August 19, 2011
Finance Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s remark that Japanese Class-A war criminals were in fact not war criminals has caused international controversy.
The view shared by the postwar international community is that Japan’s past war was a war of aggression. Japan grabbed other nations’ territories, barbarously assaulted and killed many innocent civilians, and used many of them as forced laborers.
It was a matter of course for the leaders at the center of Japan’s war of aggression to be tried in the Tokyo Tribunal, whose judgment was accepted by the Japanese government in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Noda’s remark runs counter to the basis of the postwar international community as well as the Japanese government’s official recognition shown by the then Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi’s 1995 statement which expressed official government remorse and apology for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression.”
The finance minister has indicated his intention to compete to be the next president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and the person chosen by the party will likely be the next prime minister. A prime minister lacking remorse over Japan’s past wrongdoing will have difficulty gaining the trust of other countries.
The view shared by the postwar international community is that Japan’s past war was a war of aggression. Japan grabbed other nations’ territories, barbarously assaulted and killed many innocent civilians, and used many of them as forced laborers.
It was a matter of course for the leaders at the center of Japan’s war of aggression to be tried in the Tokyo Tribunal, whose judgment was accepted by the Japanese government in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Noda’s remark runs counter to the basis of the postwar international community as well as the Japanese government’s official recognition shown by the then Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi’s 1995 statement which expressed official government remorse and apology for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression.”
The finance minister has indicated his intention to compete to be the next president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and the person chosen by the party will likely be the next prime minister. A prime minister lacking remorse over Japan’s past wrongdoing will have difficulty gaining the trust of other countries.
