[Opinion] Japan`s `Third Opening of Nation` Not Likely

`Atom Bomb on Hiroshima – Heavy Casualties` `Another Atom Bomb in Nagasaki`. 56 years ago around this time in August, the Asahi Shinbun wrote up such headlines about American bomber planes releasing atomic bombs. August 6 and 9, the power of the atom bombs made the Japanese islands shake in fear. Finally, on August 15, the Japanese announced its unconditional surrender.

One diplomat stationed in the Vatican embassy heard the news of the Emperor`s surrender. Soon, he was ordered to return home. It wasn`t the Emperor, the military, nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that issued the order, but General McArthur who gave it from Tokyo. But there was no easy way to get back home. With family and a diplomat from a poor defeated country, he couldn`t even pay for a passage on a boat, never mind an airplane.

Straggling behind the ranks in the aftermath of defeat, the diplomat started looking for work. The only skill he had was his ability to interpret in French and English as a diplomat in Europe. To feed his family, he spent his time in the Vatican serving as an interpreter in French. After a long period, McArthur found out about the diplomat and his situation. He sent an airplane ticket to return home.

Kanayama Masahidae (d. 1997). It was the experience of a resident diplomat in Korea (1966-72). He came to Seoul without any knowledge of Korea. But after a sudden appointment to Korea as ambassador after a mere three month stint in Poland, he became an intimate figure to Korea. Part of his remains are buried in a Catholic cemetery in Kyongki Paju, just like his last wish `to work for the two countries even in the next world`.

That Kanayama said the famous words.

`Japan needs a third opening as a nation. The Meji government was the first. The second came after the defeat in World War II. The third one must be a reaching out to Asia and working hand in hand with other Asian nations. The fact that we have not resolved the issues from the aftermath of the war is an embarrassment`. The recent publication `Kimchi and Umeboshi` (Yaeji Publications) contains a similar passage.

The new leader of Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, remembers Kanayama’s crushing hardships and penetrating insight as he observes the worship at Yasukuni Shrine. 56 years after defeat, the Prime Minister has no thought of resolving issues regarding the aftermath of the war, positively refused historical acknowledgment, and in the fact of Asian nations’ warning call, he makes a visit to a memorial for war criminals.

His own countryman, Ambassador Kanayama had to suffer because of the war that Japan started. And what`s the use of mentioning again the oppressed immigrants in Japan and other Asian people who were pushed out and sacrificed to the war. There is the divided Korean peninsula caused by Japan`s mishap, the atom bomb victims crying out, and the people oppressed by the Japanese who are now pointing their fingers with angry eyes.

Koizumi`s administration is going in the opposite direction of what Kanayama called `The Third Opening of the Nation`. He wants to make the Japan of the 21st century into an isolated nation. Koizumi’s simple clarity and forceful words and gestures that arouse the crowds recalls the image of World War II`s top war criminal Tojo Hideki’s (his memorial is in Yasukuni) skillful, inflammatory rhetoric.

McArthur executed 7 class A war criminals including Tojo. But there is a right wing faction who venerate these men as 7 national martyrs. In front of the war criminal memorial station, they wrote `Such outrageously unjust vengeance is like an ancient savage act`. The guide post says, `One must not forget that countless soldiers sacrificed in the Sino-Japanese War and the Great East Asia War made possible the flourishing of peace in Japan today`.

Until now, only a small minority made such utterances. But the repeating political strife and economic collapse in the past ten years is taking the island’s pent-up frustration and lamentations in a strange direction that forecasts the beginning of a sinister crisis. The textbook distortions and the present situation with Koizumi speak for it. Ultranationalism is born from internal discontent and contradictions and calls forth disastrous consequences. We saw that in the history of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The real concern over Koizumi’s Japan has to do with this precise reason.

Kim Choong Shik (Editorial Writer)

Kim Choong-Seek seescheme@donga.com