The Nazis of the East

By Chung Dae-hwa

I dare to call those Japanese leaders who cannot express regrets for their ancestors’ crimes against humanity “the Nazis of the East."

They are much worse than the Nazis because the Nazi occupations and atrocities were confined largely to a limited area, but the Japanese occupation, colonization, and aggressions were much more widespread and prolonged.

Japan colonized Korea, Taiwan, invaded Manchuria and China, occupied Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, then-Burma and many Pacific islands. They attacked China, Russia, and America in major wars.

Japanese piracy in Korea and China in the pre-modern age and aggressions in the modern age are of particular importance. Japan colonized Korea for 35 years and claims they did it with the “consent" of the Korean people. Any contract under duress is null and void. They were particularly cunning, cruel, and uncivilized toward the Koreans and the Chinese.

Japan took away the Korean language, Korean surnames and conscripted Korean men to widespread battlefields and mine pits, and enslaved young Korean women as sex slaves, first admitting all these and now denying them as its current leader, Shinzo Abe, does, revealing the uncivilized nature and barbarism of some leaders of the island country. Little wonder the Chinese and Koreans called them “Japanese dwarves" or “Japanese pirates," two notorious names given them in Chinese (or Kanji) in pre-modern times.

At the time, the Japanese men were the only East Asians running around in “loin cloths" and Japanese pirates in the pre-modern age frequented the shores of Korea and China, stealing, kidnapping, and bagging women in their own skirts.

Other traits of the Japanese are the martial tradition and cruelty. During their aggression of Korea in 1592, they slashed the noses and ears of the Korean people, salted them and presented them to their “shogun"(general) as war trophies. This undeniable evidence was recovered from Japan by the famous Korean Rev. Samjung and is now buried and enshrined at the Sonjin Ear Tomb in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, which happens to be my hometown.

The Nazi descendants, the Germans of today, have already solidified their place in Europe by facing history honestly and squarely, according to the Washington Post (April 27, 2013). Prime Minister Abe, however, goes as far as to shamelessly deny WWII, sex slaves, the rape of Nanjing, and everything else. He is not even alone.

Many Japanese people today claim Korea's Dokdo islets as theirs and also go out of their way to list the sea between Korea and Japan as only the “Sea of Japan." Also, they have been falsifying the textbooks of their middle and high school students.

The tragedy seems that their new agenda, unmistakably emboldened by the American encirclement of China in the 21st century, shifted gear to ultra- right nationalism and Abe makes no bones about it, openly vowing to visit the Yasukuni Shrine sometime later, to pay tribute to 14 Class A war criminals. The Japanese leader brazenly said, “The definition of what constitutes aggression has yet to be established in academia or in the international community."

This is a serious matter that needs to be taken up by the United Nations. If Japan continues to “gloss over" its wartime atrocities with a specter of militarism (clamoring to revise Article 9 of the Peace Constitution), the former victims of Japanese aggression, including the United States, Russia and China, among others, must adopt a U.N. resolution against Japan for possible breach of peace in the future as preventive diplomacy.

Like those who resisted the Nazis, all global villagers must commit themselves to resist the revival of Japanese militarism.

The writer is a professor emeritus of political science at Busan National University, and is currently affiliated with the Center for Global Non-killing in Honolulu, Hawaii. His email address is dhchung@pnu.edu.