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Secretary of Japan. That year, Japan changed 15 August from ‘Memorial Day for the end of the war’ to ‘Day for mourning war dead and praying for
peace’.
Between 2001 and 2006, Prime Minister Jinichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine six years consecutively, while current Prime Minister Shinzō Abe
visited in 2013. Both China and South Korea expressed their disappointment and anger toward the visits of Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese officials, but their
protests failed to affect the attitude of Japanese government and the officials.
Yasukuni Shrine, a religious site before the war, is now a national symbol of Japanese militarism whose supporters encourage worship of the emperor
system of Japan and devote themselves to serve Japan’s national needs, including war. Even though the shrine has become an independent religious
corporation in post-war Japan, it still serves as a spiritual representation of former Japanese militarism.
Why does Yasukuni Shrine matter to China and Korea? On 4 November 2015, I visited Yasukuni Shrine and its Yūshūkan (遊就館), a Japanese
military and war museum, and viewed the exhibition ‘70th Year After the Great East Asia War’. I saw only glorified descriptions of the Great East Asia
War and the loyalty of Japanese soldiers to the Emperor of Japan. Nowhere did the exhibit mention ‘invasion’, ‘regret’, or ‘aggression’. The museum is a
place that ‘promotes aggressive war and extension of Japan’. Yasukuni Shrine notes the death of more than 2,460,000 soldiers of Japan, including those
involved in aggressive wars by Japan during the Second World War, such as Hideki Tojo, Iwane Matsui, and twelve other class-A war criminals as well as
more than 2,000 class-B and class-C criminals. All these dead officials are described as ‘inventors’ to China and Korea, including the fourteen class-A war
criminals sentenced to death or imprisonment at the Tokyo Trial in 1946–1948. They are now honoured in Yasukuni Shrine, and publicly worshiped by
Japanese citizens, the premier, and members of the cabinet.
When I visited Yasukini Shrine, I thought of Israel’s Mossad, which sent agents to South America to apprehend remaining Nazis. They arrested and
kidnaped them, and used Israel’s official planes to send them to Israel in secret. Their goal was to see Nazis stand trial and receive punishment for their
deeds in the Second World War. How will remaining Nazi members and later generations regard the actions of Mossad? For Israelis and Jews, the Second
World War is continuing until justice is served. The Germans chose to accept history with the Warschauer Kniefall. Why would Shinzō Abe visit Yasukuni
Shrine without fear or shame? What is the meaning of today’s geopolitics, with its historical amnesia and willingness to compromise with distortions, for
the victimised countries by Imperial Japan such as Korea, China, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam,
Myanmar, the United States, and other nations and their citizens?
I am not pessimistic towards the future, however. There are numerous lawsuits within and outside Japan against the Japanese government and
corporations for the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan during the Second World War. They demand the Japanese government and corporations for
apology and atonement for the war crimes with regard to the Nanjing Massacre, Military Sexual Slavery (‘Comfort Women’) System, Forced Labour
System, Inhumane Treatment of POWs, or Biochemical Warfare represented by Unit 731. Some of the cases have ended in favour of the plaintiffs in the
courts of law. Meanwhile, the Japanese parents have organised the nationwide society, Kotomo to Kyokasho Zenkoku Netto 21 (Nationwide Network for
Children and Textbooks in the 21st Century), to serve as a watchdog to stop textbook revision by the Japanese government. I understand that even Japanese
parents living outside Japan have joined the society and subscribed to its newsletter.
I am particularly encouraged in my work in the last few years, thanks to the help and guidance from Professor Yue-him Tam, the academic advisor to
our International Center for the Study of Unit 731 and the Museum of War Crimes by Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army in Harbin. A senior historian
of Japanese history and Sino-Japanese relations, Professor Tam has been conducting research and teaching a course at his college for years, focusing on the
major war crimes and atrocities committed by Imperial Japan, including the biochemical warfare and Unit 731. I consulted him whenever I ran into
problems in my research for this book. He was indispensable to facilitate our field work at the US National Archives and Records Administration and the
Library of Congress in Washington, DC. He is indeed the author of the English version of this book with his insights that are absent in the Chinese version.
I felt honoured and gratified when Professor Tam accepted my invitation to work on this book as co-author, for our research and messages could now reach
the minds and hearts in the wider world.