South Korea's Lee says history 'harming Japan ties'

[alp227]

Source: BBC

South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak says ties with Japan are being hampered by its stance on historical issues.

Mr Lee made the comments in an annual speech marking the end of Japan's colonial rule in South Korea.

Ties have been tense in recent days following a visit by Mr Lee to islands that are also claimed by Japan, leading Tokyo to recall its Seoul envoy.

In Japan, meanwhile, two senior ministers have visited a controversial war shrine.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19264432

[davidpdx]

1. This is kind of like a hemorrhoid it flares up occasionally

Lots of nationalism on both sides. I have lived in South Korea since 2004 and have watched this continual back and forth stuff between the two countries. It's almost like they do it to purposely irritate each other.

[Suji to Seoul]

2. Koreans never took over Japan, used the men as slaves, put the women in sex slavery

or attempted to destroy the culture, language, heritage, tradition or national pride.

Koreans didn't execute Japanese for speaking Japanese.

Koreans didn't forcibly conscript Japanese people into the Korean Army.

Koreans (and the Chinese) have a legitimate gripe, as do the Filipinos, Singaporeans and most other countries in Asia that the Japanese tried to eliminate and now do their damnedest to scrub their history.

I live in Nanjing (home of the Rape of Nanking) and I lived in Seoul for two years (hence my DU name). I am also a published historian. I support the Koreans on this.

[davidpdx]

3. I do as well

Having lived in Korea for 8 years (for 10 months recently I was in China which was terrible and I really disliked it) and married to a Korean. On the first full day in Korea I asked someone if I could tag along with them for the day to learn the subway system and they said yes (feeling bad for me since I was a newbie) and I had no idea where we were going. It turns out it was Sodaemun Prison. That left a very lasting impression of course, especially given at the time I knew very little about Korea.

I just think it's odd how the three countries continue to fight each other at least in terms of words (Korean and China seem to have their own beef with each other separate of that from Japan). Even the Chinese I talked to believe part of Korea belongs to China. I think if they could get away with it they'd just claim all of it (much like Japan tried to). Then there are the disputes over all the little islands which involve not only those three countries, but like 6-7 others.

If you can please recommend a book on Korean history from Three Kingdoms period through 1900. I've read a book already on contemporary history, but would like to learn more about those periods of time leading up to the pre-colonization by Japan. I'd appreciate it.



Ps-Are you still in China?

[Suji to Seoul]

6. Until February, then my wife and I will go back to Korea for my second jaunt in the Hermit

Kingdom.

[PavePusher]

4. How long should people be held responsible

for things their parents, grand-parents and great-grand-parents did?

That said, Japan's attempts at revisionist history (1984, anyone?) are indeed vile, and they need to be publicly gut-punched for it.

[Suji to Seoul]

5. Pave. . .I'm Jewish. NEVER AGAIN!!!!

My wife is Chinese and her grandmother's aunt was raped by the Japanese army. These people will never forgive the Japanese.

Let's put it into the US. There has always been a debate for reparations for slavery. How long should people be held responsible for things their parents, grand-parents and great-grand-parents did?

[4th law of robotics]

8. Unless you're really in to the biblical "sins of the father"

then really a person ought to be held accountable for his/her own actions.

What did you do to cause your grandparents to act the way they did prior to your birth? What could you have changed?

[Suji to Seoul]

14. During the Rape of Nanking, what did the Chinese do?

Nothing at all.

[4th law of robotics]

16. Ok . . .

so what have modern day Japanese done, most of whom were born well after the war was over, to hold them personally accountable for those actions?

[Suji to Seoul]

18. Deny it happened, mitigate their responsibility, offer junk research to blame the entire thing on

a vast Chinese conspiracy (like Neo-Nazis do about the Holocaust) and refuse to acknowledge or teach it in their text books.

Many honor those that committed this genocide at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

Answer your question? Before you comment on something like this, understand I am my doing my dissertation on the Wang Jing Wei government after the Rape of Nanking. And I ACTUALLY LIVE IN NANJING and work at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.

What is this? Be kind to genocide and their modern day apologists week?

[4th law of robotics]

20. Find one quote where I "denied it happened"

or where I said those responsible should not be held responsible.

Answer your question? Before you comment on something like this, understand I am my doing my dissertation on the Wang Jing Wei government after the Rape of Nanking. And I ACTUALLY LIVE IN NANJING and work at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.

So . . . ? You know more of the details than I do likely on what occurred. In what way does that transfer blame to people born after 1945 for events that occurred before 1945?

What is this? Be kind to genocide and their modern day apologists week?

Apparently it's strawman appreciation week. Without which certain people would not be able to maintain their perilous stances on certain issues.

Yes or no: do you believe in racial sins? Ie: can certain groups of people (by their skin color, hair color, eye color, etc) inherit guilt committed by others that bore similar features?

[Suji to Seoul]

23. I have an entire document written by three japanese history professors in 2005

Higashinakaro Shudo, Kobayashi Susumu and Fukunaga Shinjiro.

Entitled: Analyzing the "Photographic Evidence" of the Nanking Massacre.

Originally published as: Nankin Jiken "Shokashasin" wo Kenshosuru by Soshisha, 2005.

Copyright 2005

239 page denial of all evidence and events. The first pages of this document states that John Rabe, who witnessed the events and wrote them in his diary, was based solely on hearsay evidence.

THERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE!!! THEY DENY IT! Modern Japanese History textbooks deny it.

[4th law of robotics]

26. A) I am none of those people so that doesn't prove *I* denied it

B) a paper? That's it? There are papers here written that deny the holocaust or the indian massacres. Does that condemn the entire US?

[Suji to Seoul]

29. We don't as a government or a people deny it. Christ, I did work on the Camp Grant Massacre of 1871

for my second Master's Degree in history.

You have no idea what you are talking about. I am now ignoring you. My alert may have been denied on you, but something one of the jurors said sticks with me:

Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Poster is free to be an ignorant moron.

[4th law of robotics]

32. So one of six agreed with you

you're not a math major so I'll remind you: that is not a majority.


But you will never realize that your alert failed because you were wrong to alert on me. That I said nothing wrong and all I did was go off your arguments for race-based condemnations of an entire group of people.

[Suji to Seoul]

25. I believe in holding people accountable for their actions

Denying your country's history and blaming the victim is their crime today. honoring those that massacred 300,000 and raped 20,000 in six weeks after sacking a city at the Yasukuni Shrine as martyrs for a greater Japan is their crime.

You know nothing about this topic and every time you post, you prove it. Please stop. I'm tired of listening to this. You don't know anything about this topic and it shows.

[4th law of robotics]

28. Ok, so what actions have people born after 1945

committed that make them responsible for the actions of those prior to 1945?

[Suji to Seoul]

30. Denying it happened, scrubbing their history textbooks, honoring those that committed it

and blaming the victim, saying it was all a chinese propaganda campaign.

I have repeated this. Please go away.

[4th law of robotics]

31. Some have done this

I don't see how it condemns the entire race.

You'll find that I don't much care for racial guilt. I hold each person as an individual responsible for their own actions.

So if someone says "the Japanese/Germans/whites/blacks/Jews/etc are guilty of XYZ" I will likely take issue with that.

Individual Japanese committed atrocities. Not the race. Individual Germans ran the holocaust. Not the race. Individual whites . . . and so on.

[Suji to Seoul]

35. Wow. . .you know nothing about East Asian culture. That comment is spoken

by someone who has never lived here and doesn't know anything.

[4th law of robotics]

37. Then by all means explain, from your vast knowledge base,

why it is ok to condemn entire races of east asians for the actions of their ancestors.

Why are asians particularly guilty of "race crimes".

[PavePusher]

9. "Never Again!", agreed, 100%.

But that is a call for vigilence, not revenge/retribution on the innocent. (Edit: Not forgiving the people who commited crimes is fine. Blaming the descendents of those criminals for those actions is... not logical.)

I don't think anyone currently alive owes reparations for slavery. Nor does anyone born in Japan too late to serve during their imperialistic regime owe anything to China or Korea or the Philipines. No-one can be responsible for the actions of their ancestors.

Now, if you can show that any individuals of the recent generations attempted to perpetuate/reinstate the actions of their ancestors, and caused actual damages in doing so, they'd certainly need to be held responsible for their individual actions.

[Suji to Seoul]

22. No, they just deny it and whitewash it. . .then blame the Chinese for it all.

And honor those that committed this genocide at martyrs at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

There's their guilt. If Germans were allowed to deny the holocaust as loudly as the Japanese deny the Rape of Nanking, the international outcry would be immense.

But it's just Chinese and their blood, just like Jewish blood, is completely expendable. This may seem over the top, but I live here and my wife is a Chinese national whose family was raped by the Japanese in Danyang.

Japan can be held responsible for their actions now. .. denial, justification, fake, insincere apologies and attempts at mitigation.

[PavePusher]

33. And I agree with that as well.

Denial is possibly equally as vile as the crimes. I lived in Japan for three years. I found the revisionism in practice there to be highly evocative of 1984 and NewSpeak. Unfortunately, I think it will take a fundamental culture shift to change it, and I'm not sure they are capable of that.

My apology to you if I seemed to imply otherwise.

[Suji to Seoul]

34. mei shi (no worries)

[hack89]

11. The Germans took responsibility for the holocaust

the Japanese are responsible for actions just as evil - they need to take responsibility for them.

[4th law of robotics]

7. With a tiny handful of exceptions the Japanese alive today didn't do any of those things either

I'm sure the Korean population we know today at one point drove out, exterminated, enslaved, or raped a native population that was there first.

At some point you have to let go.

[Posteritatis]

12. How nice of you to explain that to the victims. (nt)

[4th law of robotics]

13. Again, with a handful of exceptions

there are few victims left alive today.

[Suji to Seoul]

15. Yes, but those victims have descendants. Come to Nanjing, where I live,

And tell all the Chinese to "get over it."

Tell my wife that, who has a direct relative that was raped by the Japanese in Changshu.

Your argument hold no water.

The Germans killed 78 members of my family. I guess I should get over it too.

[4th law of robotics]

17. Everyone has an ancestor who had been abused by someone else's ancestor

A good chunk of America has Irish roots.

But if they hated the British today people would tell them to get over it.

The Germans killed 78 members of my family. I guess I should get over it too.

Hate the people responsible for the rest of your life. All I'm asking is that you don't blame innocent people for their "racial sins".

[Suji to Seoul]

19. When they, to this day, deny the entire event of the Rape of Nanking,

scrub their history books of it, don't teach it, blame the Chinese for lying about the entire event then honor those that committed it at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, the "innocent" people of today are just as guilty. Their guilt is guilt of denial.

Again, you know nothing of this topic. Please stop commenting on it. It makes you sound like you are supporting the Japanese actions they commit today which I have mentioned.

And again, I live in Nanjing.

[4th law of robotics]

21. Well you've convinced me

the entire Japanese race is tainted by this horrific crime.

Perhaps it's time we began removing their hated brood from our world. It's time for a final solution to the crimes of the Japanese race. They can never be made clean except with a purifying fire.



/you're aware that your reasoning on racial-sins leads exactly to this kind of thinking right? If a group of people always bears the guilt of their ancestors they can never be innocent. And if they're guilty shouldn't they as a race be punished?

[Suji to Seoul]

24. Flagging this as over the top. You got smacked down and you are now being rude.

[4th law of robotics]

27. Just carrying your logic to it's final conclusion

you believe the Japanese race has inherited guilt for which they can never be clean.

[Suji to Seoul]

36. Again. . .listen carefully and attempt to understand!

When they stop denying their history, scrubbing their history books, justifying their actions, blaming the Chinese for the Rape of Nanking and stop honoring the murderers at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, then they can begin to be forgiven.

You are hopeless. Please don't ever talk to me again. Please just go away.

[4th law of robotics]

38. When "they" stop doing this, then "they" can be forgiven

When Americans stop interfering with the middle east then their buildings will no longer be forfeit and their citizens will no longer be targeted.

Racial guilt for the actions of a few.

How many Japanese set school curriculum's? 90%? I'm guessing substantially less.

And yet you condemn "they" as in every Japanese citizen for the actions of a minority.