They do it in order to cause division between Japan and those countries which are allied to Japan. That is why the campaign has focused so heavily on the United States, because the United States is the most militarily powerful country in the world and has promised to defend Japan if the country is ever attacked by one of its neighbors. Of those countries closest to Japan; Russia, the two Koreas and China, all have a hostile attitude toward Japan. They also all have territorial disputes with Japan and having been drawing closer together. Any drive to action, however, is problematic because the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are backed up by the United States. Other powers are also friendly with Japan but none have the ability to assist in major military terms like the Americans.

This is the reasoning behind the campaign to smear the reputation of Japan around the world. It is an effort to divide allies and make Japan isolated in the world. Unfortunately, there are those in Japan who are inadvertently helping to make this campaign easier. Already the Chinese and Koreans have used articles or internet videos from Japan talking about Pearl Harbor, bombing raids or the atomic bombs and calling the Americans "war criminals" and condemning not just individuals but the entire country at large. This is no reason for Japan not to defend itself when slandered and the facts should be revealed to all. Japan was not waging an aggressive war, Japan did not want to fight the United States but was forced into it and the Japanese people did suffer horribly from the bombing campaign. However, going further and attacking other countries like the United States, Great Britain, Australia or others does not help and those who do can and have had their words used against Japan by people like the Chinese who are trying to tell all these countries that Japan is not a true friend and ally. They want these countries to believe that nothing has changed since World War II and that Japan hates them all and that they should, like in the war, join with China in opposing Japan. Japanese people should be careful not to mistakenly assist them in this strategy!

It is also important for the Japanese government and society at large, working with the education system, to adopt an official position regarding the war. Of course, not everyone will agree but there should be some more or less widely accepted "official" position for that the majority can support. All too often, the enemies of Japan have been aided by Japanese officials and newspapers who have given contradictory statements from others and their words are then used to attack Japan and tarnish the image of the country in the international community. Examples of this have been all too common and it often seems that, no matter what the issue, from Nanking to Comfort Women, the enemies of Japan are always able to produce some Japanese people to corroborate their version of events which casts Japan in the worst light possible. Obviously, this cannot be made a matter of law or Japan would cease to be a free country but it can be the subject of social pressure so that everyone will know that those who slander their country will not be well-received in society. So, as we have talked about before, Japan has to make some decisions; decisions about a standard response to the accusations made concerning the war and decisions about whether Japan wants to keep existing allies or make more enemies based on issues of the past. For the image of Japan to be polished and defended in the international community, these decisions will have to be made and the sooner the better because the enemies of Japan are unrelenting in their efforts.

Birthday of HM Emperor Taisho 大正天皇

On this day in 1879 His Majesty the Taisho Emperor was born:

Arguments Defending the Yasukuni Shrine

Recently, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chose not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, honoring war dead, on the occasion of the end of the Greater East Asian War (or World War II) when it would have been appropriate to do so. This was taken by most commentators as a gesture of goodwill on his part towards those governments, particularly mainland China and South Korea which most frequently and vociferously criticize any Japanese person of importance for visiting. It remains to be seen if this goodwill gesture will earn for Japan any goodwill in return, though, I have my doubts. I have no doubt, however, that the usual criticism regarding visits to Yasukuni Shrine are themselves an affront to the very ideals that both the Chinese and South Korean governments claim to champion. This is true because both countries claim to uphold the ideal of freedom of religion, though in regards to the current government of the People’s Republic of China, no serious person in the world would consider that claim to be genuine. Nonetheless, both protest to have respect for the freedom of religion for the peoples of their two republics and yet both grant themselves the power to dictate to the people of a foreign country where they can and cannot attend religious services. This makes such criticism the purest hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, some people in Japan, well-meaning and with the best of intentions, at times respond to this in an unproductive way. The whole controversy, of course, revolves around the fact that some of the veterans whose names are enshrined at Yasukuni were convicted of war crimes by the Allied powers following the Second World War and some well-meaning Japanese attempt to refute this by stating that the Japanese government does not recognize the verdicts convicting these men of war crimes and so, insofar as Japan is concerned, they are not war criminals in spite of the fact that Article 11 of the San Francisco peace treaty to which Japan agreed states that the verdicts were accepted. That, however, is completely immaterial and should not be used as an argument in defense of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. No country would expect that the status of war criminals would depend on the mutual agreement of both the winning and the losing powers and likewise this only provides further encouragement to those in the Chinese and Korean republics for claiming that Japan is in denial about certain points in Japanese history. So, in effect, this is an argument that actually works against Japan and to the benefit of those endlessly trying to besmirch the reputation of Japan and to shackle it forever with the negative image of World War II.

Instead, I would focus on the issue of the religious freedom of all people to pray and worship wherever they please and on the justice of the convictions themselves. The facts of history cannot be changed and the facts are that these men were convicted of war crimes and that these men were enshrined at Yasukuni. It is a fact that Japan lost the war, the Empire of Japan was dissolved and the new State of Japan was established and which was forced to submit to the victors of the war in a number of areas. Those are all facts but what is also a fact is that certainly not all of the men convicted of war crimes were truly guilty nor was the process truly just. The facts of the individual cases is what must be used to refute the accusations at those men the Allies judged to be war criminals and often enough there are examples of legal experts from the Allied countries, as diverse as India and the United States, which denounced them at the time for being unjust. In this regard, the facts are all on the side of Japan and while it would take too long to go into detail about every individual case, the most prominent may serve as an example.

Of all those convicted for war crimes, none was so well known around the world as the former general and war-time Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. All of the crimes for which Tojo was convicted amount to “waging aggressive/unprovoked war” against the various Allied nations and to authorizing the inhumane treatment of Allied prisoners. Every one of these cases can be easily refuted by the facts. Regardless of what opinion one may have of General Hideki Tojo, the fact is that he was certainly not a war criminal by any accepted standard of justice. In the first place, none of the aggressive action undertaken by Japan against China, the United States, Great Britain or the Netherlands was “unprovoked”. It was Chinese (presumably communist) forces which provoked hostilities with Japan at the infamous Marco Polo Bridge Incident, it was the US, UK and Netherlands that placed crippling sanctions on Japan which forced either the surrender of national independence or military action on the part of Japan and in the case of France, the original occupation of parts of French Indochina was undertaken with the permission of the French government. There is also the fact, which is now available to the public, that President Roosevelt authorized the bombing of Japan several months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, which is clear evidence of an intention to wage aggressive war on Japan. This, of course, brings up the most obvious point that for justice to exist it must be equally applied and if Tojo is to be convicted of war crimes for authorizing the invasion and occupation of territories not at war with Japan, then most of the Allied leaders would also have to be held to be guilty as well. Finally, on the issue of authorizing the mistreatment of Allied prisoners, there is simply no evidence that this was the case. It is undeniable that many Allied prisoners were treated inhumanely and in more than a few cases with considerable cruelty, however, there is no evidence that this was ordered or authorized by the Prime Minister and there are also some cases of Allied prisoners being treated humanely and with compassion.

Simply put, in a great many cases, Japanese leaders were being convicted of crimes that were only declared to be crimes retroactively and for which they alone were to be held responsible for even though others, during and before the war, had carried the same or similar actions. Those are the facts and those can be used to make a strong and irrefutable defense of those attending the Yasukuni Shrine. Saying that the Japanese government passed a bill denying their guilt does not help the matter. It also does not help to try to employ the same double-standard used by the enemies of Japan. This most often occurs in regards to the United States with many claiming that the American pilots and generals who ordered and carried out the horrific bombings of Japanese cities, which killed huge numbers of civilians, as well as the atomic bombings were war criminals. This is not helpful. It is a fact that these things happened and it is a fact that these things were immensely cruel, however, it does not speak at all to the guilt or innocence of any of the Japanese who were convicted of war crimes. In all World War II, the Allies made it a point not to convict anyone of bombing civilian targets since they themselves had done the same. The Germans bombed British civilians, the British and Americans bombed German, Italian and other civilians, Americans bombed Japanese civilians and the Japanese bombed Chinese civilians. Everyone was guilty and so the matter was dropped and so it should remain. Claiming that “our” people were not war criminals but “their” people were war criminals does not win any arguments only gives the appearance of attempting to cover up guilt by deflection. What happened to all the victims of the bombings was a horror but it was never considered a war crime by anyone because to condemn one would be to condemn all.

Finally, while refuting the justice of the war crimes trials themselves and while standing up for freedom of religion, one last means of defending the Yasukuni Shrine and visits to it is to point out the injustice of claiming ‘guilt by association’. In other words, no matter what opinion one may have as to the justice or injustice of those convictions for war crimes, the inclusion of those men should not taint the memory of the multitude of people enshrined at Yasukuni. This is an argument that all people can understand and which can stand as simple common sense. Whatever was done by the 14 men convicted as Class-A war criminals, it would be an obvious injustice to dishonor the nearly two and a half million other men, women and children who are enshrined there. This must be emphasized in combination with the fact that religion is a personal thing and so to judge not only all of those enshrined but even those who visit Yasukuni Shrine because of a relative hand-full of (justly or unjustly) controversial cases would itself be an act of great unfairness and injustice. Most of all, it must be made clear that Yasukuni Shrine honors all those who have given their lives in service to His Majesty the Emperor and not, as so many in the leftist media claim, simply to honor war criminals specifically. Those I feel are the arguments that I think would work best, not those which are detrimental to the shared goal of defending the honor and integrity of the shrine and all who go there.

Japan Declares War on Germany

It was on this day in 1914 that the Empire of Japan officially declared war on the German Empire, entering the First World War and launching an air attack on the German colony in China. Here are some postcard memories of Japan from World War I:

Allied leaders: HM the Taisho Emperor, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (left), King George V of Great Britain and the President of France (bottom)

The battle of Tsingtao, China -biggest Japanese victory

HM the Taisho Emperor

HM the Taisho Emperor reviewing troops to be sent to the war

Japanese troops in the Siberian expedition at the end of the war

HM the Taisho Emperor and symbols of Japan

The Imperial Japanese Soldier: "Soldiers of Justice and Right"