Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned as a Prime Minister. I was supporting him from the US: Mr. Abe was the first prime minister who was born after the World War II. This is one of the most important things to work as the Prime Minister for our county, I believe. A Prime Minister needs to be so young and so healthy that he or she could work well on a hard schedule. But this time he suffered from serious health problem. It's a pity!
In Japan most of the members of the Diet are so old that they cannot catch up with the trend of time and cannot look at the current political issues that we are facing, for example, the issues on the revision of the pension system in Japan, and on the security of the Asia-Pacific areas, especially on the threat of the increasing military in China and North Korea.
What he aimed to do could be summarized as "a beautiful country". This was his main political phrase. Mr. Abe tried to tackle some serious political problems related to the internal and international security that Japan now has; He tried to save the lives of a dozen Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s (but he at last didn't aim to relieve the abductees but to develop the negotiation with North Korea for relieving the abductees rapidly). And he tried to revise the education system in Japan; He was thinking of the history textbooks at school as a masochistic version of Japan’s wartime history. I agree!!
To be precise, when I was a junior high school, I disliked Japan; Around 60 years ago Japan invaded many Asian countries, especially China and the Korea Peninsula. It has been said that the Japanese soldiers continued to plunder the Chinese and Korean citizens of their treasures and continued to rape the women there. (See the case 1 and case 2) At school I was taught these cruel histories on the act of the then Japanese army during the World War Ⅱ. Our grandfathers whom I must have respected for seemed excessively criminal. I was wondering if I should have a sense of guilt and should continue to apologize for such a huge crime to the citizens in many Asian countries as long as I was born in Japan and I am a Japanese. Then I couldn't have a pride in my nationality!!
However, I knew that some of these events had been doubtful and hadn't been verified scientifically. (I do not mean that I deny the invasion over China and the Korea Peninsula by the then Japanese army. I think that I should recognize it as a historical fact and the Japanese government should apologize for it to the Chinese and Korean citizens.)
Mr. Abe said that there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sex slavery during the World War II. It became a political problem in the US and in Japan. However the history of the women comfort hasn't been investigated very well scientifically. There is a lack of the information on this fact. This year the comment by the United States House of Representatives called on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for this sex slavery. But I think that there's no reason that Japan should acknowledge and apologize for the sex slavery because there's no clear evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sex slavery.
I think that the comment should have called on Japan rather to investigate and verify, than to acknowledge and apologize for this historical fact. At that time there were many prostitutes in China and Korea. When the Japanese army invaded there, it must have been very natural that they approached the Japanese soldiers because they were all men and, so to speak, a large demand for sex!! And there must have been many problems of the payment between the prostitutes and the Japanese soldiers: At that time they paid for the prostitutes by the military currency issued in Japan. After the war, this currency became a slip of paper because Japan lost the war. It is natural that it made many women working as a prostitute angry. And the Japanese government seems to have apologized for it officially. However it doesn't seem to be related to whether the Japanese army forced women to work as a sex slaver. Note that this is my conjecture! Needless to say, it also needs to be verified.)
Even though the historical facts of the invasion by the Japanese military were all real, we should try to investigate the causes and reasons, not just to describe what has been conveyed among the people. However many schools in Japan are now teaching the historical facts on war that need to be verified and certified more clearly. I think that this is a wrong education. It should be revised right now. The history teachers at school should teach the well-verified historical facts to our next generation. And the textbook should be one that makes our children have a pride and a hope as a Japanese. And it should be one that makes them build the better relationship with China, Korea and many other Asian countries.
Certainly he seemed to incline to focus rather on the morality and precepts that the Japanese should have in origin, than on technical procedure on the policy issues that Japan should solve. It seemed somewhat abstract to many Japanese people and it was one of the causes for him to lose his popularity in Japan.
Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the next Prime Minister. I hope that he will have the similar political ideas with Mr. Abe and that Mr. Abe will recover from his health difficulty as soon as possible. I believe that he did well as the Prime Minister of Japan. I still have a great respect for him.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
NY Times
Published: September 13, 2007
David Guttenfelder/Associated Press
.....Shinzo Abe after announcing his resignation as prime minister. He was criticized for not bowing or apologizing during his speech. Mr. Abe, deeply unpopular, had already been written off by Japan’s political establishment and media, his political future measured in months. The start of a new parliamentary session on Monday was supposed to usher in fierce debate with the newly powerful opposition Democratic Party, followed by probable deadlock over the military’s participation in the war in Afghanistan and then by Mr. Abe’s exit.
....Mr. Abe, who had described himself as a “politician who fights,” apparently had no stomach for it. As early as Monday he shared his wish to quit with his closest political confidant, Taro Aso, the party’s secretary general, who shares Mr. Abe’s ideological views and is now widely considered the front-runner to succeed him.
“In the current situation, it will be quite difficult to forcefully pursue policies based on the people’s support and trust,” Mr. Abe said, seeming at one point on the verge of tears and failing — television commentators and ordinary people alike said critically — to bow or apologize during his news conference.
.....Possibly to deflect criticism of the sudden resignation, party officials said that Mr. Abe, 52, the first prime minister born after World War II, was suffering from poor health, though they provided no details. [On Thursday morning, Mr. Abe went to see a doctor at a hospital here, Japanese media reported.]
.....Mr. Abe, who became prime minister last September, gained popularity by championing the cause of a dozen Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and fanning, critics said, nationalist anger. As a lawmaker, he had long led efforts to revise school textbooks and present what critics said was a whitewashed version of Japan’s wartime history. Last spring, Mr. Abe said there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sex slavery during World War II, causing a furor in the United States, as well as in Asian and European countries. The comments built support for the eventual passage by the United States House of Representatives of a nonbinding resolution calling on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for the sex slavery.
Mr. Abe’s cabinet was weakened by a series of money-related scandals and gaffes that forced four of his ministers to resign; a fifth committed suicide after being caught greatly inflating his office expenses. But it was Mr. Abe’s mishandling of a bookkeeping problem surrounding the national pension system that contributed the most to his party’s devastating loss in the upper house election. While the problem had existed for many years, Mr. Abe kept quiet after learning about it early this year. After opposition politicians exposed it in the spring, Mr. Abe first played down the issue, angering voters in a rapidly aging nation with a declining birthrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment