WW2 D-Day remembered in Normandy France; China praises Germany, slams Japan for denial of its brutal history

Full Video: Commemorative events held in Normandy ...

China praises Germany, slams Japan

(Reuters) - China used the 70th anniversary of World War Two's D-Day landings on Friday to praise Germany for its contrition over its wartime past and slam Japan for what Beijing views as Tokyo's continued denial of its brutal history.

China has increasingly contrasted Germany and its public remorse for the Nazi regime to Japan, where repeated official apologies for wartime suffering are sometimes undercut by contradictory comments by conservative politicians.

Ties between the two Asian rivals worsened on Dec. 26 when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which China sees as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism because it honors war criminals along with millions of war dead.

"Germany's sincere remorse has won the confidence of the world," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing, when asked about the D-Day anniversary.

"But in Asia on the Asian battlefield, the leaders of Japan, which caused harm and which lost the war, are to this day still trying to reverse the course of history and deny their history of invasion," Hong added.

"What Japanese leaders are doing has been widely condemned in the international community. We again urge Japan's leaders to face up to and deeply reflect on the history of invasion and take real steps to correct their mistakes to win the trust of its neighbors in Asia and in the international community."

Japan's government and Abe himself have repeatedly said that Japan has faced up to its past sincerely.

-  (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Japan urged to correct mistakes as D-Day remembered

BEIJING, June 6 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday urged Japan to reflect on its aggression past and correct mistakes with practical actions, as international D-Day commemorations were held.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily press briefing, "We again urge Japanese leaders to face up to and remember its aggression past, correct mistakes with tangible actions and win the trust of Asian neighbors and the international community."

Among international commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-Day being held, one was in Normandy, France.

Hong said as far as the Second World War is concerned, Europe has turned over a new page. Quoting an old Chinese saying, he said, "Past experience, if not forgotten, is a guide for the future."

Hong said, "Germany has won world respect by sincerely apologizing for its wrong-doing.

"Yet leaders of Japan, a defeated country in World War II, are still attempting to deny its past and challenge the post-war international order, thus their acts are widely condemned by the international community."

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HMS Bulwark will be part of a flotilla heading to France from Portsmouth

Friday marks 70 years since the allied troops in the Second World War landed in Normandy. Ceremonies large and small have been taking place on both sides of the English Channel.

WWII veterons attend a Drumhead Service on Southsea Common in commemoration of the D-Day landings on June 5, 2014 in Portsmouth, England.

In the southern English naval base of Portsmouth, which was the departure point for troops heading to Sword Beach, one of the main landing points, British Royal Marines acted out military exercises for thousands of veterans who gathered on Thursday to make the crossing for the commemorations.

While over in northern France, 300 soldiers from the US, UK, Canada and France parachuted in tandem over the village of Ranville, and World War II planes flew over Utah Beach. Thousands of Allied troops flew or parachuted onto the German-occupied French soil during the early hours of June 6th, in 1944, catching the German army by surprise. But the price was high, nearly 4,500 were dead by the end of the day.

With many D-Day veterans now in their 90s, this year could be the last time that many of those who took part in the battle, will be able to make the long journey back to Normandy and tell their stories. The main D-Day ceremony will be held in Ouistreham, a small port that was the site of a strategic battle on D-Day. Some 18 heads of state are expected to attend the commemorations.

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An utterly unrepentant Japan opening up past wounds derail peace diplomacy

Whatever declarations Japanese leaders may make about the aims of their visits to the Yasukuni Shrine being only to honour their war dead, the acid test is whether victims of their past aggression believe them.

THE recent visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine has provoked a very negative reaction in China and South Korea.

While less strident, other countries like the United States and Singapore also did not approve of the visit. The former expressed disappointment while the latter stated that it regretted the visit.

At the heart of the disapproval is the belief that such a visit indicates that Japan has not come to terms with its past of aggression in Asia. Many compare this unfavourably with Germany where it is very unlikely, if not inconceivable, that the highest German political leader will ever make a public visit to a shrine of Adolf Hitler or of any top Nazi leader.

How valid is this comparison?

It is first necessary to state that the issue is somewhat more complicated than a clear-cut case of an utterly unrepentant Japan and a completely contrite Germany. The Japanese public are deeply pacifist. While it is true that they have caused tremendous destruction in Asia, they themselves have been profoundly scarred by the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Moreover, there are many Japanese, parti­cularly those in the teachers’ unions, progressive intellectuals – especially from the older generation – and others, who are unequivocal in their condemnation of their country’s record in the Second World War.

Germany, for its part, did experience some neo-Nazi manifestations, especially in the eastern part of Germany just after reunification. And there was the controversy over the visit of President Reagan to a cemetery in Pitburgh in 1985 where some of Hitler’s Waffen SS were buried.

Helmut Kohl, then Chancellor, despite protests from many Jewish personalities, insisted that Reagan together with Kohl himself, not cave in to the protests. The Germans argued that many German cemeteries have buried SS officers. Moreover, many of these SS men were innocent young men forced to join the SS at a young age.

Such aside, it is nevertheless clear that in the main, the Germans have come to terms with their recent history. They have clearly acknowledged they did wrong under Hitler and have vowed not to resurrect the Third Reich.

They have, in addition to giving substantial reparations to their victims, made many convincing gestures of contrition, one of the most dramatic being that of the then Chancellor, Willi Brandt, going down on one knee in a monument in Poland in 1970 honouring the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during the Nazi era.

The Japanese on their part are much more ambivalent. Their apologies have been hedged about by many qualifications, and often when made by one leader refuted by statements and actions of other leaders.
And, more dramatically, some of their highes­t political leaders have visited, and intend to continue visiting, the Yasukuni Shrine where many class one war criminals have been enshrined.

Whatever the declarations the Japanese may make about the aims of their visits to Yasukuni being only to honour their war dead, the acid test is whether their war victims believe them. In this, the Chinese and Koreans do not. On the other hand, the victims of the Germans do.

The most dramatic recent example is the plea by the Polish foreign minister in 2011 to the Germans to take leadership of a federal Europe!

One can hardly expect a Chinese or Korean leader to ask for Japanese leadership in Asian affairs!

There are three reasons why both differ in their approach to their recent history. One consists of what they actually, or believe they actually, did.

Amidst the horrors of war the Germans unleashed, they went on an extermination of Jews and other groups which could not be justified by the exigencies of war or by any other wrongs that others may have been inflicted on the Germans. Such an extermination was a clear-cut case of genocide.

Many Japanese, on their part, argued that they committed no such genocide in Asia, and what atrocities Japanese soldiers committed were not a result of policy but of the stress of war. Moreover, in their colonial conquests, they were only following the examples of the Western colonial powers. In some places like South-East Asia, they helped their liberation movements.

While there is some degree of truth in the Japanese argument, some heinous crimes such as the human experimentation by their notorious Japanese Unit 731 and the testing of bacteriological warfare in parts of China cannot easily be justified as due to the strains of war.

While the Western comparison over colonial conquests may seem valid, it cuts no ice with those countries colonised, like Korea and China.

In fairness, some Japanese scholars acknowledge that whatever the Western example, they were wrong in colonising these two countries. Hopefully, such acknowledgement can be one basis for reconciliation between Japan and their Northeast Asian neighbours.

The second reason, somewhat related to the first, is the lack of a regional grouping the Japanese could identify with or be a member of. Germany had a regional organisation, the European community, they could, if not subordinate themselves to its regional aims, use as the focus of their attempt not to repeat their past.

In the words of one of the greatest 20th century German intellectuals, Thomas Mann, Germany should strive for a European Germany, not a German Europe. Asia is too diverse, culturally and economically, and still filled with bitter war memories, for Japan to identify with.

Third, the de-Nazification campaign in Germany was quite thorough. Few Germans, if any, with Nazi connections were allowed to occupy significant governmental and private posts in post-war Germany.

Japan was different. While in the initial stages, the Americans, who basically dominated Allied policy (there was more non-American input in running post-war Germany), intended to purge Japan of those involved in Japanese aggression in Asia, they subsequently relented by allowing many to assume positions of influence in a post-war Japan. (Abe’s maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi who was Prime Minister in the 1950s was one of them.)

The US needed an anti-communist, strong Japan against communism in Asia, especially China. It is thus difficult for post-war Japanese governments consisting of many who committed aggression in Asia and who could have influenced their successors to acknowledge they did wrong.

It would now seem that those inclined to the denial that Japan committed aggression are gaining momentum in Japan. It would be a sad day for Japan and for Asia that a Japan which had made a lot of headway in its peace diplomacy after the war would have that peaceful image destroyed by becoming clearly unrepentant about its past.

- Contributed by Lee Poh Ping, a Senior Research Fellow, Institute of China Studies at Universiti Malaya.

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Dr. Lee Poh Ping, Senior Research Fellow, Inst. of China Studies, University of Malaya

Dialogue 07/25/2013 Shinzo Abe revisits Southeast Asia CCTV News - CNTV English

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China Thursday refuted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent appeal for more transparency in China's military budget, stating that it is Japan that should increase transparency and explain its own military buildup.

"China's defense policy is transparent and has been published in its white papers and on other occasions," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday told a regular press briefing in response to Abe's speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a day earlier.

"We must ... restrain military expansion in Asia, which could otherwise go unchecked," Abe told the annual meeting of global business and political leaders, following his government's custom of not naming China in such references.

In response, Qin urged Japan to explain to Asia and the international community the real purpose of amending its pacifist constitution, which has been in existence since 1947. The Abe government has been trying to revise it so as to greenlight the expansion of Japan's military forces.

In December, Abe's cabinet approved a critical defense policy package comprising new defense program guidelines, a five-year defense buildup plan and the national security strategy. Japan vowed to seek more "proactive" roles for its military forces abroad and to set new guidelines on arms exports, signaling a major shift from its previous restrictive stance.

"Abe tends to depict China as a threat at whatever occasion he attends. His purpose is to worsen Sino-Japan relations and damage China's image in the international community, as well as tear apart economic development in the Asia-Pacific region," Lü Yaodong, a research fellow of Japanese politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

During the Davos speech, Abe also called for dispute resolution through "dialogue and the rule of law, and not through force and coercion."

Qin said that Japan cannot on one hand refuse to admit mistakes and continue to denigrate China, and on the other hand indulge in empty rhetoric to advocate dialogue, as it is the Japanese leader that is shutting the door to dialogue.

Liu Jiangyong, a vice director of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, said it is inappropriate for Abe to cast blame for political issues at an economic forum.

"Abe is trying to distract people's attention by claiming it is others' fault," Liu told the Global Times.

Abe also defended his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, saying that the shrine honors the dead of World War I and the 1868 Meiji war, not just war criminals or others who died in World War II.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is currently attending the international conference on Syria in Montreux, Switzerland, described Abe's argument as futile, which only serves to expose Abe's erroneous perception of history.

Even today, the Yasukuni Shrine still represents the notion that the aggression of Japan in World War II was "just," the Pacific War Japan launched was "self-defense" and the trial at the Far East International Military Tribunal was "illegitimate," as well as honoring 14 Class-A war criminals, Wang noted.

South Korea Thursday also said that it is a complete contradiction to talk about forging friendly ties while continuing visits to the shrine.

Liu said Abe is unlikely to change his stance even though he sensed the pressure and isolation from the international community.

"His explanation reveals that he doesn't think he's wrong and he would do it again," Liu said.

Tensions between China and Japan have been rising since Tokyo announced in September 2012 the "nationalization" of the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Chinese air force planes have been regularly patrolling the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which covers the Diaoyu Islands, air force spokesman Shen Jinke said Thursday.

On a recent patrol, multiple Chinese aircraft were sent to "monitor, identify, track and warn" multiple foreign military planes that had entered the ADIZ, established two months ago, Shen added.

By Zhang Yiwei Global Times

China, Japan open German front in diplomatic war

BEIJING (Jan 25, 2014): One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I, China and Japan are ripping selected pages from Germany's history -- including the Nazi period -- as they seek to demonise each other in their modern-day diplomatic battles.

Beijing's state-controlled media have compared Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Adolf Hitler, using shrill rhetoric that analysts say exploits Tokyo's mixed messages about its past aggression in China and elsewhere.

At the same time, they urge him to emulate Germany's post-war contrition for the evils of Nazism.

Abe, for his part, has raised the spectre of 1914, saying at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that relations between Japan and China resemble those of Britain and Germany as they stumbled towards war.

Tokyo and Beijing are locked in an increasingly acrimonious row over small, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that Japan controls but China regards as its territory, with their militaries warily eyeing each other.

Commentators have likened China, a rising power, to Germany in the early 20th century and portrayed the islands as Sarajevo, site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that triggered the Great War.

In Davos, Abe pointed out that war broke out in 1914 despite strong economic relations between Germany and Britain.

"I think we are in a similar situation. We don't want an inadvertent conflict arising between these two countries," he told reporters.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang roundly rejected the simile Thursday.

"Actually in history China was already a major country in the Tang and Song dynasties (from the seventh to the 13th centuries), so there is no so-called 'China is becoming a major country'," he said.

"There is no need to make an issue of the Britain-Germany relationship."

Hitler's DNA

Chinese officials have lashed out at Abe since his December 26 visit to the hugely controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 senior war criminals described by Qin as "the Nazis of the East".

The shrine is seen in China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan's 20th century military and colonial aggression which saw the country occupy a large swathe of East Asia, often to brutal effect on civilians and prisoners of war.

In what analysts see as crude propaganda, the overseas edition of the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily headlined an article "Hitler's DNA in Abe", illustrated with a mock-up of Japan's leader gazing up at the Fuhrer.

The Global Times tabloid, in its English edition, this week carried a cartoon of Japan's national flag with the sun symbol in the centre dripping blood and a swastika imposed.

"You could say it's propaganda," Torsten Weber, an expert in modern East Asian history at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, told AFP.

"It is a way to distort history and it's also a way to distract attention from more pressing problems that, for example, China faces."

Chinese media have also tried to compare Abe unfavourably with how Germany faced up to Nazi atrocities.

The official Xinhua news agency urged him to follow the example of West German chancellor Willy Brandt, who fell to his knees at a monument to victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising -- a brutally crushed 1943 revolt by Jews in the Polish capital facing deportation to the Nazi death camps.

- AFP

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