{"id":168,"date":"2006-08-14T17:43:32","date_gmt":"2006-08-14T11:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2006-08-14T20:22:56","modified_gmt":"2006-08-14T14:22:56","slug":"visit-to-war-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/countries\/asia\/bhutan\/168","title":{"rendered":"Visit to War Shrine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do China and Korea have such a problem<\/a> with Koizumi-san visiting a war memorial? Every year the Australian Prime Minister attends a war memorial on Anzac Day, yet I don’t hear the Turks complaining. In 2005, he even attended a memorial<\/a> for Australian soldiers in Turkey itself. I assume that the Turkish leader does the same on some day meaningful to them, and I completely respect that right.<\/p>\n

Some Japanese may have committed ‘war crimes’ according to our view of right, but they’re only considered war crimes because Japan lost the last war. Crimes are defined by the winners, just as history is written by the winners. I’m ignorant of such things, but if there is a global agreement to the ‘honourable’ conduct of war, I can’t imagine that the Japanese signed it before they invaded China or Korea. Their culture was different and they valued life in a different way.<\/p>\n

Does China do better now in Tibet?<\/p>\n

Does China forget that they tried to invade Japan in the past?<\/p>\n

Aren’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki prime examples of war crimes made against the Japanese?<\/p>\n

Japan as a nation has moved on. They embrace peace. They shout louder than anyone against nuclear weapons. Their people take to the streets to object to the visit themselves – not because they don’t respect their own war heroes, but because they don’t want to upset China and Korea. That more than anything shows how the Japanese have changed and I for one regret the loss of pride, even as I respect their courage.<\/p>\n

I would call for Japan to update their history books to reflect their own actions in war truthfully, which I believe is already happening, but I don’t see how supressing memories of the war and their own losses amounts to anything other than further oppression.<\/p>\n

Japanese leaders owe it to their own people to remember the people their predecessors sent to death.<\/p>\n

Do the Chinese and Korean leaders not mourn their own losses in war? If not, aren’t they the real criminals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do China and Korea have such a problem with Koizumi-san visiting a war memorial? Every year the Australian Prime Minister attends a war memorial on Anzac Day, yet I don’t hear the Turks complaining. In 2005, he even attended a memorial for Australian soldiers in Turkey itself. I assume that the Turkish leader does… Continue reading Visit to War Shrine<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}