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.