Deconstructing Hirohito's Concession Speech

This was first posted on Asia Times. NPR "All Things Considered" interviewed me for a short segment on 8/15/15.

Recently, Japan’s Imperial Household released a DVD set containing a re-mastered and digitized version of Emperor Hirohito’s speech that was recorded for national broadcast on the eve of Japan’s surrender thus ending WWII. The actual broadcast was made on August 15, 1945 marking the official end of the War.

While the release of the improved quality of Hirohito’s speech was widely reported, I could not find any official explanation as to the reason for making this version available now. Presumably, it is part of Japan’s contribution to celebrate or commemorate or memorialize the 70^th anniversary of the end of WWII, depending on one’s personal perspective.

Having now read the text of the Emperor’s speech, I have a better understanding of why the self-image of post-war Japan can be so vastly different from the view of Japan by others. I was a child in China during the War. If I grew up in Japan and heard the Emperor’s speech, I could easily have concluded that Japan was a victim of WWII. Nothing in his speech would suggest that Japan was the aggressor and guilty of provoking the devastating conflict.

The Japanese language is characterized by nuanced, indirect expressions. I recall reading one the old popular business books written to educate gaijins (foreigners) on the subtleties of communicating with the Japanese. The title was something like “Japanese have 16 ways of saying “no,”—none as simple as a straightforward no. Interacting with my Japanese friends, I found that they have many ways of expressing apology and regret but never with seamless candor.

Indeed, we can see by deconstructing the Emperor's speech that "telling it like it is" is not in the Japanese make-up.

First, Hirohito said: “We have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.” What he meant was, “We have to surrender unconditionally.”

Next, he said, “We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.”

The Western powers interpret this statement to mean that the Emperor accepted the terms of unconditional surrender as outlined in the Potsdam Declaration. Yet can anyone expect the ordinary people in Japan to make the same connection from his speech, a speech where "surrender" and "Potsdam" were conspicuously absent? Thanks to the way post-War textbooks are written, most people in Japan have not even heard of Potsdam Declaration.

Then he said, “It being far from our thought either to infringe upon sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.” He obviously was not referring to Japan’s invasion and occupation of Manchuria as early as 1931 and certainly not the occupation of Korea since the latter part of 19^th century.

And he said, “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.” Certainly a masterful understatement under the trying circumstances he was facing.

Approaching the end of his speech, he said, “We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to Our Allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the emancipation of East Asia.” This statement neatly encapsulated the myth of co-prosperity Japan used to justify invading and occupying East Asia countries.

The raping and pillaging as the Japanese troops moved into each country was for their own good, to free them from the shackles of white man domination. Politicians in Japan today continues to perpetuate the idea that Japan invaded rest of Asia for their own good, that the Japanese soldiers snatched the possessions from the local people in order to share the wealth with them.

The media simply adored the statement the Emperor made toward the end of his speech, “…to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.” The poetic meter of the enduring and suffering tugged at their heart strings and was often quoted and repeated in documentaries and films about the war.

Unfortunately, the context of that quote was to portray the hapless Japanese people as having to endure and suffer the post war trauma of a defeated nation--in others words, another reminder of Japan as a victim of WWII. The Emperor was certainly not referring to the Chinese people having to endure and suffer the eight years of the brutal occupation by the imperial troops before the war ended.

It's customary for victors to write the history. Japan is proving to be the exception to the rule. Whether deliberate or simply inhibited by his cultural upbringing, the ambiguity of Emperor's concession speech--certainly not a legitimate surrender proclamation--has allowed Japan to begin revising history. It’s as if denying all the brutalities committed in the past can exonerate the present from any collective guilt. Just the opposite is true. The people of Asia will continue to remind Japan until there is only one version of the tragic history of World War II.

What to make of Mitsubishi Materials’ Apology for WWII Crimes?

A slightly different version has been posted on Asia Times.

Seventy years after the end of WWII, Mitsubishi Materials staged a high profile apology to James Murphy, 94-year old survivor and former American POW. The ceremony took place last month at the Museum of Tolerance of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, appropriately the museum established to remind the world of the European Holocaust.

Apparently the company representative of Mitsubishi sold the former American POW on the depth of his remorse and the sincerity of his regret such that Murphy was pleased to accept on behalf of all the American prisoners that toiled as slaves in wartime Japan. Approximately 12,000 American POWs were shipped to Japan to fill the labor supply shortage and about 10% did not live long enough to be repatriated home.

The well-covered event won accolades from mainly the western media for being the first Japanese company to step forward*, acknowledge and apologize for the wrongs committed by Japan during WWII.  Some even called it a “landmark” apology. Many expressed the hope that other Japanese companies will follow suit and perhaps even persuade the Abe government to do the same.

The company spokesman went on to say that Mitsubishi hopes to apologize to POWs of other nationalities and to negotiate with various Chinese groups with an agreement that includes cash settlement. Altogether, about 39,000 Chinese were taken to Japan for slave labor. Almost 20% died in various labor camps.

Of these, 3765 Chinese prisoners were known to work in the mines belonging to Mitsubishi’s predecessor entity. At least 722 did not survive the war. As reported in Japan Times and other sources, the company was to offer RMB100,000 (around $16,000) to each survivor or to their heirs since not too many are likely to be around with the passage of 70 years.

So far so good, but the issue is not as straightforward as suggested by the narrative so far.  Even though Mitsubishi seems to be the first company* to apologize and offer compensation 70 years after the end of WWII, there are a lot of indicators to suggest they did not do this willingly.

It has taken 70 years because Japanese government and companies have been ducking behind the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 and the normalization agreement between China and Japan entered in 1972.

Japan has always claimed that the 1951 peace treaty got them off the hook from future obligation to pay any indemnity. Indeed, when American POWs filed suit for compensation, the U.S. courts struck them down because of the terms of the peace treaty stipulated forfeiting American citizens’ right to seek damages. But the line of reasoning does not apply to Chinese prisoners, since neither governments of China, based in Beijing or based in Taipei, were invited to attend this conference nor did either one ratify the treaty.

After the war, the allied countries investigated and assessed the war damage inflicted by Japan; the commission came up with a reparation sum of $54 billion to be paid by Japan. China as the nation that fought Japan the longest and suffered the greatest devastation sought the largest share but their claims were basically ignored. Just the sum of the claims by the rapacious western powers, namely U.K., the U.S., the USSR, France and Australia together, exceeded 100%. Ironically, the allies fought together but could not agree on how the spoils of war should be divided. The findings and conclusions were basically set aside and forgotten.

By the time of the San Francisco conference, Japan had already become a potential U.S. ally in the developing cold war and the matter of indemnity was perfunctorily dealt with. Asian countries that attended the conference got some reparation in the order of a few hundred millions dollars. China and Taiwan in absentia were given official title to their possession of the Japanese assets left by the departed Japanese. Even the then prime minister Yoshida of Japan admitted that Japan got off easy.

In contrast, when China lost a two-month war to Japan in 1894, Japan grabbed Taiwan and other islands and demanded harsh indemnity as stipulated in the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed in 1895. In total, China paid the equivalent of ten thousand tons of silver over a three-year period. With one brief military adventure, Japan enriched their government coffers by more than four times their then annual revenue. No wonder when Japan invaded China in 1937, their militarist leaders expected to own the country in a matter of months.

Concurrent with Japan signing the SFPT, Japan also entered into a security treaty with the U.S. The five-article treaty contained only a few hundred words and basically gave the U.S. the right to station military forces on Japan in exchange for protecting the security of Japan against “irresponsible militarism” existing in the world. The treaty gave both signatories plenty of latitude for interpretation and subsequent re-interpretation.

Just as the coupled treaties in 1951 protected Japan from the personal grievances of Americans that suffered from Japan’s brutality, the normalization between China and Japan in 1972 gave Japan cover to reject claims from China. Conveniently, the1972 joint communiqué is subjected to “one document, two interpretations.” China’s official interpretation is that the government waived claims to WWII reparation from Japan but nothing about the people’s right to file claims against Japan.

Chinese complaints representing persons and groups began to be filed in Japan in earnest in the ‘90s. In 2007 the supreme court of Japan made a final ruling that dismissed all the suits on the grounds that the joint communiqué rendered the suits moot. However, the court found atrocities described by the litigants sufficiently appalling that they recommended to the Japanese companies being sued to settle the disputes amicably and somehow make the complaints whole. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, nothing much has happened.

Beginning in 2008, some of the attorneys representing the Chinese victims began to file their complaints against Japanese companies in the courts in China. In February 2014, the courts in China notified the principals of the dispute that they agreed to hear the case. Suddenly, companies such as Mitsubishi took notice and Mitsubishi Materials in particular began to offer to settle.

The calculation of risks and rewards for stalling and stiffing the Chinese victims has changed. China has become or about to become the largest economy in the world and the Japanese companies have too much at stake in this market to risk losing in a Chinese court.* In addition, good will from the people of China now has value.

When Mitsubishi Materials began to publicize their willingness to settle the Chinese claims against the company, the reactions inside China were mixed ranging from elation to condemnation. Some praised the apparent intention to pay a significant sum to the victims and saw this as a breakthrough in a long stalemate.

Others challenge the sincerity behind the offer pointing out that the company has been quick to inform the media of their intentions but has yet to meet with the groups filing the grievances and begin negotiations. They wonder if Mitsubishi will actually pay up. Still other groups expressed dissatisfaction in the wording of Mitsubishi’s apology.

When the people in China began to understand the legal remedies available from the western style of the rule of law, thousands joined various groups to file their complaints. But they did not realize that the wheels of justice grind at snail’s pace. By now the numbers that have survived the ravages of time have dwindled to a handful.

A number of lawyers in China have emerged to allege that they represent certain victims and are looking to manage a piece of the pie. It remains to be seen if that piece of the pie is real or illusory.

Heretofore Japan has been most skillful in bending historical facts to their advantage. The Peace Museum of Hiroshima serves to remind the world that the people of Japan have been the only victims of the atomic bomb but no explanation can be found to describe the events that led to the dropping of the bomb.

Ironically, Japan has applied for World Heritage designation on some of the mines as symbol of Japan’s emergence from feudal state into a modern one, including some belonging to Mitsubishi. Because of vigorous protest from S. Korea, Japan has grudgingly agreed to post wording at those sites indicating that slave labor from Korea were used in Japan’s march toward modernity. It’s doubtful that there will be signs onsite to inform visitors that WWII prisoners also toiled in some of these mines under inhumane conditions.

Japan’s inability to face history fully and make a clean breast of all the atrocities they have committed must be part of their genetic make up. They obviously need help. The latest effort to remind Japan of its past is a new webpage called 10,000 cries for justice, www.10000cfj.org.  This bilingual website is a repository of thousands of letters written by the Chinese in the ‘90s that provided eyewitness accounts of atrocities by the Japanese troops during the war, and coincidentally posted just days after the Mitsubishi deal came to public attention.

This is a powerful documentation of heinous acts committed by Japan including bayoneting infants, raping and then disemboweling women, decapitations, live vivisection experiments on human subjects, dropping of chemical and biological bombs on Chinese villages and many other acts against humanity.

The Abe government wants to forget all that. In fact he wants to rewrite Article 9 of Japan’s constitution so that Japan can become a full-fledged military power again—perhaps becoming a new member of “irresponsible militarism”? China won’t forget. Korea won’t forget. The Philippines and other parts of Asia won’t forget. Can the U.S. ignore history?

President Obama should remind Abe that the bilateral security agreement obligates the U.S. to protect Japan from irresponsible militarism not for Japan to repeat history and become one.

____________________________
* As I reported in another blog, the first lawsuit the Chinese won on a WWII related dispute with a Japanese company and actually collected on the damages in 2014, taking nearly 70 years and over the efforts of three generations. The ruling of this case from a Shanghai court must weigh on the minds of other Japanese companies as they face litigations stemming from WWII. 

The Case of Zhong Wei Shipping vs. Mitsui

The recent public apology Mitsubishi Materials extended to American POW for their stint as labor slaves in Japan during WWII followed by the company’s offer to pay damages to Chinese prisoners who also served as slave labor was widely acclaimed as the first legal win for Chinese victims of Japanese atrocities in WWII. In the course of doing my research, I found that even if Mitsubishi goes forward and actually pay indemnification; theirs was not the first for Chinese plaintiffs.

That dubious honor goes to the Chen family who doggedly pursue justice from Mitsui that span three generations. Finally, in April 2014 the grandson was awarded a judgment of RMB 260 million (about $43 million) on a lawsuit his grandfather initiated. This is widely regarded as the landmark case in the history of China Japan relations.

The grandfather, Chen Shuntong (陈顺通), started as a dock worker at age 14 and became the owner of Zhong Wei Shipping, then China’s largest shipping company by 1930 when he was 35. In 1936, the predecessor Japanese company to Mitsui signed a one-year lease for the use of Shunfeng and Xintaiping. With the capacity of more than 6000 tons and 5000 tons respectively, those were at the time considered the largest and state-of-the-art ships in China.

By 1937, Japan and China were officially at war and the ships were never returned to the owner. Upon conclusion of the WWII, Chen found out that both ships sank and were lost at sea during the conflict. The War and the loss of his ships led to deep depression and drove him to bankruptcy. He fell ill and died in November 1949. On his deathbed, he made his son swore to continue to pursue justice from the Japanese.

His son, Chen Qiaqun, left Shanghai and began to pursue justice out of Hong Kong. In 1962, he went to Japan and because Japan’s imperial navy had commandeered the ships, he began to seek compensation from Japan’s government before the Tokyo district court. The court ruled in 1974 that the statues of limitation on this suit had expired. End of the story in Japan.

In 1987, China’s court ruled that because the lease signed in 1936 took place in Shanghai and the principals were residing in Shanghai as were the ships in question, then the court in Shanghai has jurisdiction over the case. Next year Chen Qiaqun again filed the case on behalf of the Zhong Wei company. The first hearing in the Shanghai Maritime Court（上海海事法院) took place on August 15, 1991

In April 1992, Qiaqun passed away due to illness and he again made his two oldest sons promise to carry on the wishes of their grandfather. Between 1995 and 2003, there were four more hearings in court. Finally on December 7, 2007 the Shanghai court ruled that Mitsui, the successor owner, owed the Chen family 2.916 billion Yen or equivalent to 200 million Renminbi. At that time, this case was celebrated as the longest running case against a Japanese entity and the largest award for damages.

But that was not the end of the story because Mitsui did not take the case to China’s higher court nor pay the damages. On April 19, 2014, the Shanghai court seized a ship belonging to Mitsui for not honoring the ruling of the court. This move caught Mitsui by surprise and caused a sensation in Japan. The spokesman from the foreign affairs ministry of both countries quickly exchanged public statements into a media standoff.

Four days after the seizure, Mitsui appeared before the Shanghai court and paid 4 billion Japanese yen equivalent to 260 million Renminbi. Next morning, the ship was released to Mitsui.

Lesson learned from this story: Victims of Japanese WWII atrocities had no recourse until recently, only becoming possible now that China has become an economically strong nation and a judiciary system willing to hear cold cases more than 70 years old. It’s worth noting that the court in China did not rush to judgment but took the time to examine the issues involved.

My thanks to Thekla Lit for calling the original material in Chinese to my attention.

My friend, Professor Ivy Lee, has reminded me that there have been other cases that settled between Chinese slave laborers and Japanese companies. Somehow these cases have always led to controversy as is the case with the current pending cases.

What's wrong with Obama in bed with Abe?

This commentary first appeared in China US Focus.

            Washington rolled out the red carpet for Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Abe and President Obama made mutually cooing noises as if they were the best of buddies. While both protested that their mutual admiration has nothing to do with countering China’s rise, their aim to the contrary was transparent to anyone paying any attention.

The question now is whether an alliance with Japan is in America’s best interest. From every perspective, past, present or future, this alliance with Japan does not make sense, except as another foreign policy blunder added to Obama’s legacy.

The Past

Despite Abe’s pro forma “deep remorse” for American lives that were lost during the WWII, Abe typifies the worst kind of Japan’s amnesia and denial. Their forefathers felt no guilt in slaughtering innocent civilians wherever they invaded and their descendants lack the backbone to face history honestly.

Abe can’t tell the difference between organized rape ordered by the Japanese generals and spontaneous random assaults by soldiers acting on impulse. American soldiers may have been guilty of the isolated sexual assaults on Japanese civilians during their occupation of Japan but that cannot be equated to organized war crimes committed by Japanese military on a massive scale.

No other nation was as systematically brutal as the Japanese troops in Nanjing. There, Japanese troops went into schools to drag out young girls for gang rape and then used them for bayonet practice.

No other country made a contest out of a race to see who can take 100 civilian heads first. Two Japanese officers wielding their samurai swords did just that in Nanjing in front of cheering fellow soldiers.

No other country systematically and forcibly conscripted women from all over Asia to serve as sexual slaves in military “comfort stations” in the name of boosting morale.

No other country conducted live vivisection and biological experiments on human beings as if the victims were no more than some laboratory rats. Throughout the war, Japan operated camp 731 in Harbin China in secret to that end.

According to the Potsdam and Cairo Declaration, the terms of Japan’s unconditional surrender to end WWII included giving up all claims to any offshore islands outside of the four main islands of Japan. There should have been no grounds for Japan to claim ownership of any islands on East China Sea.

Yet thanks to the U.S. confusion (deliberate or not) in handing administrative control over to Japan, Abe and other leaders in Japan have found a way to vigorously defend their claims to territories Japan had given up when they surrendered.

Twenty-five years later when the U.S. handed control to Japan, neither governments of Republic of China in Taipei or Peoples’ Republic of China in Beijing were invited to the conference.

Abe obviously would like to forget about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan’s role as the aggressor, but what sort of confidence can U.S. place on an alliance with an ally that cannot face its past?

The Present

As for the present, America’s most challenging problem outside of Middle East is how to denuclearize North Korea. The U.S. has two alternate partners in confronting North Korea. We can work with South Korea and Japan or we with South Korea can work with China.

Japan has no standing with North Korea, and South Korea, unlike we Americans, will not trust a leader who cannot admit to atrocities committed in Japan’s past. Japan can add no value to any negotiations with North Korea.

On the other hand, China shares the same antipathy to Abe with South Korea. China is South Korea’s biggest trading partner and China is the largest recipient for South Korean foreign direct investments. They have and can work together.

Though limited, China also has more influence on North Korea than any of the other principals. If there is going to be any light at the end of the tunnel with North Korea, China will have to light the way.

The Future

Looking into the future, America’s goal is to solidify our presence in Asia in the coming Asian century. We are counting on Japan to support American leadership, a doubtful proposition if there ever is one. 

U.S. and Japan couldn’t be more diametrically opposite in national character and personality. Whereas we welcome immigrants from around the world, Japan couldn’t be more xenophobic. Even their own nationals returning from overseas assignments are regarded as gaijin, i.e. outsiders, tainted by foreign values.

During the last trade dispute between the U.S. and Japan, the Japanese government even claimed that Japan could not import California rice because the Japanese intestines were not built to digest rice grown outside of Japan. Now for the sake of Trans Pacific Partnership, is Abe going to be able to convince the Japanese farmers that American rice is okay for Japanese gut?

Ostensibly the goal of TPP is to raise the standard of free trade and make China toe the rules more to America’s liking. Whether China will want to apply for admission to the as yet undefined TPP remains to be seen. In the meantime, TPP will need to struggle through the domestic politics of Washington and Tokyo and completion of this free trade agreement is not assured.

To varying degrees all Asian countries have suffered from Japan’s brutality. They too cannot trust a Japan that will not own up to its past. The last time Japan proposed sharing co-prosperity with the rest of Asia, the local people only tasted soldiers’ boots and bayonets.

In contrast with Japan’s approach, China’s recent Silk Road Initiative won the immediate acceptance of the countries that stand to benefit from the infrastructure projects. These countries may be wary but they respect China’s policy of making mutually beneficial investments with win-win outcomes.  

So the choice for America is clear. Do we really want to partner with a nation whose culture is to treat women as second class citizens, encouraging increasing numbers to remain single, and consequently leading to a population getting older and shrinking?

Or, should we partner instead with China? While they do not want to play strictly by our rules, they are busy going around the world making friends with the their accumulated resources. Does it not seem obvious that China is more likely to have the kind of worldwide influence that would compliment our military strength in the mutual quest for stability and world order?

Obama on Wrong Side of History and Gary Locke's Redemption

An edited and revised version was published in New America Media.

On his recent tour of Asia, President Obama's first stop was Japan where he blundered and tarnished the prestige of the Presidency. At about the same time, as if to atone for his former boss's misstep, Gary Locke, the first Chinese American to be a state governor, a cabinet secretary and as ambassador to China, paid a personal visit to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. 

In his typically understated style, Locke did not announce his intention to visit in advance and thus went to the museum without fanfare. When the media caught up to him, he made it clear that his was a personal visit and had no bearing on the official position of the U.S. government.

This was his first visit to the museum. Keeping his visit a routine matter reflected a sincere interest to see first hand various acts of Japan's WWII atrocities, free of grandstanding and limelight that politicians crave. He effectively reminded the government of Japan that all Chinese and most of Asians are still waiting for Japan to finally admit their heinous acts of inhumanity and stop pretending to be the victims rather than perpetrators of the War.

In contrast, Obama's visit in Tokyo was bathed in bright lights and he said just about everything Japan's prime minister Abe wanted to hear, including the willingness of the U.S. to help Japan in the event of military conflict over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands.

Until Obama's statement, the U.S. official position was that when the administrative control of the islands was turned over to Japan in 1972, the U.S. government took no position on the rightful ownership of those islands.

China had been demanding that Japan abide by terms of unconditional surrender as described in the Potsdam Declaration. The terms specified that Japan renounced all claims to offshore islands other than the four main islands of Japan.

Not only did Obama showed ignorance of history but he got nothing in return. Abe was all smiles but gave no concessions that Obama sought. Obama gave up the good vibes from the Sunnyland summit with China's Xi Jinping for no good reason.

In August 2001, not long after he was elected to Congress, Mike Honda visited China and he made sure the Nanjing Massacre Museum was on his itinerary. Despite his being ethnic Japanese, Honda understood the right and wrong of history. He has been among the most vociferous members of Congress in demanding redress from Japan for their crimes against humanity.

Later Honda even guided then freshman Congresswoman Judy Chu to the Nanjing Museum so that she can become acquainted with this dark chapter of WWII history. Chu born in America was not familiar with the war atrocities committed by Japan's Imperial troops.

At the massacre museum in Nanjing, leis of paper folded cranes made by school children from Japan can be seen as offerings of regret and apology. Schools from Japan organized periodic tours to Nanjing so that their students do not forget.

The right wing government does not represent the majority of Japanese people. Even if Americans do not pay attention to history, the people of Asia will not let Abe and his ilk forget.