Japan PM Clashes With Neighbors Over History

T O K Y O, July 11, 2001 -- There is a saying that there is no "new" history in Asia, and this week, the long and wary histories of Japan, China, and Korea were grinding into each other again like huge tectonic plates.

On Monday, just as it appeared that the South Koreans and the Japanese were making real progress trying to put their long, contentious history aside, Japan's new and charismatic Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi turned his attention to a different, and difficult, diplomatic problem.

The prime minister urged America's new ambassador to Japan, the distinguished politician Howard Baker, to call for more discipline among American troops stationed on Okinawa. This in direct response to last week's arrest of an American staff sergeant, on suspicion of raping a local woman.

"Such incidents should not be allowed to take place," Mr. Koizumi reportedly said. "I ask you to reinforce discipline and guidance.'

This was very big news in Japan, and there has been a lot of angry talk here that perhaps it's time the Americans, and their 50,000 troops stationed in Japan, most in Okinawa, should go home.

Revisionism Run Amuck

On the same Monday, Japan rejected a major revision of a controversial Japanese history textbook. Critics say that as a result, the book now almost completely ignores the massive atrocities committed by Japan during the Second World War.

In particular, Koreans are upset that the horrendous sexual enslavement of 100,000 Korean women for Japanese troops is barely mentioned.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung says that he is shocked by Japan's refusal to revise the government-approved textbooks, and says his government will continue to demand the Japanese take action to reflect historic reality.

The Koreans were upset enough that on Monday, President Kim refused to meet a high level Japanese delegation.Twenty-five South Korean lawmakers from Korea's Ruling Millennium Democratic party, along with its opposition, said the Japanese ambassador should be thrown out and the Japanese Embassy in South Korea closed. There is serious talk of a boycott of Japanese goods.

The Chinese, too, large trading partners of Japan, are upset. Memories of the notorious "Rape of Nanking" at the hands of the Japanese in World War II are bitterly remembered.

China's President Jiang Zemin has this week expressed concern that the history books in question distort Japan's past acts of aggression. "History cannot be altered," he told a delegation of Japanese officials visiting Beijing.

Topping It Off, Defiantly

And as a final flip to all this uproar, there is, waiting in the wings, the planned trip by Prime Minister Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine this August in Tokyo.

Koizumi, who is enormously popular with the Japanese public, has said he'll go to pay his respects to the honored dead who've served their country.

But there are also many overtones connected to this particular shrine. Some of the "honored" dead are convicted war criminals, including Japan's World War II General and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. It is also a favorite visiting place of hard-core Japanese nationalists who downplays Japan's role in World War II atrocities.

China has already criticized Koizumi's plan to visit the shrine on Aug. 15, theanniversary of Japan's surrender in the war.

"We cannot accept a Japanese leader paying a visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are enshrined,' says China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.

Koizumi has said he'll make the visit both as a prime minister, and as a private citizen. How it will play as a diplomatic gesture, though, remains in question.

And certainly all of Asia will be watching.