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The term Japanese war crimes refers to events which occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Other names, such as Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities, are also used for these war crimes and other incidents. Many of these events are subject to controversy among historians and people of different nationalities.

Historians and the governments of many countries officially hold the military of the Empire of Japan, namely the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy, responsible for the deaths and forced labour of many millions of civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) during the 20th century.

Definitions

There are differences from one country to another regarding the definition of Japanese war crimes.

Japanese definitions

Although the Geneva Conventions have, from 1864 onwards, provided the standard definitions of war crimes, Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions until after World War II. However, many of the alleged crimes committed by Japanese imperial personnel were also violations of the Japanese code of military law, which the military either willfully ignored, or failed to enforce.

In Japan, the term "Japanese war crimes" generally refers to cases tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Trials, following the end of the Pacific War. The tribunal did not prosecute war crimes allegations involving mid-ranking officers or more junior personnel. Those were dealt with separately in other cities throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Position of the Japanese government

The Japanese government takes the position that as Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, it violated no international law. For the same reason, the Japanese government also takes the view that Allied forces did not violate the Geneva Convention in acts committed against Japanese personnel and civilians.

The Japanese government did sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1929, thereby rendering its actions in 1937-45 liable to charges of crimes against peace, a charge which was introduced at the Tokyo Trials to prosecute Class-A War Criminals. (Class-B War Criminals are those found guilty of war crimes per se, and Class-C War Criminals are those guilty of crimes against humanity.) However, any convictions for such crimes are not recognised by the Japanese government, as the Kellogg-Briand Pact did not have any enforcement clause stipulating penalties in the event of violation.

The Japanese government accepted the terms set by the Potsdam Declaration (1945) after the end of the war. The declaration alluded, in Article 10, to two kinds of war crime: one was the violation of international laws, such as the abuse of prisoners of war (POWs); the other was obstructing "democratic tendencies among the Japanese people" and civil liberties within Japan.

Japanese law does not recognize those convicted in the Tokyo Trials and other trials as criminals, despite the fact that Japan's governments have accepted the judgments made in the trials, and in the Treaty of San Francisco (1952). This is because the treaty does not mention the legal validity of the tribunal. In the Japanese text, the word used for "accept" is judaku (which may also be translated as "to receive"), as opposed to the stronger shounin ("to certify"). Therefore the position of the Japanese government is that it accepts the judgment and sentences set by the trials as demands, but it does not accept the legal validity of the tribunal. This means, among other things that those convicted have had no ability, under Japanese law, to appeal, as the Tokyo Tribunal and other war crimes courts have no standing in Japanese law. Under normal circumstances it violates a number of fundamental principles of modern legal procedure to punish someone whose crime and penalty were defined only after the fact. Had Japan certified the legal validity of the war crimes tribunals in the San Francisco Treaty, this might have resulted in Japanese courts reversing such verdicts. Any such outcomes would have created domestic political crises and would have been unacceptable in international diplomatic circles.

The current Japanese jurists' consensus regarding the legal standing of the Tokyo tribunal is that, as a condition of ending the war, the Allies demanded a number of conditions including the execution and/or incarceration of those whom they deemed to be responsible for the war. These people were defined as guilty by a tribunal organized by the Allies. The Japanese government accepted these demands in the Potsdam Declaration and then accepted the actual sentencing in the San Francisco Treaty, which officially ended the state of war between Japan and the Allies. Although the penalties for the convicted, including execution, can be regarded as a violation of their technical legal rights, the constitution allowed such violations if proper legal procedure was followed, in the general public interest. Therefore, any such execution and/or incarceration is constitutionally valid, but has no relationship to Japanese criminal law. Hence those convicted as war criminals are not defined as criminals in Japan, although their execution and incarceration is regarded as legally valid.

International definitions

War crimes may be broadly defined as unconscionable behavior by a government or military personnel against either enemy civilians or enemy combatants. Military personnel from the Empire of Japan have been accused and/or convicted of committing many such acts during the period of Japanese imperialism from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. They have been accused of conducting a series of human rights abuses against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) throughout east Asia and the western Pacific region. These events reached their height during the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45 and the Asian and Pacific campaigns of World War II (1941-45).

Different societies use widely different timeframes in defining Japanese war crimes. For example, the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was followed by the deprivation of civil liberties and exploitations against the Korean people. Thus, some Koreans refer to "Japanese war crimes" as events occurring during the period shortly prior to 1910 to 1945. Events such as the March 1st movement where 7000 people were killed and the murder of Empress Myeongseong are considered war crimes in Korea. By comparison, the United States did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and thus Americans may consider "Japanese war crimes" as encompassing only those events that occurred from 1941 to 1945.

A complicating factor is that a small minority of people in every Asian and Pacific country invaded by Japan collaborated with the Japanese military, or even served in it, for a wide variety of reasons, such as economic hardship, coercion, or antipathy to other imperialist powers. The Indian National Army is perhaps the best-known example of a movement opposed to European imperialism which served as part of the Japanese military. Prominent individual nationalists in other countries, such as the later Indonesian president, Suharto, also served with Japanese forces. In some cases such non-Japanese personnel were also responsible for war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan. For political reasons, many of these people were never investigated or tried and brought to justice after 1945. In South Korea especially, it is alleged that such people were often able to acquire wealth by exploiting with Japan. It is further alleged in South Korea that some former collaborators have covered up "Japanese" war crimes in order to avoid their own prosecution and/or exposure.

The issue of Japan's de jure sovereignty over places such as Korea and Taiwan, prior to 1945, is a matter of controversy. Japanese control was accepted and recognized internationally and was justified by instruments such as the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895, which included China's ceding of Taiwan) and the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (1910). The legality of the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty is in question, because it was never signed by the head of state, instead they were signed by the the ministers of Korea under duress. It has been argued that acts committed against people subject to Japanese sovereignty cannot be considered "war crimes". However, the native populations were not consulted on the changes in sovereignty, nor was there universal acceptance of such annexations. There was ongoing resistance to Japanese invasions and — in any case — war crimes may also be committed during civil wars. (See Korea under Japanese rule and Japanese rule in Taiwan for further details.)

Background

Japanese military culture and imperialism

Military culture, especially during Japan's imperialist phase had great bearing on the conduct of the Japanese military before and during World War II.

Centuries previously, the samurai of Japan had been taught unquestioning obedience to their lords, as well as to be fearless in battle. After the Meiji Restoration and the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Emperor became the focus of military loyalty. During the so-called "Age of Empire" in the late 19th century, Japan followed the lead of other world powers in developing an empire, pursuing that objective aggressively.

As with other imperial powers, Japanese popular culture became increasingly jingoistic through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. The rise of Japanese nationalism was seen partly in the adoption of Shinto as a state religion from 1890, including its entrenchment in the education system. Shinto held the Emperor to be divine because he was deemed to be a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. This provided justification for the requirement that the emperor and his representatives to be obeyed without question.

Victory in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) signified Japan's rise to the status of a world power. Unlike the other major powers, Japan did not sign the Geneva Convention — which stipulates the humane treatment of civilians and POWs — until after World War II. Nevertheless, the treatment of prisoners by the Japanese military in wars such as the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and World War I (1914-18), was at least as humane as that of other militaries.

The events of the 1930s and 1940s

By the late 1930s, the practices of Japan's military dictatorship created at least superficial similarities between the wider Japanese military culture and that of Nazi Germany's elite military personnel, such as those in the Waffen-SS. Japan also had a military secret police force, known as the Kempeitai, which resembled the Nazi Gestapo in its role in annexed and occupied countries.

As in other dictatorships, irrational brutality, hatred and fear became commonplace. Perceived failure, or insufficient devotion to the Emperor would attract punishment, frequently of the physical kind. In the military, officers would assault and beat men under their command, who would pass the beating on to lower ranks, all the way down. In POW camps, this meant prisoners received the worst beatings of all.

The traditional severity of Bushido and the ethnocentrism of Japan's modern imperial phase often coalesced into brutality towards civilians and POWs. After the launching of a full-scale military campaign against China in 1937, instances of murder, torture and rape committed by Japanese soldiers seemed to be overlooked by their commanding officers and generally went unpunished. Such acts were repeated throughout the Pacific War.

War crimes

Mass killings

Because of the sheer number of deaths caused by the Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s, the killings are often compared to the contemporaneous suffering imposed by Nazi Germany during 1933–45. The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that:

It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians ; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers — and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 % chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 %.

R. J. Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, states that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military "murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture."

In China alone, during 1937-45, approximately 9.13 million civilians were killed, and there were another 8.4 million Chinese civilian casualties. (See Chinese Casualties in the Sino-Japanese War.) The most infamous incident during this period was the Nanjing Massacre of 1937-38, when, according to the findings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Japanese Army massacred 260,000 civilians and prisoners of war.

Preventable famine

Deaths caused by the diversion of resources to the Japanese military in occupied countries are also regarded as war crimes by many people. Millions of civilians in southern Asia — especially Vietnam and the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), both of which were major rice-growing countries — died during a preventable famine in 1944–45. (See, for example, the article on the Vietnamese Famine of 1945.)

The treatment of prisoners of war

The Japanese military's use of forced labour, by Asian civilians and POWs also caused many deaths — more than 100,000 in the case of the Burma Railway alone. The Geneva Convention exempted POWs of sergeant rank or higher from manual labour, and stipulated that prisoners performing work should be provided with extra rations and other essentials. During World War II such rules were largely respected in German POW camps, except in the case of Soviet POWs. However, Japan was not a signatory at the time, and Japanese forces did not follow the convention.

The Japanese are also reported to have utilized widespread use of torture on prisoners, usually in an effort to gather military intelligence quickly. Tortured prisoners were often later executed. A former Japanese Imperial Army officer who served in China, Uno Shintaro, states,

The major means of getting intelligence was to extract information by interrogating prisoners. Torture was an unavoidable necessity. Murdering and burying them follows naturally. You do it so you won't be found out. I believed and acted this way because I was convinced of what I was doing. We carried out our duty as instructed by our masters. We did it for the sake of our country. From our filial obligation to our ancestors. On the battlefield, we never really considered the Chinese humans. When you're winning, the losers look really misearable. We concluded that the Yamato (Japanese) race was superior.

Experiments on human beings

Special military units conducted physiological experiments on civilians and POWs. One of the most infamous units was Unit 731. Victims were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia, amputations, and were used to test biological weapons, among other experiments.

To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water until frozen solid. The arm was later amputated; the doctor would repeat the process on the victim’s upper arm to the shoulder. After both arms were gone, the doctors moved on to the legs until only a head and torso remained. The victim was then used for plague and pathogens experiments.

Comfort women

Women from all over Asia and the Pacific were forced to work as prostitutes, known as Comfort Women, during the 15 Years War (1931-45). However the extent to which this practice existed has been disputed, with some saying there were women who consented to the prostitution and/or were paid. In addition the validity of claims for compensation have been disputed, with questions arising as to whether claimants really were forced into prostitution. A general lack of primary source evidence has led to this being a hotly contested topic.

Looting and pillaging

Many historians state that violence by Japanese personnel was closely tied to looting. For example, Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, in a 2003 book on "Yamashita's gold" — secret repositories of loot from across Southeast Asia, in the Philippines — argued that the theft was organized on a massive scale, either by yakuza gangsters such as Yoshio Kodama, or by officials at the behest of Emperor Hirohito, who wanted to ensure that as many of the proceeds as possible went to the government. The Seagraves allege that Hirohito appointed his brother, Prince Chichibu, to head a secret organisation called Kin no yuri (Golden Lily) for this purpose.

Post-1945 reactions

The Tokyo Trials

The Tokyo Trials, which were conducted by the Allied powers, found many people guilty of such crimes, including three (unelected) prime ministers: Koki Hirota, Hideki Tojo, and Kuniaki Koiso. Many military leaders were also convicted. Two people convicted as Class-A war criminals later served as ministers in post-war Japanese governments.

• Mamoru Shigemitsu served as foreign minister both during the war and in the post-war Hatoyama government.

• Okinori Kaya was finance minister during the war and later served as justice minister in the government of Hayato Ikeda.

However, these two had no direct connection to alleged war crimes committed by Japanese forces, and foreign governments never raised the issue when they were appointed.

Other trials

Besides the Tokyo Trials, other prosecutions of Japanese personnel for war crimes were also held in many other cities throughout Asia and the Pacific, during 1946–51. Some 5,600 Japanese personnel were prosecuted in more than 2,200 trials. The judges presiding came from the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, France, the Soviet Union, New Zealand, India and the Philippines. More than 4,400 Japanese personnel were convicted and about 1,000 were sentenced to death. The largest single trial was that of 93 Japanese personnel charged with the summary execution of more than 300 Allied POWs, in the Laha massacre (1942).

Official apologies

The Japanese government considers that the legal and moral positions in regard to war crimes are separate. Therefore, while maintaining that Japan violated no international law or treaties, Japanese governments have officially recognised the suffering which the Japanese military caused, and numerous apologies have been issued by the Japanese government. For example, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, in August 1995, stated that Japan "through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations", and he expressed his "feelings of deep remorse" and stated his "heartfelt apology". Also, on September 29, 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka stated, "The Japanese side is keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war, and deeply reproaches itself."

However, the official apologies are widely viewed as inadequate by many of the survivors of such crimes and/or the families of dead victims. The subject of official apologies is controversial as many people aggrieved by alleged Japanese war crimes maintain that no apology has been issued for particular acts and/or that the Japanese government has merely expressed "regret" or "remorse".. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an apology is "a formal, public statement of regret", and moreover, the Japanese word for "apology" itself has also been used on several occasions. Some allege that the media in some countries "glosses over" or hides efforts at reconciliation by Japan, including "generous" Japanese aid packages, especially in countries where media outlets are under formal or de facto state control It is further alleged that this reflects anti-Japanese sentiment.

Some in Japan have asserted that what is being demanded is that the Japanese Prime Minister and/or the Emperor perform dogeza, in which an individual kneels and bows his head to the ground — a high form of apology in east Asian societies that Japan appears unwilling to do.

It is possible to point to German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who knelt at a monument to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1970, as an example of a powerful and effective act of apology and reconciliation, although that point is disputed.

John Borneman, associate professor of anthropology at Cornell, states that, "an apology represents a non-material or purely symoblic exchange whereby the wrongdoer voluntarily lowers his own status as a person." Borneman further states that once this type of apology is given, the injured party must forgive and seek reconciliation, or else the apology won't have any effect. The injured party may reject the apology for several reasons, one of which is to prevent reconciliation, because, "By keeping the memory of the wound alive, refusals prevent an affirmation of mutual humanity by instrumentalizing the power embedded in the status of a permanent victim."

Therefore, some argue that a nation's reluctance to accept the conciliatory gestures that Japan has made may be because that nation doesn't think that Japan has "lowered" itself enough to provide a sincere apology. On the other hand, others state their belief that that particular nation is choosing to reject reconciliation in pursuit of permanent "victimhood" status as a way to try to assert power over Japan.

Compensation

There is a widespread perception that the Japanese government has not accepted the legal responsibility for compensation and, as a direct consequence of this denial, it has failed to compensate the individual victims of Japanese atrocities. In particular, a number of prominent human rights and women's rights organisations insist that Japan still has a moral and/or legal responsibility to compensate individual victims, especially the sex slaves conscripted by the Japanese military in occupied countries and known as comfort women.

However, the assertion that Japan has not yet accepted the legal responsibility for its conduct during the war or provided compensation is not true, even if the amount given is still the subject of criticism by those who argue that more assistance needs to be provided.

The Japanese government officially accepted the requirement for monetary compensation to victims of war crimes, as specified by the Potsdam Declaration. The details of this compensation have been left to bilateral treaties with individual countries, except North Korea, because Japan recognises South Korea as the sole legitimate government of the Korean peninsula. In the case of POWs from the western Allies, compensation was paid to the victims through the Red Cross. The total amount Japan paid was £4,500,000. However, in a number of Asian countries, claims for compensation were either: abandoned for political reasons, or; paid by Japan, under the specific understanding that it would be used for individual compensation, but was not paid out to the victims by the governments concerned. Therefore a large number of individual victims in Asia received no compensation.

Therefore, the Japanese government's position is that the proper avenues for further claims are the governments of the respective claimants. As a result, every individual compensation claim brought to Japanese court has failed. Such was the case in regard to a British POW who was unsuccessful in an attempt to sue the Japanese government for additional money for compensation. As a result, the UK Government later paid additional compensation to all British POWs. There were complaints in Japan that the international media simply stated that the former POW was demanding compensation and failed to clarify that he was seeking further compensation, in addition to that paid previously by the Japanese government.

A small number of claims have also been brought in US courts, though these have also been rejected.

During the treaty negotiation with South Korea, the Japanese government proposed that it pay monetary compensation to individual Korean victims, in line with the payments to western POWs. The Korean government instead insisted that Japan pay money collectively to the Korean government, and that is what occurred. The South Korean government then used the funds for economic development. The content of the negotiations was not released by the Korean government until 2004, although it was public knowledge in Japan.

There are those that insist that because the governments of China and Taiwan abandoned their claims for monetary compensation, then the moral and/or legal responsibility for compensation belongs with these governments. Such critics also point out that even though these governments abandoned their claims, they signed treaties that recognised the transfer of Japanese colonial assets to the respective governments. Therefore, to claim that these governments received no compensation from Japan is incorrect, and they could have compensated individual victims from the proceeds of such transfers.

The Japanese government, while admitting no legal responsibility for the so-called "comfort women", set up the Asian Women's Fund in 1995, which gives money to people who claim to have been forced into prostitution during the war. Though the organisation was established by the government, legally, it has been created such that it is an independent charity. The activities of the fund have been controversial in Japan, as well as with international organisations supporting the women concerned. Some argue that such a fund is part of an ongoing refusal by the Japanese government to face up to its responsibilities, while others say that the Japanese government has long since finalised its responsibility to individual victims and is merely correcting the failures of the victims' own governments.

Intermediate compensation

The term "intermediate compensation" (or intermediary compensation) was applied to the removal and reallocation of Japanese industrial (particularly military-industrial) assets to Allied countries. It was conducted under the supervision of Allied occupation forces. This reallocation was referred to as "intermediate" because it did not amount to a final settlement by means of bilateral treaties, which settled all existing issues of compensation. By 1950, the assets reallocated amounted to 43,918 items of machinery, valued at ¥165,158,839 (in 1950 prices). The proportions in which the assets were distributed were: China, 54.1%; the Netherlands, 11.5%; the Philippines 19%, and; the United Kingdom, 15.4%.

Compensation under the San Francisco Treaty

Compensation from Japanese overseas assets

Japanese overseas assets refers to all assets owned by the Japanese government, firms, organisation and private citizens, in colonised or occupied countries. In accordance with Clause 14 of the San Francisco Treaty, Allied forces confiscated all Japanese overseas assets, except those in China, which were dealt with under Clause 21. It is considered that Korea was also entitled to the rights provided by Clause 21.

Japanese overseas assets in 1945
Country/region	Value (1945, ¥15=US$1)
Korea	70,256,000,000
Taiwan	42,542,000,000
North East China	146,532,000,000
North China	55,437,000,000
Central South China	36,718,000,000
Others	28,014,000,000
Total	¥379,499,000,000

Compensation to Allied POWs

Clause 16 of the San Francisco Treaty stated that Japan would transfer its assets and those of its citizens in countries which were at war with any of the Allied Powers or which were neutral, or equivalents, to the Red Cross, which would sell them and distribute the funds to former prisoners of war and their families. Accordingly, the Japanese government and private citizens paid out £4,500,000 to the Red Cross.

Allied territories occupied by Japan

Clause 14 of the treaty stated that Japan would enter into negotiations with Allied powers whose territories were occupied by Japan and suffered damage by Japanese forces, with a view to Japan compensating those countries for the damage.

Accordingly, the Philippines and South Vietnam received compensation in 1956 and 1959 respectively. Burma and Indonesia were not original signatories, but they later signed bilateral treaties in accordance with clause 14 of the San Francisco Treaty.

Japanese compensation to countries occupied during 1941-45
Country	Amount in Yen	Amount in US$	Date of treaty
Burma	72,000,000,000	200,000,000	November 5, 1955
Philippines	198,000,000,000	550,000,000	May 9, 1956
Indonesia	80,388,000,000	223,080,000	January 20, 1958
Vietnam	14,400,000,000	38,000,000	May 13, 1959
Total	¥364,348,800,000	US$1,012,080,000

The last payment was made to the Philippines on July 22, 1976.

Debate in Japan

There is a widespread perception, outside Japan, that there is a reluctance inside Japan to discuss such events and/or admit that they were war crimes. However, the controversial events of the Japanese imperial era are openly debated in the media, with the various political parties and ideological groups taking quite different positions. What differentiates Japan from Germany and Austria is that in Japan, there is no restriction to the freedom of speech in regard to this matter, while in Germany, Austria and some other European countries, Holocaust denial is a criminal offence.

Until the 1970s, such debates were considered a fringe topic in the media. In the Japanese media, the opinions of the political centre and left tends to dominate the editorials of newspapers, while the right tend to dominate magazines. Debates regarding war crimes were confined largely to the editorials of tabloid magazines where calls for the overthrow of "Imperialist America" and revived veneration of the Emperor coexisted with pornography. In 1972, to commemorate the normalisation of relationship with China, Asahi Shimbun, a major liberal newspaper, ran a series on Japanese war crimes in China including the Nanking Massacre. This opened the floodgates to debates which have continued ever since. The 1990s are generally considered to be the period in which such issues become truly mainstream, and incidents such as the Nanking Massacre, Yasukuni Shrine, comfort women, the accuracy of school history textbooks, and the validity of the Tokyo Trials were debated, even on television.

As the consensus of Japanese jurists is that Japanese forces did not technically commit violations of international law, many right wing elements in Japan have taken this to mean that war crimes trials were examples of victor's justice. They see those convicted of war crimes as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者, Shōwa Junnansha), Shōwa being the name given to the rule of Hirohito. This interpretation is vigorously contested by Japanese peace groups and the political left. In the past, these groups have tended to argue that the trials hold some validity, either under the Geneva Convention (even though Japan hadn't signed it), or under an undefined concept of international law or consensus. Alternatively, they have argued that, although the trials may not have been technically valid, they were still just, somewhat in line with popular opinion in the West and in the rest of Asia. However, the peace groups and the left also generally consider the bombing of Japanese civilians by the Allies, particularly the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to be unjust and/or a violation of the international law. The left is also accused of being soft on Soviet atrocities.

By the early 21st century, the revived interest in Japan's imperial past had brought new interpretations from a group which has been labelled both "new right" and "new left". This group points out that many acts committed by Japanese forces, including the Nanjing Incident (they generally do not use the word "massacre"), were violations of the Japanese military code. It is suggested that had war crimes tribunals been conducted by the post-war Japanese government, in strict accordance with Japanese military law, many of those who were accused would still have been convicted and executed. Therefore, the moral and legal failures in question were the fault of the Japanese military and the government, for not executing their constitutionally-defined duty.

The new right/new left also takes the view that the Allies committed no war crimes against Japan, because Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and as a victors, the Allies had every right to demand some form of retribution, to which Japan consented in various treaties.

However, under the same logic, the new right/new left considers the killing of Chinese who were suspected of guerilla activity to be perfectly legal and valid, including some of those killed at Nanjing, for example. They also take the view that many Chinese civilian casualties resulted from the scorched earth tactics of the Chinese nationalists. Though such tactics are arguably legal, the new right/new left takes the position that some of the civilian deaths caused by these scorched earth tactics are wrongly attributed to the Japanese military.

Similarly, they take the position that those who have attempted to sue the Japanese government for compensation have no legal and/or moral case.

The new right/new left also takes a less sympathetic view of Korean claims of victimhood, because prior to annexation by Japan, Korea was a tributary of the Qing Dynasty and, according to them, the Japanese colonisation, though undoubtedly harsh, was better than the previous rule in terms of human rights and economic development.

They also argue that, the Kantōgun (also known as the Kwantung Army) was at least partly culpable. Although the Kantōgun was nominally subordinate to the Japanese high command at the time, its leadership demonstrated significant self-determination, as shown by its involvement in the plot to assassinate Zhang Zuolin in 1928, and the Manchurian Incident of 1931, which led to the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932. Moreover, at that time, it was the official policy of the Japanese high command to confine the conflict to Manchuria. But in defiance of the high command, the Kantōgun invaded China proper, under the pretext of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. However, the Japanese government not only failed to court martial the officers responsible for these incidents, but it also accepted the war against China, and many of those who were involved were even promoted. (Some of the officers involved in the Nanking Massacre were also promoted.) Therefore, claims that the government was held hostage by soldiers on the field hold little weight.

Whether or not Hirohito himself bears any responsibility for such failures is a sticking point between the new right and new left. Though both sides agree that constitutionally, he was exempt from any legal responsibility, some insist that he was ultimately responsible both politically and morally. They cite the fact that, after the war, the Emperor consulted Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida regarding his possible abdication, a course of action that Yoshida advised against. Others argue that Hirohito deliberately styled his rule in the manner of the British constitutional monarchy, and he always accepted the decisions and consenses reached by the high command. Accordingly, the moral and political failure rests primarily with the Japanese High Command and the Cabinet, most of whom were later convicted at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal as class-A war criminals.

Controversial reinterpretations outside Japan

Some activists outside Japan are also attempting controversial reinterpretations of Japanese imperialism. For example, the views of a South Korean ex-military officer and right wing commentator, Ji Man-Won, have caused controversy in Korea and further abroad. Ji has praised Japan for "modernising" Korea, and has said of women forced to become sex slaves: "most of the old women claiming to be former comfort women, or sex slaves to the Japanese military during World War II, are fakes." In Korea, such views are widely regarded as being offensive, libellous of the women concerned, and as representing historical revisionism but are born out of political tensions within nations such as Korea and China between democratic and establishmentary movements in which the use of Japanese history, or contrived Japanese hate, is a useful tool for both sides.

Later investigations

As with investigations of Nazi war criminals, official investigations and enquiries are still ongoing. During the 1990s, the South Korean government started investigating some individuals who had allegedly become wealthy while collaborating with the Japanese military. In South Korea, it is also alleged that, during the political climate of the Cold War, many such individuals and/or their associates or relatives were able to acquire influence and to assist in the covering-up, or non-investigation, of war crimes in order not to incriminate themselves.

Non-government bodies and individuals have also undertaken their own investigations. For example, in 2005, a South Korean freelance journalist, Jung Soo-woong, located in Japan some descendants of people involved in the 1895 assassination of Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min), the last Empress of Korea. The assassination was conducted by the Dark Ocean Society, perhaps under the auspices of the Japanese government, because of the Empress's involvement in attempts to reduce Japanese influence in Korea. Jung recorded the apologies of the individuals.

As these investigations continue more evidence is discovered each day. It has been claimed that the Japanese government intentionally destroyed the reports on Korean comfort women. Some have cited Japanese inventory logs and employee sheets on the battlefield as evidence for this claim. For example, one of the names on the list was of a comfort woman who stated she was forced to be a prostitute by the Japanese. She was classified as a nurse along with at least a dozen other verified comfort women who were not nurses or secretaries. Currently, the South Korean government is looking into the hundreds of other names on these lists.

Major incidents

• Alexandra Hospital massacre
• Invasion and Occupation of the Andaman Islands during World War II
• Bataan Death March
• Changteh Chemical Weapon Attack
• Comfort women
• Death Railway (Construction of the Burma-Siam Railway)
• Kaimingye germ weapon attack
• Laha Massacre
• Nanjing Massacre
• Manila Massacre
• Parit Sulong Massacre
• Sandakan Death Marches
• Sanko sakusen
• Sook Ching Massacre
• Tol Plantation Massacre
• Unit 100
• Unit 731
• Unit 516
• Unit 1855
• Unit 2646
• Unit 8604
• Unit 9420
• Unit Ei 1644
• War Crimes in Asia Mainland
• War Crimes in the Pacific

See also

• Anti-Japanese sentiment
• Excerpts from government-approved Japanese history textbooks
• Hideki Tojo
• Japan-China Joint Declaration On Building a Partnership of Friendship and Cooperation for Peace and Development
• Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China
• Japanese history textbooks controversy
• Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
• Japan-Republic of Korea Joint Declaration A New Japan-Republic of Korea Partnership towards the Twenty-first Century
• Korean-Japanese disputes
• List of war apology statements issued by Japan

References

Notes

1. Johnson, Looting of Asia,
2. Rummell, Statistics,
3. Chang, p. 102
4. Cook, Japan at War, p. 153
5. Byrd, Gregory Dean, General Ishii Shiro: His Legacy is that of a Genius and Madman, p. ? (PDF document),
6. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (quoted on the Taiwan Documents Project), Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China,
7. Kahn, Joseph, "If 22 Million Chinese Prevail at U.N., Japan Won't," The New York Times, (April 1, 2005),
8. Lapite, Abiola, Japan-Bashing: Opium of the Chinese Masses (2005),
9. Freeman, Laurie A., "Japan's Press Clubs as Information Cartels," Japan Policy Research Institute, (April, 1996), . Discusses impending visit in 1990 to Japan by Korean president Roh Tae Woo in which Japanese cabinet secretary Ozawa Ichiro reportedly said, "it is because we have reflected on the past that we cooperate with Korea economically. Is it really necessary to grovel on our hands and knees and prostrate ourselves any more than we already have . . .?". This alleged remark is called the dogeza hatsugen (prostration comment).
10. Facing History and Ourselves, Willy Brandt's Silent Apology, .
11. www.cornell.edu,
12. Borneman, Apologies Contribute to Peace?
13. McCormack, Gavan, "Difficult Neighbors: Japan, North Korea and the Quest for a New East Asian Order," Modern Asia Series, Harvard University Asia Center, (May 3, 2004),
14. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://news.media.daum.net/foreign/englishnews/200504/19/korherald/v8871581.html
15. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4749467.stm
16. http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=1846
17. http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200501/200501110028.html

Books

• Barnaby, Wendy. The Plague Makers: The Secret World of Biological Warfare, Frog Ltd, 1999. ISBN 1883319854 ISBN 0756756987 ISBN 0826412580 ISBN 082641415X
• Bayly, C.A. & Harper T. Forgotten Armies. The Fall of British Asia 1941-5 (London: Allen Lane) 2004
• Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking, Perseus books LLC, 1997. ISBN 0465068359
• Cook, Haruko Taya (1993). Japan at War: An Oral History. New Press. ISBN 1565840399. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)- Compilation of interviews with Japanese survivors of World War II, including several who describe war crimes that they were involved with.
• Dower, John W. (1987). War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 0394751728. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Endicott, Stephen and Edward Hagerman. The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN 0253334721
• Gold, Hal. Unit 731 Testimony, Charles E Tuttle Co., 1996. ISBN 4900737399
• Handelman, Stephen and Ken Alibek. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It, Random House, 1999. ISBN 0375502319 ISBN 0385334966
• Harries, Meirion (1994). Soldiers of the Sun : The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House. ISBN 0679753036. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Harris, Robert and Jeremy Paxman. A Higher Form of Killing : The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Random House, 2002. ISBN 0812966538
• Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up, Routledge, 1994. ISBN 0415091055 ISBN 0415932149
• Rees, Laurence. Horror in the East, published 2001 by the British Broadcasting Company
• Seagrave, Peggy & Seagrave, Sterling. Gold Warriors: The Covert History of Yamashita's Treasure, Verso Books, 2003. ISBN 1859845428
• Tsurumi, Kazuko (1970). Social change and the individual;: Japan before and after defeat in World War II. Princeton, USA: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691093474. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Williams, Peter. Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II, Free Press, 1989. ISBN 0029353017

Audio/visual media

• Japanese War Crimes: Murder Under The Sun (Video documentary (DVD & VHS)). 2000. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |crew= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |distributor= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)

External links

• Battling Bastards of Bataan
• "Biochemical Warfare - Unit 731". Alliance for Preserving the Truth of Sino-Japanese War. No date.
• "Confessions of Japanese war criminals". No date.
• Chalmers Johnson, "The Looting of Asia" in London Review of Books, 2003-11-20
• "History of Japan's biological weapons program" Federation of American Scientists, 2000-04-16
• Ji Man-Won's website (in Korean) Various dates.
• Justin McCurry, "Japan's sins of the past" in The Guardian, 2004-10-28
• "Nanking 1937" , Princeton University, 1997-11-09
• Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). No date.
• "No Riot Apology" Sky News (UK), 2005-04-17
• "The Other Holocaust" No date.
• "Rape of Queen MIN" 2002
• R.J. Rummel, "Statistics Of Japanese Democide: Estimates, Calculations, And Sources" University of Hawaii, 2002
• Shane Green. "The Asian Auschwitz of Unit 731" in The Age, 2002-08-29
• "Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama" 1995-08-15
• Steven Butler, "A half century of denial: the hidden truth about Japan's unit 731" in US News & World Report 1995-07-31
• Borneman, John. "Can Public Apologies Contribute to Peace? An Argument for Retribution" (PDF). Cornell University. Retrieved 2006-07-29.

• Japanese war crimes
• Historiography
• Historical revisionism (political)
• History of Japan
• History of China
• History of Asia
• Imperial Japanese Army
• Imperial Japanese Navy
• Military of Japan