nan | 楠木

Another major event of this past week was Koizumi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. Koizumi lived up to his pledge some years back to visit the shrine on the most controversial day of the year: Aug 15th, the day when Japan lost the WWII.

Of course this yet again stimulated a wave of protests from both China and South Korea. The event was widely reported and analyzed. Hence I don’t really want to talk about its implications on future Northeast Asian politics: it definitely hinders the relations between Japan and its neighbours.

But again, the protests and demonstrations in China and South Korea don’t solve the problem. It isn’t helping either. Though such actions exerts pressure on Japan, that pressure now often ends up pushing the Japanese public to become more and more annoyed at its neighbours. “Why are you always poking your nose into my business?”

“It’s not only your business,” we’d be inclined to say. But this is exactly where we suffer a breakdown. We only convey our hatred to the Japanese public; the informatino of why we hate them, and why indeed they should change, is not communicated clearly nor effectively.

So while the Japanese new generation grows up totally ignorant of their nation’s past, they also see the hatred of their neighbours. No wonder they might become frustrated.

And of course the extreme right wings in Japan are taking full advantage of the current situation to promote their ideals.

The key to resolving this hatred lies in promoting the truth and properly educating the young generation of not only Japan, but also Korea and China. Of course it is especially difficult to accomplish this goal with the Japanese youth, and that is precisely why we should adopt more strategy and enhancing dialog, rather than simply promoting blind hate.