Asia displeased over Japan's war 'apology'

Asia displeased over Japan's war 'apology'

HONG KONG (Reuter): Asians whose countries suffered under
Japan's ruthless World War II expansionism were less than pleased
yesterday with an apologetic resolution to be adopted by that
country's parliament next week.

There was some applause for Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama's
efforts to persuade disparate coalition partners to make an
unambiguous apology, and even some relief the resolution went as
far as it did.

But most reactions suggested few Asians would set aside
suspicions that Japan had not changed fundamentally or that its
wartime attempt to build a Tokyo-run "East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere", its stated wartime aim, was still being pursued.

The resolution expresses "deep remorse" for Japan's invasions
of many Asian nations and its often brutal rule.

China, among the greatest sufferers, offered no immediate
official reaction but Hong Kong's Beijing-controlled newspaper
Wen Wei Po said the compromise resolution was "not convincing and
will not win Asian people's understanding and trust".

And in Taiwan, ruling Nationalist Party Deputy Han Kuo-yu
said: "Japanese killed and robbed in China. If they don't
apologize, how can we explain this to our ancestors and
descendants?"

Singapore's Business Times said Japan's rise from the ashes of
war to economic power while retaining social cohesiveness had
made it the envy of the world.

"Why not say sorry for the past? Why not apologize for the
decades of colonial expansion which devastated Korea and China
and cast a hateful pall across East Asia?" it asked.

The newspaper said the lack of an unambiguous apology was also
bad for Japan because it meant a refusal to acknowledge the
truth.

Most Japanese "are woefully ill-informed" about what they're
supposed to be sorry for, it said. An apology would be
meaningless "unless, through the mass media and a revised school
history syllabus, ordinary Japanese are made aware of the
terrible wrongs inflicted by Imperial Japan," it added.

"This will, in turn, place in perspective the retribution
cruelly inflicted on ordinary Japanese half a century ago," it
said in reference to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki by the United states.

Japanese politicians who balked at a straightforward apology
appeared to believe still that "the East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere was a rather good idea", the newspaper said.

"The issue now is whether the text of the resolution will find
acceptance in countries like China and the two Koreas where the
feelings are rather strong," said Philippine Foreign Secretary
Domingo Siazon. " That is a very critical issue for these
countries."

Like China, the government of South Korea, where anti-Japanese
feelings are deep and sometimes violent, had no immediate
comment. Individuals did and they were not happy.

"I am afraid the draft resolution would open another phase of
anti-Japanese sentiment among our people as it failed to offer a
sincere apology for its imperial army's atrocities during the
war," said Seoul University professor Hahm Do-hoon.

"It is nothing but lip service. By ignoring what its Asian
neighbors wanted, Japan made a mistake of putting another yoke on
its own neck," said Yang Soon-im of the Association of Pacific
War Victims and Bereaved Families of Korea, which claims 100,000
members.