[11:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=675s) The Starving Judge and the Moral Facade of the Ration System
In postwar Japan, runaway inflation and severe food shortages made survival nearly impossible through legal channels alone, forcing almost every household to rely on the black market. One sitting judge, whose daily duty was to prosecute and punish illegal black market dealings, discovered that his wife had been purchasing black market food to keep their family alive. Disgusted by the hypocrisy, he strictly forbade her from ever engaging in illicit trade again. Vowing to live by the letter of the law, he refused to consume anything beyond his meager, state-allocated official rations. The rations, however, were nowhere near enough to sustain human life, and the judge eventually starved to death.
Instead of serving as a wake-up call for the Japanese authorities to confront their failing economic distribution policies, the tragedy was rapidly sanitized and turned into patriotic propaganda. The domestic media sensationalized his demise into an inspirational spectacle, effusively celebrating his rigid adherence to legalism: “Oh, this judge was so great, so amazing, he would rather starve to death than break the law.” Rather than exposing the lethal defects of the state apparatus, the tragedy was repackaged as an exemplary case that deeply “moved Japan.”
[12:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=730s) Children’s Games of the Ruins: Democracy, the Black Market, and "Pan-Pan"
Beyond the tragedies of starving adults, the grim realities of the postwar collapse were directly reflected in the games children played among the ruins. As American historian John Dower uncovered in his study of everyday street culture, the games played by Japanese children vividly mirrored the turbulent social currents around them. One popular pastime was the “Democracy Game,” in which kids imitated the recently revitalized Japan Communist Party and leftist labor organizers, marching through the streets banging pots, carrying signs, and chanting slogans. Another widespread activity was the “Black Market Game,” an updated version of playing house where children mimicked roadside traders, haggling over pretend goods and asking one another, “How much are you selling this rice for here?”
The most jarring reflection of the occupation era, however, was a game known as “Pan-Pan”—a street slang term adopted from the American military to refer to streetwalkers and sex workers. Little girls as young as five or six stood on sidewalk corners pretending to solicit customers, while young boys approached them offering play money, saying, “I'll pay, I'll pay, come home and sleep with me.” These games demonstrated how deeply commercialized vice and social instability had seeped into the psyche of the youngest generation.
- **Democracy Game:** Emulated leftist and Communist street marches, complete with protest signs and mock demonstrations.
- **Black Market Game:** Mirrored street vendors and food brokers, centering on haggling over staple rations like rice.
- **Pan-Pan Game:** Children aged five and six acted out sidewalk prostitution and financial solicitation learned from observing interactions with U.S. troops.
[13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=792s) Official Comfort Stations: Mobilizing Women as a "Breakwater" for the Nation
In the 1940s, the Japanese government took the bizarre step of establishing official state-run “comfort” facilities for the arriving American occupiers. Throughout the war, imperial propaganda had conditioned Japanese citizens to believe that defeat would bring horrific consequences and that invading American soldiers would immediately rape and desecrate Japanese women. Terrified of this scenario once surrender became a reality, the Japanese authorities established the Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA), openly calling upon Japanese women to offer their bodies to protect the rest of the nation. Official wartime rationales that once defended sexual slavery abroad under the guise of protecting upper-class modesty were now directed inward, framing the institutionalized prostitution of Japanese women as an act of patriotic martyrdom.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Postwar State-Sponsored Prostitution System
accDescr: The Japanese government's path from occupation panic to the establishment and shutdown of official comfort stations.
subgraph Fear ["Panic & Mobilization"]
A["Fear of Mass Rape by Invading U.S. Troops"] --> B["Government Calls for 'New Era Women'"]
B --> C["1,300 Recruits Swear Imperial Palace Oath"]
end
subgraph Operation ["The RAA System"]
C --> D["State-Run Comfort Stations Established"]
D --> E["Brothel Bosses Claim to Serve Human Peace"]
end
subgraph Collapse ["Medical Crisis & Termination"]
E --> F["Venereal Disease Epidemic (90% Women, 50% U.S. Regiments)"]
F --> G["U.S. Shuts Down System under Pretext of Democracy"]
G --> H["Mass Penicillin Distribution & Rise of Private Street 'Pan-Pan'"]
end
```
The Japanese government explicitly summoned women of the “new era” to enlist in this effort, describing it as an emergency postwar measure requiring the selfless cooperation of young women to comfort the garrison forces. Roughly 1,300 women who signed up were gathered on the plaza in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to take a collective oath. The text of the oath, delivered in high-flown imperial rhetoric, declared: “Through the self-sacrifice of thousands of Showa 'Azusa'(women), we shall build a breakwater against the madness, collectively protecting and nurturing the purity of our nation, serving as the foundation of postwar social order, and willingly becoming the 'dams' that hold back the tide.” Brothel operators and organizers proudly echoed these delusions, insisting: “We are now promoting the cause of human peace.”
[16:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=980s) The Syphilis Crisis and the Fall of State-Run Brothels
The official comfort station system was abruptly terminated after roughly a year or two of operation. Publicly, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) framed the abolition of state-sanctioned brothels in noble, high-minded language, insisting that the system was inherently inhumane, degraded women, and violated the democratic ideals the Americans had come to introduce.
In reality, the shutdown was driven by an uncontrollable public health catastrophe rather than a sudden moral awakening:
- Approximately 90% of the Japanese women working in these official comfort stations had contracted venereal diseases.
- In certain U.S. military regiments, over 50% of the enlisted men were infected with syphilis.
- The epidemic threatened military readiness to such an extent that occupation authorities could no longer ignore it, forcing the closure of official brothels and prompting the large-scale distribution of American penicillin across Japan.
- Despite the formal shutdown of state facilities, prostitution simply migrated to private street solicitation, continuing under the underground "pan-pan" economy.
[17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=1055s) Embracing the Occupier: Relief, Disillusionment, and the Rebellious Generation
American occupation planners had prepared to confront a hostile, fanatical population of nearly 100 million people ready to wage guerrilla warfare to the death. However, when American troops actually stepped ashore, the ferocious image of the suicidal imperial soldier vanished. Instead, they were greeted by waving civilians, gentle women, and cheerful children swarming their jeeps to ask for chewing gum and chocolate, turning American soldiers into modern-day Santa Clauses. Consequently, American public perception shifted dramatically, recasting Japan not as a terrifying warrior nation, but as a feminized, delicate, and doll-like entity in desperate need of paternalistic protection.
As John Dower observes, the Japanese public embraced the Americans because their arrival brought an overwhelming sense of liberation. The Emperor’s surrender broadcast ended the crushing physical misery of total war and dissolved the suffocating obligation to repeat empty imperial slogans or claim they loved the Emperor more than their own parents. Yet this initial relief quickly curdled into *kyodatsu*—a state of profound exhaustion, numbness, and nihilism.
Nothing fostered this cynicism more than the behavior of the adult establishment, especially public schoolteachers. During the war, teachers had strictly commanded students to reject Western individualism, renounce human rights, and gladly die for the Emperor; almost overnight, those same teachers completely reversed course, lecturing their bewildered students: “We must thank America for bestowing democracy upon us; we must talk about human rights and all these things.” Seeing their mentors flip their core convictions in a single day permanently shattered youth faith in authority. This generational whiplash gave rise to a defiant, alienated, and deeply rebellious generation of Japanese youth that would challenge state structures all the way into the 1960s, even as U.S. military forces operated above the local law like an extraterritorial kingdom.
[21:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=1279s) The "White Man's Burden" and Postwar Bureaucratic Continuity
When American occupation forces entered Japan, their conduct was markedly shaped by a sense of racial hierarchy and civilizational superiority that differed sharply from their posture in European occupied zones like Germany. American soldiers carried what they viewed as a classical "white man's burden," believing it was their unique calling to tutor and civilize an Asian population they deemed backward. As the speaker explains regarding this paternalistic American mindset: “We must properly civilize this country, teach them democracy, and transform this nation; this is a grave responsibility we white Americans face regarding Japan today.” While this mission was underpinned by genuine democratic ideals, those ideals were tangled with condescension. American personnel routinely mocked Japanese local officials whose command of English was lacking, deriding them as foolish and comparing them to monkeys. Consequently, Japanese bureaucrats who spoke fluent English quickly gained favor, acting as intermediaries between the occupation headquarters and the domestic state apparatus.
Although the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) issued daily directives from above, the Americans lacked the language skills and administrative capacity to manage daily governance directly. When practical bottlenecks arose, occupation authorities relied entirely on the pre-existing Japanese civil service to translate and execute their orders. As the speaker notes: “Consequently, this led to a result that persists to this day: the entire Japanese bureaucratic system remained almost untouched and continued to hold great power.” Even so, the top-down reforms catalyzed monumental social transformations across the country. The occupation introduced constitutional protections for human rights, gender equality, and early freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press. Economically, SCAP moved aggressively against the prewar status quo by dissolving the monopolistic financial cliques (*zaibatsu*) and fostering small and medium-sized enterprises, generating an authentic sense of popular gratitude toward the United States among ordinary Japanese citizens.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: American Directives and Japanese Bureaucratic Execution
accDescr: Flowchart showing how SCAP reform directives were filtered through bilingual intermediaries and executed by the pre-existing Japanese bureaucracy.
subgraph SCAP["Allied Occupation (SCAP)"]
A["MacArthur & US High Command"] -->|"Issues sweeping policy orders"| B["English-speaking Japanese Intermediaries"]
end
subgraph Bureaucracy["Domestic Implementation"]
B -->|"Translates & navigates local administration"| C["Pre-existing Japanese Bureaucracy"]
C -->|"Maintained administrative continuity"| D["Preserved Power into Modern Era"]
end
subgraph Reforms["Societal Impact"]
C --> E["Dissolution of Monopolistic Conglomerates"]
C --> F["Human Rights & Gender Equality Protections"]
C --> G["Initial Guarantees of Civil Liberties"]
end
```
[23:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=1392s) Deifying MacArthur: The New Emperor and the Outpouring of Gifts
As the occupation took hold, General Douglas MacArthur became the object of widespread Japanese adulation that bordered on religious veneration. MacArthur’s imposing physical stature, his habit of casually puffing on a corncob pipe, and his well-known vanity blended seamlessly with the public's search for an overarching figure of authority. As the speaker observes: “His image was almost that of a new emperor; he was supreme, doing as he pleased.” Thousands of letters flooded SCAP headquarters, praising the general’s benevolence and calling him a living savior. An elderly man in Aomori Prefecture confessed to praying before MacArthur’s portrait every morning and evening, exactly as subjects had once done before the image of the Emperor. In Kobe, a cultural association created a Japanese-style portrait depicting Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in MacArthur’s honor, while others compared his mercy to the compassion of the Buddha or quoted the *Analects* of Confucius to liken him to a noble “friend from afar.” Ordinary citizens treated the General both as a Catholic priest to whom they confessed wartime sins and as a psychiatrist to whom they confided their deepest post-defeat anxieties.
Alongside this correspondence came an astonishing deluge of gifts, far exceeding the tributes previously offered to high-ranking domestic military officers. These presents ranged from modest personal tokens to monumental artistic endeavors:
- In the sweltering summer of 1948, a humble fisherman wrote explaining that MacArthur’s leadership had allowed the Japanese people to accomplish feats unimaginable during the long wartime years; wishing to share the finest delicacy he possessed, he invited the General to fish alongside him during the peak season when sweetfish were at their fattest.
- Beginning in November 1946, an embroiderer secluded himself inside Kyoto’s Shimogamo Shrine, working in solitary prayer for three years to hand-craft a formal kimono and sash (*obi*).
- The completed embroidery comprised 70 million individual stitches, accompanied by a Shinto prayer dedication declaring: “Presented to General MacArthur as a symbol of the purity of our 70 million citizens; each thread of this woven item represents every single Japanese person.”
[26:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=1615s) Emperor Hirohito Humiliated: Public Satire and Veterans' Fury
The veneration of MacArthur stood in stark contrast to the rapidly deteriorating prestige of Emperor Hirohito. When Hirohito paid his first official visit to MacArthur at the American occupation headquarters, their meeting yielded an iconic photograph that shocked the public. In the picture, the Emperor appeared noticeably short, stiff, and anxious in a formal morning coat, while MacArthur stood tall and completely relaxed in an open-collar military uniform without formal neckwear. As the speaker emphasizes: “By comparison, it was perfectly clear who was the master and who was the servant.” The visual disparity gave rise to mocking street satire. The Emperor’s traditional self-appellation, *Chin* (朕), happened to be a direct homophone for the Japanese slang term for "penis" (*chinchin*). Japanese citizens openly joked about the photograph, asking why the Emperor reached only to MacArthur’s navel: "Because our Emperor is the penis, and MacArthur is the belly button."
Beyond satirical jokes, intense bitterness toward Hirohito surfaced across society, breaking taboos that had persisted for generations:
- Even before the formal surrender, children singing street nursery rhymes in the aftermath of the devastating Great Tokyo Air Raid openly wished American incendiary bombs would hit the Imperial Palace.
- Demobilized soldiers and veterans, such as the well-known naval veteran Kiyoshi Watanabe, directed vitriolic rage toward the throne, arguing that Hirohito deserved to die and be dragged down to the ocean floor to face the drowned sailors who had sacrificed their lives for him.
- Critical citizens, leftist intellectuals, and members of the Japanese Communist Party fiercely rejected the government-promoted doctrine of the "Repentance of the 100 Million" (*Ichioku Sōzange*), which attempted to diffuse wartime guilt across the entire population.
- Critics pointed out the moral absurdity of universal repentance while the monarch escaped accountability, demanding to know: “Who started this war? The Emperor. Who should be most responsible? The Emperor.”
[29:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=1780s) Preserving the Throne: American Misconceptions and Constitutional Reform
Despite rising domestic demands from radicals and leftists to abolish the imperial throne and hold Hirohito accountable, the American military high command had settled on preserving the monarchy long before the occupation began. This decision was rooted largely in the misconceptions of American strategists, who employed few authentic Japan specialists. Accepting wartime Japanese state propaganda at face value, American planners believed the populace was universally fanatical and completely devoted to the Emperor. They reasoned that because imperial soldiers and kamikaze pilots had sacrificed their lives in the Emperor's name, removing or prosecuting him would provoke uncontrollable civil unrest, guerrilla resistance, and an unstable occupation.
To secure long-term social stability, MacArthur and his advisers concluded that Hirohito had to remain on the throne as a stabilizing pillar. As the speaker summarizes: “Therefore, they believed that for Japan to remain peaceful and secure for a long time, the Emperor had to be preserved.” However, because the United States had also committed to building a democratic society, they had to transform Japan into a modern constitutional monarchy by drafting an entirely new supreme law. Although foreign observers—including late Qing reformer Kang Youwei—had historically assumed that the 1889 Meiji Constitution had already established a British-style constitutional system, the Meiji framework had in reality concentrated immense sovereign authority in the Emperor, whose status was subsequently elevated by militarist ideologues to that of a living divinity. Reconciling an imperial institution with democratic governance would require a complete overhaul of that constitutional structure.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Postwar Japanese Constitution Drafting Process
accDescr: The sequence showing how the GHQ rejected the Japanese conservative draft and authored the 1946 Constitution in English.
subgraph Step1["起草背景与初稿"]
A["美军要求日本起草新宪法"] --> B["保守派政客（如近卫文麿）提交保守方案"]
B --> C["美军/GHQ极度不满并否决草案"]
end
subgraph Step2["美军接管撰写"]
C --> D["美方抽调数十位非宪法学者<br>（商法学者/社会学者/经济学者）"]
D --> E["全英文撰写日本宪法原稿"]
end
subgraph Step3["落地实施"]
E --> F["确立第九条和平条款<br>（放弃战争与军备）"]
E --> G["天皇地位转变为国家象征"]
F & G --> H["强令日本当局接受并由国会通过"]
end
```
[40:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=2452s) Suppressed Conscience: GHQ Censorship and the Erasure of Asian Atrocities
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the intensification of the Cold War fundamentally redirected American occupation policy, prompting General Headquarters (GHQ) to actively reshape Japanese historical memory and suppress accountability. In the earliest days following the defeat, genuine moral shock and self-reflection had flickered among Japanese intellectuals and ordinary citizens as details of imperial atrocities came to light. The poet Saburo Saeki, for example, penned two poignant works grappling with these revelations. His first poem expressed how the horror of learning about the brutal crimes committed in China overshadowed the national trauma of surrender: on that very day, Saeki wrote, such sorrow made him forget that it was the day of Japan's defeat. His second poem vividly portrayed the Imperial Army’s barbaric conduct, describing soldiers violating mothers in front of their children and abusing married women. However, the Japanese public never saw the first poem in print because GHQ banned it outright; occupation censors were excessively anxious about any public writing that appeared to lament the surrender, failing to see that Saeki was not mourning the defeat itself, but expressing the profound rupture in his conscience upon facing his country's crimes.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Evolution of Postwar Japanese War Memory
accDescr: Diagram tracing the transformation of Japanese war responsibility from early guilt to abstract pacifism under Cold War influence.
subgraph EarlyPostwar["Early Postwar Conscience"]
A["Exposure of Atrocities in Asia<br>(Nanking, Manila)"] --> B["Individual Shock & Guilt<br>(Saburo Saeki, Citizen Letters)"]
end
subgraph ColdWarIntervention["Cold War Geopolitics & GHQ"]
B --> C["GHQ Censorship & Containment<br>(Suppressing Anti-Aggression Texts)"]
C --> D["US Need for Japan as Ally<br>Against Communist China"]
end
subgraph DistortedMemory["Distorted Reconstruction of Memory"]
D --> E["Focus Shift: 'Wronging America'<br>Why Did We Lose? (Tech & Resources)"]
E --> F["Guilt Shifted to Few Warlords;<br>General Public Frames Itself as Victim"]
F --> G["Mourning Fallen Soldiers:<br>Rationalizing Defeat as Precondition for Rebirth"]
end
subgraph ModernConsensus["Resulting Modern Psychology"]
G --> H["Broad Anti-War Pacifism<br>Lacking Concrete War Responsibility"]
end
```
Beyond poets like Saeki, sporadic outcries of visceral guilt also emerged from ordinary Japanese citizens. Readers wrote letters to newspapers confessing heartbreak over the Nanking Massacre, declaring that the very clothes they wore and the food they ate felt stained with the blood of the Chinese people. Another mother, upon learning of the slaughter committed by Japanese troops in Manila, was gripped by the horrifying realization that her own son had been deployed at that exact scene; she openly insisted that her son deserved to be executed on the spot rather than allowed to return home to Japan. Yet these fragile, fragmented awakenings never matured into a collective realization that Japan was fundamentally an aggressor rather than a victim. As the Cold War set in and the nascent Communist China was designated America’s chief adversary, highlighting Japanese atrocities in China ran counter to American geopolitical interests. GHQ consequently filtered and suppressed information regarding the horrors inflicted across Asia, effectively halting Japan's moral confrontation with its continental neighbors before it could take root.
- “In the years that followed, as the Cold War atmosphere intensified, the occupying forces viewed the nascent Communist China as a major enemy, and suppressing memories of Japanese atrocities became an important part of U.S. policy.”
[44:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=2650s) The Distortion of War Responsibility: Analyzing Defeat Instead of Guilt
Because acknowledging crimes against China was deemed politically unhelpful to the Western bloc, the entire paradigm of postwar Japanese war responsibility underwent a profound distortion. Instead of reckoning with the suffering inflicted on all of Asia, Japanese introspection narrowed almost exclusively to the idea that they had wronged the United States. Furthermore, this "wronging of Americans" was not analyzed as a moral crime, but rather as an embarrassing strategic blunder. The prevailing public self-reflection devolved into incredulous questions: how could the nation have been so foolish, and how could the military leadership have been so reckless as to wage war against a powerhouse like America that Japan had no chance of defeating?
This shift diverted national reflection away from why the war was launched in the first place, steering it instead toward an autopsy of why Japan lost. The consensus concluded that Japan failed because of scarce natural resources, backward technology, and an irrational populace. Consequently, postwar society embraced scientific education and technical rationality, operating under the flawed premise that fixing technical backwardness addressed the war's core lessons. When responsibility was assigned, the public conveniently pinned the blame entirely on a tiny cabal of militarist leaders and warlords. As the American occupation gradually released the vast majority of suspected war criminals, the guilt for the entire historical catastrophe was concentrated onto a tiny handful of executed leaders. Once those few figures were eliminated, society considered itself purged of culpability, leaving ordinary Japanese citizens to view themselves purely as victims who had endured the miseries of both wartime devastation and postwar destitution.
- “It meant that everyone started thinking about the reasons we lost the war, rather than the responsibility for starting the war.”
- The postwar shift in national focus:
- Technical and resource deficiency identified as the primary reason for defeat.
- Emphasis placed on scientific education and rationality rather than ethical accountability.
- Aggression against Asian nations obscured by focusing primarily on conflict with the United States.
- Total war guilt concentrated exclusively on a small group of top military leaders, exonerating society at large.
[46:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=2772s) Mourning the Fallen: Transforming Defeat into a Narrative of Rebirth
As Japanese society embraced victimhood, it encountered a psychological dilemma unique to defeated nations: how to mourn and memorialize the fallen. In victorious countries like China, soldiers who died fighting—whether in the Eighth Route Army or the Kuomintang—were honored as glorious martyrs and national heroes who sacrificed their lives for the fatherland. By contrast, nearly every Japanese family had lost a son, brother, or husband in a disastrous war of aggression. Relatives receiving ashes could not bear the nihilistic reality that their children had died for an ignominious and wicked enterprise; they desperately required a coherent rationale to justify those deaths and console their grief.
To resolve this psychological crisis, the public narrative underwent a subtle, rationalizing alchemy. Families began to convince themselves that the soldiers' deaths were neither pointless nor wrong, but rather a noble and necessary sacrifice that made modern Japan possible. The internal logic held that if those soldiers had not fought that tragic, foolish war to its bitter end, Japan would never have suffered total defeat; without that catastrophic defeat, the nation would never have engaged in reflection; and without reflection, Japan could never have achieved its modern rebirth and prosperity. This mental rationalization was epitomized by the traditional idiom that no plum blossom can exude its sweet fragrance without first enduring the biting chill of winter. Through this narrative sleight of hand, the devastation inflicted and suffered was recast as an indispensable ordeal paving the way for national renewal, further insulating the public from the moral reality of their imperialist aggression.
- “If we hadn't been defeated, we wouldn't have had the chance to reflect, and without reflection, Japan would not have had the chance for rebirth.”
[48:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=2885s) Humanizing War Criminals and the Rise of Abstract Pacifism
Japanese public sentiment shifted further as occupation policies generated friction, especially after General Douglas MacArthur departed and condescendingly referred to Japan before the U.S. Congress as an immature, twelve-year-old child requiring stern guidance—a remark widely perceived as racially discriminatory. Increasingly viewing the Tokyo Trials as mere victor's justice and their pacifist constitution as an American imposition, the Japanese public began reading memoirs published by imprisoned Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. Readers discovered that these reviled leaders were also loving fathers, filial sons, and patriots who worried deeply about their children and the nation’s survival. This humanization created a distorted moral equivalence: just as Adolf Hitler could weep with sorrow watching lions hunt antelopes in nature documentaries yet orchestrate genocide, exhibiting personal sentimentality does not negate monstrous guilt. By viewing even Class-A war criminals as flawed, pitiable human beings caught in the machinery of conflict, Japanese public consciousness ultimately reclassified the leaders themselves as tragic victims of war.
This evolution produced the peculiar sociopolitical consensus that characterizes modern Japan: an overwhelming, genuine commitment to pacifism and anti-war sentiment paired with a near-total vagueness regarding historical responsibility. Citizens passionately insist that war is an absolute evil because it brings terrible suffering to everyone, including Japanese soldiers and civilians. However, by treating war as an abstract natural disaster where all participants are shared victims, the crucial question of state culpability and imperialist aggression is neatly evaded. As John Dower demonstrates in *Embracing Defeat*, the failure to resolve these ethical questions during the occupation left Japanese historical memory chaotic, fragmented, and blurry—bequeathing a persistent, unhealed historical wound that continues to generate friction with China, Korea, and the rest of East Asia today.
- “Ultimately, a subconscious conclusion forms in their minds: the conclusion that war is truly cruel and truly bad. We must absolutely oppose war.”
- “Everyone is anti-war, and everyone cherishes peace. But if you ask them about how to account for their past responsibilities, it gets very blurry; the whole memory is chaotic and fragmented.”
> [48:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIHXqPgoCQ&t=2885s) Everyone is anti-war, and everyone cherishes peace. But if you ask them about how to account for their past responsibilities, it gets very blurry; the whole memory is chaotic and fragmented. — 梁文道
[32:28] 梁文道: 很多人在当时甚至觉得天皇很可爱，这就留下了一个巨大的尾巴，这也是为什么直到今天，日本在战后责任问题上始终无法彻底清算的核心根源所在。
[48:05] 梁文道: Everyone is anti-war, and everyone cherishes peace. But if you ask them about how to account for their past responsibilities, it gets very blurry; the whole memory is chaotic and fragmented.
Original transcript
[0:00] Why did Japan change so rapidly after
[0:02] World War II, transforming from a
[0:04] former militaristic state into a modern
[0:07] nation that strongly embraces the
[0:08] Western values of democracy, freedom,
[0:11] and human rights? Why was this country
[0:15] able to rise again from the ruins of
[0:17] war, like a phoenix, to become a
[0:18] subsequent economic powerhouse? Why
[0:22] would this country be willing to form a
[0:24] robust, unbreakable alliance with the
[0:26] United States, the very opponent that
[0:28] defeated it? For Chinese people, what
[0:31] is even more important is: why does
[0:33] this country always make us feel uneasy
[0:35] ? Why does it seem they have never
[0:39] formed a very clear, strong, and
[0:40] thorough attitude of repentance and
[0:42] atonement? If we want to find answers
[0:47] to all these questions, we must go back
[0:49] to what happened immediately after the
[0:51] war ended. The answer is clearly the
[0:55] American occupation. To understand the
[1:00] impact of the U.S. occupation back then
[1:02] , I want to introduce a book today, "
[1:04] Embracing Defeat" in my hand, written
[1:06] by John Dower, currently a professor of
[1:08] history at MIT. This book is probably
[1:15] the most recent one we've introduced so
[1:17] far; it was only published in 1999, yet
[1:19] it has already established an
[1:20] unshakable classic status in this field
[1:23] . If you want to understand Japan's
[1:28] modern history today, or the
[1:29] relationship between Japan and the U.S.
[1:31] at that time, you cannot ignore this
[1:33] book. What is the merit of this work?
[1:37] For one, it possesses vast historical
[1:39] archives and a variety of materials.
[1:44] John Dower is truly an outstanding
[1:46] historian with a strong ability to
[1:48] weave narratives, and ultimately, he
[1:49] uses a clever storytelling method to
[1:51] organize these materials to detail a
[1:53] history many Chinese people don't know.
[1:58] Let’s see how he writes this book and
[2:00] describes the U.S. occupation of Japan.
[2:02] He actually starts from 1853. What
[2:05] happened in 1853? It was the famous "
[2:08] Black Ships" arrival event. I don't
[2:10] know if the audience is aware, but this
[2:12] is a top-tier event in Japanese history
[2:14] . The arrival of the Black Ships refers
[2:18] to the U.S. Commodore Perry, who
[2:20] brought four ships that were coated in
[2:22] black tar to prevent rust, hence the
[2:24] name "Black Ships." These four ships
[2:27] were modern steamships equipped with
[2:29] heavy cannons. They arrived in Tokyo
[2:32] Bay and forced the Tokugawa shogunate
[2:34] to open its ports for trade; it is a
[2:36] classic example of Western hegemony
[2:38] oppressing Asia. Later on, as we know,
[2:42] the shogunate collapsed, leading to the
[2:44] Meiji Restoration, and Japan began to
[2:46] pursue its dream of becoming a great
[2:48] power. This dream lasted for 93 years,
[2:52] until 1945, when another powerful fleet
[2:55] arrived, far more formidable than the
[2:57] one from years before, accompanied by
[2:59] thousands of aircraft descending upon
[3:01] Tokyo Bay. The Americans had returned.
[3:09] The massive fleet that the U.S. brought
[3:11] this time—its flagship, the
[3:13] battleship USS Missouri, which we know
[3:15] as the site where the Allied surrender
[3:17] ceremony was later held—flew two
[3:19] American flags. Why would a warship fly
[3:26] two flags of the same nation? Well, the
[3:29] first flag was the one flying over the
[3:32] White House when the Japanese military
[3:34] attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. They
[3:36] brought it along; it’s highly
[3:38] symbolic, isn't it? Looking at the
[3:41] second flag, it's even stranger. This
[3:43] American flag has only 31 stars. How
[3:45] could there be only 31 stars? As it
[3:48] turns out, this is an old American flag
[3:49] from back when there were only 31
[3:51] states. This flag was specially rushed
[3:54] over from a museum in the United States
[3:56] . It was specifically intended to be
[4:02] used on the day of the Japanese
[4:03] surrender, as it was the very flag that
[4:05] flew on Commodore Perry's ship when he
[4:07] forced Japan to open its doors. Beneath
[4:16] these two flags, this book takes us
[4:18] into a strange period of Japanese
[4:19] history—a story of a great power
[4:21] rising and then falling, with both its
[4:23] rise and decline linked to the two
[4:25] visits by American fleets. In this book
[4:32] , we can especially see a sense of
[4:34] suffering among the Japanese. Many of
[4:38] us today might not understand,
[4:40] wondering why the Japanese would feel
[4:41] like victims when they were the ones
[4:43] who started the war. If you read this
[4:47] book, you will understand that, to a
[4:49] certain extent, they were indeed
[4:50] victims, and suffered quite deeply.
[4:53] First, let's look at the soldiers of
[4:55] that time. Even toward the end of the
[4:59] war, those Japanese soldiers had
[5:00] already fallen into a state of
[5:02] extremely low morale. Before dying,
[5:05] instead of shouting "Long live the
[5:07] Emperor" as prescribed, they usually
[5:09] cried out, "Mama, oh Mama." At that
[5:13] time, a significant number of soldiers
[5:15] died of starvation, not to mention
[5:17] those ordered by their superiors to
[5:18] charge into enemy fire as cannon fodder
[5:20] ; those who managed to return were
[5:22] filled with resentment toward the
[5:24] superiors who sent them to their deaths
[5:25] , toward the country, and toward the
[5:27] Emperor. Any brainwashing education had
[5:32] completely lost its effect by this
[5:33] point. What was more tragic was that
[5:35] these people were demobilized and
[5:37] returned to Japanese soil only to find
[5:39] themselves physically broken, with some
[5:41] having become permanently disabled. The
[5:43] pensions they received were pitifully
[5:45] small, and they couldn't find work.
[5:49] Back then, the entire country of Japan
[5:51] was essentially under a food rationing
[5:52] system, so they could only rely on
[5:54] their families for support, but what
[5:56] had become of their families? Many men
[6:00] found that their wives had left them,
[6:01] or that their entire families had
[6:03] fallen apart. As a result, there were
[6:05] many wandering war orphans at the time;
[6:07] in the Tokyo area alone, it is
[6:09] estimated there were over 120,000 such
[6:11] children. These children gathered under
[6:14] overpasses or lay inside bombed-out
[6:16] buildings, sleeping there, roaming the
[6:18] streets for food, begging, or even
[6:20] turning to theft. Besides that, many of
[6:24] those soldiers also turned into bandits
[6:26] . When these soldiers returned, they
[6:30] found their own countrymen to be very
[6:32] cold toward them, even discriminatory;
[6:34] on one hand, people saw them as losers
[6:36] and looked down on them, and on the
[6:38] other, many believed these soldiers had
[6:40] become thieves and robbers. More
[6:45] importantly, the brutal crimes
[6:47] committed by the Japanese military on
[6:48] the battlefield in China and other
[6:50] parts of Asia had all been reported
[6:52] back due to the lack of press
[6:53] censorship, and everyone knew about
[6:55] them. So, the fellow citizens who
[6:59] looked down on these returning men were
[7:01] the very same ones who had once held
[7:03] flags high to send them off to fight
[7:05] and sacrifice for the country. We must
[7:09] also not forget that at that time, a
[7:11] great number of women, lacking food and
[7:13] jobs, ultimately fell into prostitution
[7:15] . This situation persisted for several
[7:19] years, so it is hardly surprising why
[7:21] Japanese people would feel they were
[7:23] also victims of World War II. Such an
[7:27] experience was, for them, an
[7:29] unforgettable one at the time. Let us
[7:35] now read some letters to the editor
[7:37] written to newspapers by ordinary
[7:38] Japanese people from all walks of life
[7:40] at the time to see their thoughts. I
[7:45] was demobilized from the southern
[7:46] regions and returned to Japan. My house
[7:49] was burned down, my wife and children
[7:51] are gone, and prices are too high. The
[7:55] little bit of money I had was spent
[7:56] very quickly. I am a pathetic guy, and
[8:00] no one is willing to say a kind word to
[8:02] me. People even cast hostile glares at
[8:06] me; with no work and endless torment, I
[8:08] have been possessed by the devil. Let's
[8:13] look at a letter another ordinary
[8:15] worker wrote to a newspaper at the time
[8:17] ; he said he was at a life-or-death
[8:18] crossroads when writing it. Now, my
[8:22] mind is completely blank. All I have is
[8:25] resentment toward our heartless
[8:26] government. I have five children, and I
[8:30] work hard. Even in these difficult
[8:33] times, I have managed to save a little.
[8:36] But the government's incompetence
[8:38] regarding food supplies has made the
[8:39] situation worse and worse. I am unable
[8:42] to go to work for at least half of
[8:44] every month. We have already hit rock
[8:47] bottom. Eventually, I even took out
[8:50] high-interest loans to buy food, but I
[8:52] can no longer do so, so we haven't
[8:54] eaten for four whole days. My wife
[8:58] completely broke down yesterday, and
[9:00] two of our children have started to
[9:01] become delirious. In the end, I have
[9:04] decided to commit suicide. I will use
[9:06] my death to condemn a heartless and
[9:08] ruthless government. Japan truly
[9:11] deserves to be a fourth-rate nation;
[9:13] without any real, good policies, it
[9:15] will slide into a fifth or even
[9:17] sixth-rate nation. By the time this
[9:21] letter reaches you, I may already be
[9:22] dead. I am using every bit of strength
[9:26] I have left to write this. Well, let's
[9:30] look at another young woman who worked
[9:32] as a prostitute at that time; she said
[9:34] that being a prostitute isn't good, but
[9:36] due to the disasters of war, with
[9:38] neither family nor work, how are we
[9:40] supposed to live? Not many of us do
[9:46] this because we like it, but even so,
[9:48] when we try to turn over a new leaf and
[9:50] find a job, people point fingers at us
[9:52] and call us prostitutes. I have already
[9:56] helped quite a few girls turn over a
[9:58] new leaf and sent them back into
[9:59] society. But later, they were always
[10:02] picked on and chased away, ultimately
[10:04] forced to return here and walk the same
[10:06] old path. You cannot trust society;
[10:10] they look down on you. Under those
[10:15] conditions in Japan at the time,
[10:17] because of food rationing, but with the
[10:19] rationing, everyone was going hungry, a
[10:21] phenomenon emerged: the black market
[10:23] for food. Back then, many merchants and
[10:28] farmers would hoard food instead of
[10:30] handing it over, conducting private
[10:32] black-market sales. In this situation,
[10:36] anyone with money could buy enough food
[10:38] through the black market, though, of
[10:40] course, the prices were very high. This
[10:44] was considered an illegal act under the
[10:46] Japanese government and the occupying
[10:47] forces at the time. And so, some cases
[10:51] occurred, such as the case of a judge
[10:53] named Yamaguchi Ryochu, aged 33. He was
[10:59] incredibly dutiful and upright, almost
[11:01] like their version of Hai Rui,
[11:03] sentencing people every day, whether
[11:04] they were trading in the black market
[11:06] or simply looking for food there. It
[11:12] turned out that he later discovered his
[11:14] own wife was also participating in
[11:15] black market transactions. She was only
[11:18] able to buy food through the black
[11:19] market to support their family. But as
[11:22] a judge who did this every day, how
[11:24] could he allow such a thing to happen
[11:26] to himself? So he ordered his wife
[11:29] absolutely not to participate in black
[11:31] market trading again. Starting with
[11:34] himself, he firmly refused to eat
[11:35] anything bought from the black market,
[11:37] eating only his rationed food. But was
[11:41] this rationed food enough for him? It
[11:43] was not. In the end, this national
[11:46] judge actually starved to death, which
[11:48] became a very significant event in
[11:50] Japan at the time. This incident should
[11:54] have prompted the Japanese authorities
[11:56] to rethink whether their policies were
[11:58] wrong, but the Japanese media at the
[12:00] time first turned it into a case that "
[12:01] moved Japan," saying, "Oh, this judge
[12:03] was so great, so amazing, he would
[12:05] rather starve to death than break the
[12:07] law." It was a case that moved Japan.
[12:10] Beyond judges starving to death, the
[12:12] children who were still alive and
[12:14] lively still had to go about their
[12:16] daily lives and play games. You can
[12:18] learn a lot from the games Japanese
[12:20] children played at the time; for
[12:22] example, John Dower discovered this by
[12:24] examining what games children were
[12:25] playing. There was a game called "
[12:27] Democracy Game," where they would
[12:29] imitate the newly revived Communist
[12:31] Party and leftists in Japan, holding
[12:33] signs and marching in the streets every
[12:35] day, with children making noise and
[12:37] protesting—this was called the
[12:38] Democracy Game. There was another game
[12:40] called the "Black Market Game," where
[12:42] they pretended to be adults, conducting
[12:44] black market trades, much like playing
[12:45] house. A child would ask, "How much is
[12:47] this?""How much are you selling this
[12:49] rice for here?" They played this on the
[12:50] side of the road. There was an even
[12:52] more peculiar game called "Pan-Pan."
[12:53] What was it? "Pan-pan" was actually a
[12:55] term picked up from the U.S. military
[12:57] at the time, referring to being a
[12:59] prostitute. Little girls would stand on
[13:01] the street pretending to be prostitutes
[13:03] , and a group of boys would say, "I'll
[13:05] pay, I'll pay, come home and sleep with
[13:07] me." Children, only five or six years
[13:09] old, were playing these games of
[13:10] soliciting and being prostitutes on the
[13:12] street. Speaking of prostitutes, we
[13:14] must know that a very bizarre thing
[13:16] happened in the 1940s: the Japanese
[13:18] government established official "
[13:20] comfort" facilities at the time. We
[13:22] often talk about "comfort women," which
[13:24] refers to the military sexual slavery
[13:26] enforced by Japan across Asia at that
[13:28] time. We often struggle to understand
[13:30] how the Japanese could have done such a
[13:32] thing so blatantly, and yet, even now,
[13:34] some still refuse to admit those women
[13:36] were forced, claiming instead that "
[13:38] comfort women" had many benefits, or
[13:40] that this system preserved the purity
[13:42] and chastity of most impoverished women
[13:44] . How could anyone think that way? Look
[13:47] again at Japan; it turns out they were
[13:49] like this even to their own people. At
[13:52] the time, many Japanese people faced
[13:54] with the prospect of American soldiers
[13:55] landing were terrified that those
[13:57] troops would come to rape them. Because
[14:00] the Japanese militarist government had
[14:02] once preached to the public that we
[14:03] must fight and we must win, warning
[14:05] that if the Americans arrived, our
[14:07] women would be ruined and fallen. But
[14:09] then they lost, and the U.S. military
[14:11] really did come—so what were they to
[14:13] do? The Japanese government established
[14:17] official "comfort" facilities, and they
[14:19] formally called upon the women of the
[14:20] new era to sacrifice themselves for the
[14:22] nation. How did they put it? Let us
[14:27] look at this book, which contains the
[14:29] actual official statements of the
[14:30] Japanese government. It states: "As
[14:33] part of the nation's emergency postwar
[14:35] measures, we seek the proactive
[14:36] cooperation of new Japanese women to
[14:38] participate in the great endeavor of
[14:40] comforting the occupying forces." Later
[14:43] , one day, they recruited 1,300
[14:45] Japanese girls who volunteered to be "
[14:48] comfort women"—meant to comfort the
[14:50] U.S. military, of course. They were all
[14:54] summoned to the plaza in front of the
[14:56] Imperial Palace in Tokyo to take an
[14:57] oath. In this oath, there was a passage
[15:01] written as follows. The Japanese text
[15:05] uses very flowery language, which
[15:07] translates into Chinese as: "The time
[15:09] has come, the order has been issued. By
[15:12] our duty, as part of the emergency
[15:14] postwar measures, we are entrusted with
[15:17] the arduous task of comforting the
[15:19] garrison forces.""This order is of
[15:21] great significance, and its success
[15:23] will be the most difficult of tasks.""
[15:25] With this, we pledge as comrades,
[15:26] guided by our beliefs to move forward.
[15:29] Through the self-sacrifice of thousands
[15:31] of Showa 'Azusa'(women), we shall build
[15:33] a breakwater against the madness,
[15:35] collectively protecting and nurturing
[15:37] the purity of our nation, serving as
[15:39] the foundation of postwar social order,
[15:41] and willingly becoming the 'dams' that
[15:43] hold back the tide.""In conclusion, we
[15:46] declare: we are not offering ourselves
[15:49] to the occupying forces, nor have we
[15:51] compromised our integrity or sold our
[15:53] souls. We are merely performing an
[15:57] unavoidable duty, fulfilling our side
[15:59] of the treaty obligations, and
[16:01] contributing to the peace and security
[16:03] of society." We dare to speak out
[16:07] boldly to protect the national polity,
[16:09] and we reiterate this statement as our
[16:10] declaration. This was the collective
[16:14] oath taken by the Japanese "comfort
[16:16] women" who served the U.S. military. At
[16:20] the time, many of these Japanese
[16:21] prostitutes became comfort women, and
[16:23] their bosses proudly declared, "We are
[16:25] now promoting the cause of human peace.
[16:27] " However, this practice was officially
[16:31] abolished after about a year or two.
[16:34] The public reason given by the U.S.
[16:36] occupation authorities at the time was
[16:38] that this comfort women system was
[16:40] inhumane, discriminatory against women,
[16:42] and highly undemocratic. We Americans
[16:45] are here to govern Japan to bring you
[16:47] democracy; how could we allow such a
[16:49] mess? But what is the truth behind it?
[16:54] The truth is that 90%of these women,
[16:56] who were "sacrificing" themselves for
[16:58] their country, had contracted venereal
[17:00] diseases, and over 50%of an entire U.S.
[17:03] military regiment had contracted
[17:05] syphilis. Given this situation, the
[17:08] U.S. military felt they could not
[17:10] continue this way and that everyone
[17:12] should stop. So, the official comfort
[17:16] women system was stopped, but private
[17:18] solicitation and prostitution among
[17:20] soldiers still persisted. Therefore,
[17:24] the U.S. finally approved the official
[17:26] distribution of penicillin to Japan. I.
[17:35] Previously, when introducing the book "
[17:38] Embracing Defeat" by American historian
[17:40] John Dower, we mentioned that in the
[17:42] first few years after the war, Japanese
[17:44] society was in a state of utter
[17:45] collapse, with people living in misery
[17:48] and full of grievances. Under these
[17:54] circumstances, it is quite surprising
[17:56] —especially to the Americans—how
[17:58] they viewed the U.S. occupation
[17:59] authorities who were governing them
[18:01] under military rule: the Japanese
[18:03] actually welcomed them. It turns out
[18:08] that the U.S. had been prepared for the
[18:10] possibility that even if Japan
[18:12] surrendered, they might face nearly 100
[18:14] million very hostile Japanese people
[18:16] upon arrival. We know that Japan's
[18:20] previous nationalist propaganda not
[18:22] only intoxicated their soldiers and
[18:24] citizens as if their souls had been
[18:25] possessed, but it also terrified the
[18:27] Americans. Americans believed that the
[18:32] Japanese way of thinking was
[18:33] fundamentally different from theirs,
[18:35] and that they might ultimately fight to
[18:37] the death and never surrender. But what
[18:41] did they notice when they actually
[18:42] stepped onto this land? They saw cute,
[18:45] innocent children all over the streets
[18:47] asking for candy and chocolate, and the
[18:49] soldiers acting like Santa Claus,
[18:51] sitting in jeeps and tossing treats to
[18:53] them. And furthermore, there were many
[18:55] gentle and lovely women. So, an
[19:00] impression gradually formed in the
[19:02] United States at that time, viewing
[19:04] Japan as a feminized, pitiful, fragile
[19:06] object in need of protection, like a
[19:08] Japanese doll—completely different
[19:10] from the vicious, desperate, and
[19:12] suicidal Japanese soldiers they faced
[19:14] during the war. So why did the Japanese
[19:20] people welcome the Americans so much?
[19:23] Many would naturally consider this from
[19:25] the perspective of national character,
[19:27] but John Dower points out a key factor:
[19:29] for many Japanese, the arrival of the
[19:31] U.S. military was indeed a liberation.
[19:35] At first, when they heard the
[19:36] Emperor’s radio broadcast, they
[19:38] realized they had been defeated.
[19:40] Learning they had to surrender, they
[19:42] were deeply shocked. Following that,
[19:44] there was a sense of relief. That sense
[19:49] of relief was the realization that it
[19:51] was finally over; they no longer had to
[19:53] live such miserable lives, and they no
[19:55] longer had to put on a facade,
[19:57] constantly chanting patriotic slogans
[19:59] or saying, "I love the Emperor more
[20:00] than my parents or my children." The
[20:05] idea that everything could be
[20:06] sacrificed for the Emperor was no
[20:08] longer the case; they felt a sense of
[20:10] liberation. But this sense of
[20:13] liberation was quickly followed by a
[20:15] feeling of emptiness, as if everything
[20:17] was nihilistic and life had lost its
[20:19] meaning. Especially for many
[20:25] schoolchildren at the time, in those
[20:27] precious years of their lives, teachers
[20:29] who had just been telling them to
[20:31] sacrifice for the nation and resist
[20:32] Western individualism and free thought
[20:34] —labeling them as Western imports and
[20:36] telling them to forget about human
[20:38] rights and focus on collective rights
[20:39] —suddenly changed their tune. But now
[20:45] , all of a sudden, those same teachers
[20:47] were saying, "We must thank America for
[20:49] bestowing democracy upon us; we must
[20:50] talk about human rights and all these
[20:52] things." And the students wondered, "
[20:54] What is wrong with these teachers?" It
[20:56] is no wonder that a rebellious
[20:58] generation emerged in postwar Japan,
[21:00] lasting until the 1960s; their entire
[21:01] value system had been completely
[21:03] overturned and rendered void. Let’s
[21:05] take a look at what the U.S. military
[21:07] was actually like back then; they
[21:09] basically acted like an independent
[21:10] kingdom, enjoying something akin to
[21:12] extraterritoriality where Americans who
[21:14] broke the law were tried by their own.
[21:17] Americans would drive large vehicles
[21:19] recklessly through the streets, doing
[21:20] whatever they pleased, and more
[21:22] importantly, they carried with them a
[21:24] sense of racism and cultural chauvinism
[21:26] . For example, in other Allied-occupied
[21:28] territories like Germany, they wouldn't
[21:30] behave that way, but once they arrived
[21:32] in Japan, they felt they had a "white
[21:34] man's burden" to bear. We must properly
[21:38] civilize this country, teach them
[21:40] democracy, and transform this nation;
[21:42] this is a grave responsibility we white
[21:44] Americans face regarding Japan today.
[21:49] They viewed themselves as saviors; on
[21:51] one hand, there was a genuine ideal,
[21:53] you could say they had ideals, only
[21:55] these ideals were very arrogant and
[21:57] self-centered, yet on the other hand,
[21:59] they also displayed issues in practical
[22:01] operations. For instance, when dealing
[22:04] with Japanese officials, local
[22:05] officials, if they encountered someone
[22:07] whose English wasn't good, they would
[22:09] mock them, "This person is like a
[22:11] monkey, they must be very stupid."
[22:13] Therefore, the Japanese favored by the
[22:14] U.S. military at the time were all
[22:16] those with good English skills. They
[22:18] helped establish various policies for
[22:20] Japan, issuing different orders daily,
[22:22] but when it came to execution, when
[22:24] real operational difficulties arose,
[22:25] they were resolved by the original
[22:27] Japanese bureaucrats. Consequently,
[22:29] this led to a result that persists to
[22:31] this day: the entire Japanese
[22:32] bureaucratic system remained almost
[22:34] untouched and continued to hold great
[22:36] power. That is because they had always
[22:39] held the power; the Americans were just
[22:41] gesturing from above, but those
[22:43] gestures did indeed bring about
[22:44] liberating effects, such as gender
[22:46] equality, the protection of human
[22:48] rights, and the early, temporary
[22:50] presence of freedom of speech,
[22:51] association, the press, and assembly.
[22:55] Furthermore, they promoted economic
[22:57] equality, dissolved the large
[22:58] conglomerates and financial cliques
[23:00] that had originally monopolized the
[23:02] country, and encouraged small and
[23:03] medium-sized enterprises; at the time,
[23:05] the Japanese people indeed viewed the
[23:07] U.S. with a sense of gratitude. What is
[23:12] especially hard for us to understand is
[23:14] that they deeply worshipped the Supreme
[23:16] Commander of the Allied Powers,
[23:18] MacArthur—or as we call him, General
[23:20] MacArthur. His image was almost that of
[23:25] a new emperor; he was supreme, doing as
[23:27] he pleased. We also know MacArthur was
[23:32] very tall, always nonchalantly puffing
[23:34] on a corncob pipe, and at the same time
[23:36] , he was very arrogant, loved
[23:37] self-aggrandizement, and was a man of
[23:40] extreme vanity. So, when he received
[23:45] letters sent frantically by the common
[23:47] people, can you imagine how delighted
[23:48] he must have been? Let's take a look at
[23:53] the content of the letters Japanese
[23:55] people sent to MacArthur at the time.
[23:59] The letter writers praised his god-like
[24:01] , noble benevolence and addressed him
[24:03] as a living savior. An elderly man from
[24:07] Aomori Prefecture wrote saying that he
[24:09] worshipped a portrait of MacArthur
[24:10] every morning and evening. Just as they
[24:17] once worshipped the image of the
[24:18] Emperor, a local cultural association
[24:20] in Kobe created a Japanese-style
[24:22] portrait of Christ's Sermon on the
[24:23] Mount for MacArthur, accompanied by a
[24:25] note stating that the General's
[24:27] leadership was like a solemn and sacred
[24:29] moment. MacArthur was also praised for
[24:36] having the compassion of Buddha and was
[24:38] compared to the "friend from afar"
[24:39] mentioned in the Analects of Confucius.
[24:45] He was revered for liberating the
[24:46] Japanese people from the nightmare of
[24:48] war, and worshipped for bringing hope
[24:50] and happiness to a nation living in
[24:51] fear under foreign occupation. Ordinary
[24:56] men and women confessed their past
[24:58] militaristic sins to him as if he were
[25:00] a priest. They poured out their deepest
[25:05] fears and hopes to MacArthur, as if he
[25:07] were a psychiatrist. MacArthur also
[25:11] received many gifts, which he often
[25:13] accepted with pleasure. Although giving
[25:16] gifts to elders or benefactors is a
[25:18] traditional Japanese custom, the sheer
[25:19] volume of presents offered to this
[25:21] foreign supreme commander far exceeded
[25:23] what former high-ranking military
[25:25] officials had ever received. Some gifts
[25:29] were simple and charming; for instance,
[25:32] a fisherman wrote to MacArthur in the
[25:33] sweltering heat of the summer of 1948,
[25:35] saying he had been racking his brain on
[25:37] how to express his heartfelt gratitude
[25:39] to the General. He said that it was
[25:44] because of your brilliant thinking and
[25:46] talent that it became possible for the
[25:48] Japanese people to achieve things that
[25:49] were impossible even during long years
[25:51] of war. At the end of the letter, the
[25:55] fisherman said he only wanted to share
[25:56] the best delicacy he knew of. He made a
[26:00] living by fishing, and now was the
[26:02] season when the sweetfish were at their
[26:04] fattest. The fisherman hoped to receive
[26:06] a reply so that he would know when it
[26:08] was convenient for MacArthur to go
[26:10] fishing with him and share the
[26:11] delicious meal. In contrast, the most
[26:15] elaborate and formal gift presented to
[26:17] MacArthur was a hand-woven kimono and
[26:19] obi. Starting in November 1946, an
[26:23] embroiderer worked alone for three
[26:25] years within the Shimogamo Shrine in
[26:27] Kyoto to complete this piece. He prayed
[26:30] every day, eventually stitching 70
[26:32] million embroidery threads to complete
[26:34] his masterpiece. This gift was
[26:40] accompanied by a Shinto prayer which
[26:42] read: "Presented to General MacArthur
[26:44] as a symbol of the purity of our 70
[26:46] million citizens; each thread of this
[26:47] woven item represents every single
[26:49] Japanese person." If the ordinary
[26:55] Japanese people worshipped MacArthur so
[26:57] much that they almost treated him as
[26:59] their new Emperor, then what about the
[27:01] original Emperor? I am referring to
[27:03] Hirohito. There is a famous historical
[27:06] photograph that many of you may have
[27:08] seen, or can certainly find online,
[27:09] which shows the scene of Emperor
[27:11] Hirohito going to the occupation
[27:13] headquarters for the first time to
[27:14] visit MacArthur, almost like a
[27:16] pilgrimage. At that time, the two took
[27:19] a photo together. You can see that
[27:21] Hirohito was very short, wearing a
[27:23] formal suit and looking nervous.
[27:26] Conversely, MacArthur stood in front of
[27:28] the camera casually in a simple uniform
[27:30] , not even wearing formal attire. By
[27:32] comparison, it was perfectly clear who
[27:34] was the master and who was the servant.
[27:37] At that time, there was a joke
[27:38] circulating among the Japanese public
[27:40] mocking the Emperor. First of all, they
[27:42] were already being very disrespectful
[27:44] to the Emperor. How so? They called the
[27:46] Emperor a "penis." Why was there such a
[27:48] saying? It’s like this. Don't
[27:50] emperors call themselves "Chin"(the
[27:52] imperial 'I')? This term "Chin" also
[27:54] exists in Japan, and the pronunciation
[27:56] of the Emperor’s self-reference in
[27:58] Japanese is homophonous with the
[28:00] Japanese word for "penis." At the time,
[28:04] the Japanese public would ask, "Why is
[28:06] our Emperor always at MacArthur’s
[28:07] belly button, and MacArthur always
[28:09] above the Emperor?""That is because our
[28:13] Emperor is the penis, and MacArthur is
[28:14] the belly button." That is how they
[28:16] mocked him. At that time, there were
[28:18] all kinds of strange voices regarding
[28:20] the Emperor in Japan. Although you
[28:23] couldn't say the entire......nation had
[28:25] suddenly abandoned the Emperor, even
[28:27] these fringe voices were......
[28:28] unimaginable in the Japan of the past.
[28:32] For instance, even before the defeat,
[28:34] after the Great Tokyo Air Raid,
[28:35] Japanese children were already making
[28:37] up nursery rhymes, joking that they
[28:39] hoped the bombs would also blow up the
[28:41] Imperial Palace. Then, there were
[28:44] others, especially soldiers who had
[28:46] returned from the war, such as the very
[28:48] famous Kiyoshi Watanabe, who filled his
[28:50] books with hatred for the Emperor. He
[28:54] felt the Emperor should die and be
[28:55] dragged to the bottom of the sea to see
[28:57] his comrades, whose ships had sunk to
[28:59] the seabed, and who had all died for
[29:01] him. "Look how shameful you are," he
[29:04] would say. They hated the Emperor so
[29:05] much. One very important reason was
[29:07] that they couldn't understand why, now
[29:09] that they were being told that all
[29:11] Japanese people had to repent—the "
[29:12] Repentance of the 100 Million"—Who
[29:14] should repent the most? The Emperor.
[29:16] Who started this war? The Emperor. Who
[29:18] should be most responsible? The Emperor
[29:20] . Yet, why does it seem he doesn't have
[29:23] to do anything, sitting securely in his
[29:25] position and continuing to be the
[29:26] Emperor? This made many Japanese people
[29:29] at the time, especially the more
[29:30] radical, thoughtful, and
[29:32] independent-minded leftists or
[29:33] communists, particularly dissatisfied.
[29:35] So, they demanded the abolition of the
[29:38] imperial system. But how was the
[29:40] Emperor preserved? This brings us back
[29:42] to the U.S. military. Even before
[29:45] occupying Japan and defeating it, they
[29:47] had already decided that the Emperor
[29:49] had to be preserved after the war. Why
[29:51] was that? There weren't many experts
[29:53] providing them with advice. In fact,
[29:55] the U.S. military, especially MacArthur
[29:57] , didn't employ many Japan experts.
[29:59] Even those who were experts on Japan
[30:01] had many misconceptions about the
[30:02] country. They truly believed the
[30:04] nationalist propaganda of the time,
[30:06] feeling that the Japanese people loved
[30:08] the Emperor that much, and that they
[30:09] were truly willing to die for him. They
[30:14] thought that if soldiers and Kamikaze
[30:16] pilots were willing to die for the
[30:18] Emperor before the war, then abolishing
[30:20] the Emperor after the war would plunge
[30:21] the country into chaos and leave the
[30:23] U.S. occupation unstable. Therefore,
[30:27] they believed that for Japan to remain
[30:29] peaceful and secure for a long time,
[30:31] the Emperor had to be preserved. Since
[30:33] the Emperor had to be preserved, but a
[30:35] democratic nation had to be established
[30:37] , they had no choice but to build a
[30:38] very modern constitutional monarchy.
[30:40] This brings us to the constitution
[30:42] written for Japan. Japan already had a
[30:44] constitution, the Meiji Constitution,
[30:45] after the Meiji Restoration. Many
[30:47] people thought that Japan had already
[30:48] embarked on a constitutional monarchy
[30:50] at that time, and even people like Kang
[30:51] Youwei of our Qing Dynasty thought so,
[30:53] but that was not the case. The
[30:54] constitutional monarchy in the Meiji
[30:56] Constitution was far from that of the
[30:58] UK. The Japanese Emperor always held
[31:02] significant authority, even real power,
[31:04] and later in their propaganda, they
[31:06] worshipped the Emperor as a god,
[31:08] claiming he was a direct descendant of
[31:10] the Sun Goddess. Under these
[31:13] circumstances, the Japanese Emperor
[31:15] truly possessed very practical and
[31:17] absolute authority. So now, the U.S.
[31:19] military wanted to write a new
[31:20] constitution, feeling that the Meiji
[31:22] Constitution was insufficient. They
[31:24] asked the caretaker government in Japan
[31:26] to propose a constitution, and the
[31:27] conservative Japanese politicians at
[31:29] the time, even some who were later war
[31:31] criminals still temporarily working in
[31:32] the government, like Fumimaro Konoe and
[31:34] others. The constitution they drafted
[31:36] at that time was very conservative. The
[31:37] U.S. military was dissatisfied, so the
[31:39] occupation authorities said, "Forget it
[31:40] , don't bother; we will write it
[31:41] ourselves." The U.S. then found a group
[31:43] of experts. None of these people were
[31:45] constitutional experts; some were in
[31:47] commercial law, some were sociologists,
[31:48] and some were economists—dozens of
[31:50] them. They drafted a constitution for
[31:52] them in English. So today we should
[31:53] know that the original manuscript of
[31:55] the Japanese constitution was written
[31:57] in English. It is one of the few
[31:58] countries in the world whose entire
[32:00] national constitution was written by
[32:02] foreigners, namely the Americans. This
[32:04] constitution included requirements,
[32:05] such as the most famous Article 9,
[32:07] which states that Japan can never wage
[32:09] war again and does not have the right
[32:11] to do so. They had to renounce their
[32:13] military; this is the Peace Clause of
[32:15] Article 9. At the same time, this
[32:16] constitution stipulated that the
[32:18] Emperor serves as a symbol, much like
[32:20] the one in the UK, representing the
[32:22] unity of the state. They forced the
[32:24] Japanese authorities to accept it, and
[32:26] then had their parliament pass it.
[32:28] However, there is always a fundamental
[32:30] question in this: how does the Emperor,
[32:32] as a symbol, view himself? I’m not
[32:34] talking about Hirohito. Today, a vast
[32:36] amount of historical data can prove
[32:38] that he absolutely must bear
[32:40] responsibility for this war. He
[32:41] declared the war, and he was clear
[32:43] about many things, so why did he not
[32:45] have to face any responsibility after
[32:47] the war? And why did many people later
[32:50] feel that the Emperor seemed forced,
[32:52] coerced by warlords, appearing as a
[32:54] helpless, weak, and bullied little man?
[32:57] How did such an impression come about?
[32:59] Part of it was the Emperor’s own
[33:01] ingenious design; he was, in fact,
[33:03] extremely cunning. As we see in John
[33:06] Dower’s book, when he announced the
[33:07] defeat in his "Jewel Voice Broadcast,"
[33:09] if you look back at it carefully or
[33:11] check it online, you’ll find he never
[33:13] mentioned that we lost, failed, or
[33:15] surrendered. Instead, he framed the end
[33:18] of the war as being for the sake of
[33:20] world peace, treating it as a
[33:21] benevolent act. Later, he issued the "
[33:24] Humanity Declaration," telling the
[33:25] public not to regard him as a god
[33:27] anymore, that he was not a deity. But
[33:29] if you look closely, he never stated
[33:31] that he was not a descendant of the Sun
[33:33] Goddess. So, his choice of words was
[33:35] very skillful. At this time, the U.S.
[33:37] authorities and Japanese conservatives
[33:39] had a common goal: to preserve the
[33:41] Emperor. They needed to suppress the
[33:43] leftist communists and radicals who
[33:45] wanted to abolish the institution of
[33:46] the Emperor. They thought of many ways
[33:49] to keep him in power, and one method
[33:51] was to have him meet the people and
[33:53] tour the country. Hirohito was cunning
[33:56] and clever, but he was also a very shy
[33:58] person who felt awkward in public;
[34:00] having been raised in the palace for so
[34:02] long, he wasn't used to facing the
[34:03] common people and would stutter when he
[34:05] spoke. From one perspective, you could
[34:08] say his tour of Japan was actually a
[34:10] failure. But from another angle, you
[34:13] could say it was very successful. For
[34:14] one, seeing the U.S. military
[34:16] accompanying him signaled that the U.S.
[34:18] approved of him. Secondly, the more shy
[34:21] and inarticulate he was, the more it
[34:22] reinforced the impression that he was
[34:24] indeed a weakling who had been bullied
[34:26] by warlords, and that the
[34:27] responsibility for starting the war had
[34:29] nothing to do with him. And when the
[34:32] common people saw him, they thought, "
[34:34] Oh, look how bad the Emperor is at
[34:36] speaking; it’s embarrassing, yet he
[34:38] still came to see us. He must love us
[34:40] so much. This Emperor is so cute." So,
[34:44] many people at the time even found the
[34:46] Emperor cute, which left behind a
[34:48] significant loose end, and this brings
[34:50] us to why Japan still has an inability
[34:52] to take responsibility for its postwar
[34:54] actions to this day. This involves the
[34:59] status of the Emperor and how the
[35:01] Japanese view the issue of war
[35:02] responsibility, which we will discuss
[35:04] with you next time. This book. After
[35:12] World War II, there was a
[35:13] groundbreaking development in human
[35:15] history: the introduction of various
[35:17] war crimes, crimes against humanity,
[35:19] and crimes against peace into
[35:21] international law. The definition and
[35:26] discussion of these crimes were
[35:28] inseparable from the two major trials
[35:30] of that time: the Nuremberg Trials,
[35:32] which judged Nazi fascism in Europe,
[35:34] and the Tokyo Trial, held in Tokyo. But
[35:39] unlike the Nuremberg Trials, the Tokyo
[35:41] Trial was a trial that almost no one
[35:43] was satisfied with afterward. Many
[35:47] participating countries, such as those
[35:49] among the victors, like Korea, were
[35:51] very dissatisfied with this trial. As
[35:54] for those being judged, the Japanese,
[35:56] they were also very dissatisfied. What
[35:58] exactly was going on? Today, we
[36:00] continue to look for answers in the
[36:01] book "Embracing Defeat." One of the
[36:05] reasons is that there were many
[36:06] technical issues. For example, the
[36:11] composition of the judges was missing
[36:13] key representatives; all countries
[36:15] involved in the war should have sent
[36:17] judges, but in fact, some did not, such
[36:19] as Korea. Why was it like that? Because
[36:24] at that time, Korea was not yet a
[36:26] sovereign state, and they couldn't find
[36:27] anyone to serve as their representative
[36:29] . Then, what was the second problem?
[36:34] Regarding their procedures, for
[36:35] instance, the 11 judges never held a
[36:37] plenary session for the final verdict.
[36:41] But these are details. We won't go into
[36:44] legal matters here; let's talk about
[36:46] public perception. How did the Japanese
[36:49] view this trial at the time? At first,
[36:52] they were very concerned, but later
[36:54] they stopped caring. It dragged on for
[36:56] three years, and eventually, there was
[36:58] even a sense of resentment. Because
[37:00] they felt the trial was somewhat
[37:02] hypocritical—a trial led by the
[37:03] victors, especially the United States.
[37:06] Where was it hypocritical? First, many
[37:09] issues regarding Japan's colonies were
[37:12] raised, such as the colonization of
[37:14] Korea, Taiwan, and our Northeast. But
[37:17] if you hold them accountable for
[37:19] colonial issues, many Japanese are
[37:21] reminded of the pre-war "Greater East
[37:23] Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" propaganda
[37:25] and think, "Didn't you Western
[37:26] imperialists also have many colonies in
[37:28] Asia?" What about our actions in
[37:30] Indonesia, you ask? Indonesia was
[37:32] originally a Dutch colony. What about
[37:34] our actions in Vietnam, you ask?
[37:35] Vietnam was originally a French colony.
[37:37] So, you hold us accountable for
[37:39] colonization, but what about you? That
[37:41] was one thing, but there was another
[37:43] issue that even the Left couldn't
[37:44] accept: many war criminals who should
[37:46] have been put on trial. Not only were
[37:50] they not put on trial, but while
[37:51] awaiting judgment, they actually lived
[37:53] quite comfortably in prison. At that
[37:56] time, the prison held thousands of
[37:58] these criminals who bore responsibility
[38:00] for the war. They ate and drank well
[38:05] inside, and many performers—comedians
[38:07] , singers, and dancers—frequently
[38:09] visited to entertain them. Why was this
[38:14] happening? The U.S. military was very
[38:17] lenient toward them. This leniency
[38:20] didn't just mean a comfortable life
[38:22] while awaiting trial; they were also
[38:24] released in batches, leaving fewer and
[38:26] fewer people to be prosecuted. Some of
[38:30] those released even returned to society
[38:33] , gained prestige, entered politics,
[38:35] and some even became Prime Minister,
[38:37] like Nobusuke Kishi. Why did this
[38:40] happen? It was because of the start of
[38:43] the Cold War. We know that when the
[38:46] U.S. military arrived, they promised
[38:48] the Japanese people a new democratic
[38:49] era. Many Japanese truly believed it,
[38:53] felt it was wonderful, and embraced it
[38:55] wholeheartedly, only to find out later
[38:57] that the reality was different. First,
[39:01] the promised freedom of speech could
[39:02] not be realized because the U.S.
[39:04] occupation authorities also engaged in
[39:06] censorship. This meant many voices
[39:09] couldn't be heard. For instance, people
[39:12] couldn't criticize the fact that war
[39:14] criminals weren't being tried, because
[39:16] you would offend the U.S. occupation
[39:17] authorities. Second, they found that
[39:21] while the promised economic
[39:22] democratization and the dissolution of
[39:24] the Zaibatsu did happen, those
[39:26] conglomerates later resurfaced. Many
[39:29] institutions that should have been
[39:30] reformed remained unchanged. Japan
[39:33] continued to rely on its bureaucratic
[39:35] system because, at that time, the U.S.
[39:37] desperately needed to rely on the old
[39:39] Japanese bureaucracy, the Zaibatsu, and
[39:41] even some war criminals. Because even
[39:45] though those people had war
[39:46] responsibilities and had committed
[39:48] brutal crimes, they remained the elites
[39:50] of the former Japanese Empire. Why let
[39:53] them go and use them today? It is
[39:56] because Japan was no longer America's
[39:57] primary enemy or rival at that time.
[40:00] Who was the enemy then? It was just
[40:02] across the sea. In Korea, China, and
[40:05] the Soviet Union, the era had shifted
[40:07] to one where the capitalist camp had to
[40:09] confront the communist camp. So Japan
[40:12] became their ally. To ensure Japan
[40:15] became an ally, they even came up with
[40:17] many radical schemes; for example, it
[40:19] was originally agreed in the Japanese
[40:21] Constitution that they were not allowed
[40:23] to arm or remilitarize. Under pressure
[40:26] from the United States, they were
[40:27] required to establish a Self-Defense
[40:29] Force. As we all know, while it’s
[40:31] called a Self-Defense Force in name, it
[40:33] is effectively an army. It didn’t
[40:35] stop there; the U.S. even once demanded
[40:37] that Japan fight in the Korean War. At
[40:40] that time, Prime Minister Shigeru
[40:42] Yoshida and his administration knew
[40:44] this was impossible, as the Japanese
[40:45] people would never allow them to fight
[40:47] another war. To reject this
[40:50] unreasonable demand from the U.S., the
[40:52] Prime Minister even colluded with some
[40:54] opposition Socialist Party members to
[40:56] stage a protest outside the Prime
[40:57] Minister’s residence on the day the
[40:59] U.S. delegation arrived, demonstrating
[41:01] that the Japanese people could not
[41:02] accept it. More importantly, the Cold
[41:08] War also led the U.S. to begin
[41:09] reshaping the Japanese people’s
[41:11] memory of the war, making them forget
[41:13] the responsibilities they should have
[41:15] borne in it. How so? Let’s read this
[41:22] passage together; I think it is very
[41:24] representative. Poet Saburo Saeki wrote
[41:28] two poems on this subject. One was
[41:32] about his feelings upon learning of the
[41:34] atrocities committed in China. Such
[41:40] sorrow, on this very day, has made me
[41:42] forget that today is the day of our
[41:44] defeat. The second poem describes the
[41:51] violation of mothers in front of their
[41:52] children, and the abuse of married
[41:54] women. This is the Imperial Army. In
[42:01] fact, the Japanese public never saw the
[42:03] first poem published. It was banned by
[42:07] GHQ, as censors were clearly nervous
[42:09] about any public expression of Japanese
[42:11] people lamenting their defeat. This was
[42:17] truly unfortunate, because Saeki was
[42:19] clearly not grieving the defeat, but
[42:21] rather faithfully and effectively
[42:23] conveying how he opened his eyes when
[42:24] his countrymen's crimes were exposed,
[42:26] and the shock his conscience suffered.
[42:31] Saeki's poetry belongs to the few, yet
[42:34] extremely precious, voices in existence
[42:36] . In the years that followed, as the
[42:40] Cold War atmosphere intensified, the
[42:42] occupying forces viewed the nascent
[42:43] Communist China as a major enemy, and
[42:45] suppressing memories of Japanese
[42:47] atrocities became an important part of
[42:49] U.S. policy. These keen reactions to
[42:56] the exposure of atrocities under the
[42:58] Emperor were fragile and fragmented
[43:00] from the start, and never developed
[43:02] into a broad public realization that
[43:04] Japan was the aggressor, not the victim
[43:06] . In fact, apart from poets and
[43:12] intellectuals like Saburo Saeki, there
[43:14] were not many Japanese people at the
[43:16] time who felt this way. For example,
[43:21] some readers sent letters to Japanese
[43:23] newspapers at the time, stating how
[43:24] heartbroken they were when they
[43:26] discovered the atrocities committed by
[43:28] the Japanese army during the Nanking
[43:30] Massacre. They felt that the clothes
[43:33] they wore and every meal they ate were
[43:35] stained with the blood of the Chinese
[43:36] people. And there was another mother
[43:40] who even said that once she learned of
[43:42] the Japanese military's massacre in
[43:44] Manila, she thought of her own son, who
[43:46] had been at that very scene. He might
[43:49] have been part of the Imperial Japanese
[43:51] Army and participated in the slaughter
[43:53] of Filipinos. She felt and suggested
[43:55] that her son should be executed right
[43:57] there on the spot, rather than letting
[43:59] him return to Japan. Many Japanese felt
[44:02] this way at the time as they gradually
[44:04] learned of the crimes the Japanese
[44:06] military committed across Asia. But the
[44:10] problem was that the U.S. began to
[44:11] filter and block this information, not
[44:13] wanting the Japanese to know too much
[44:15] about these things. Why? Because it
[44:18] didn't serve American interests. If you
[44:20] talk too much about the wrongs done to
[44:22] the Chinese people, wouldn't that just
[44:24] be helping Communist China? That
[44:26] wouldn't do, so the entire issue of
[44:28] postwar memory and responsibility in
[44:30] Japan began to shift. Shift toward what
[44:32] ? Their main focus became that we had
[44:35] wronged the Americans. They forgot that
[44:37] they had wronged all of Asia,
[44:38] remembering only that they had wronged
[44:40] the Americans. And regarding this "
[44:42] wronging of Americans," it has to be
[44:43] broken down in detail as to how they
[44:45] felt they had wronged them. What did
[44:47] their reflection on this responsibility
[44:49] slowly evolve into? It became: "How
[44:50] could we have been so foolish back then
[44:52] ? How could our warlords have been so
[44:54] stupid?""Going to war with the
[44:56] Americans—the Americans are so
[44:57] powerful. We couldn't beat them, so why
[44:59] did we even fight them?" So they
[45:01] analyzed further why they couldn't beat
[45:03] the U.S.:first, we lacked resources;
[45:04] second, our technology was backward;
[45:06] and third, our people weren't rational
[45:08] enough. Therefore, postwar Japan began
[45:11] to emphasize the importance of
[45:13] scientific education and rationality,
[45:15] but this led in the wrong direction.
[45:18] What direction? It meant that everyone
[45:21] started thinking about the reasons we
[45:22] lost the war, rather than the
[45:24] responsibility for starting the war.
[45:27] That is one point; another is how they
[45:29] explored the causes and responsibility
[45:31] for the war. Even if they did explore
[45:34] responsibility, they would start to
[45:35] wonder, "Who led us down this path?"
[45:38] True, many would say, "We Japanese were
[45:40] also foolish enough. You could say
[45:42] militarism deceived us, but first, we
[45:44] had to be willing to be fooled.""We
[45:46] Japanese really should repent." But the
[45:48] main problem still seemed to lie with
[45:50] those militarist leaders, those
[45:52] warlords. And who were those warlords?
[45:54] As the U.S. military gradually released
[45:57] so many war criminals, only a very
[45:59] small number remained. That meant the
[46:01] entirety of Japan's historical errors
[46:03] was, in the end, shouldered by just a
[46:05] tiny handful of people. Once those few
[46:08] were dealt with, it was as if everyone
[46:10] else was clean, and their hands were
[46:11] washed of the guilt. At this time, the
[46:13] main question everyone started to think
[46:15] about was that we Japanese were also
[46:17] victims. As I’ve mentioned before,
[46:18] the Japanese truly suffered quite a bit
[46:20] after the war, having already been
[46:21] through enough misery during the war,
[46:23] and they went through even more bleak
[46:24] times in the postwar period. So
[46:26] everyone began to feel that we were all
[46:28] victims. If you look at it from the
[46:31] Japanese perspective, you will find
[46:33] they faced another issue that many of
[46:35] us in the victorious nations hadn't
[46:36] considered. What was this issue? For
[46:40] the soldiers of the victorious nations
[46:42] who died in battle—for example, our
[46:44] Chinese troops, whether the Eighth
[46:46] Route Army or the Kuomintang forces—
[46:47] when we look back on them today, we
[46:49] call them glorious, we say they gave
[46:51] their lives for their country, and
[46:53] their deaths made them heroes. But what
[46:56] about the Japanese military? At the
[46:59] time, many Japanese families—almost
[47:01] every household had someone, a child,
[47:03] who went to fight and died without
[47:05] returning—what was that supposed to
[47:07] mean? As for these dead soldiers of a
[47:11] defeated nation, should we still
[47:13] commemorate them today? For instance,
[47:15] when a son’s body was returned and a
[47:17] grave was made for him, with what frame
[47:19] of mind should I treat him? How do I
[47:21] explain to myself why he had to die
[47:23] like that? You have to find a reason;
[47:25] you can’t make sense of it otherwise.
[47:28] Because of this need to mourn, their
[47:30] memory of the war underwent another
[47:32] interesting transformation: they began
[47:34] to think, "Oh, so their sacrifice was
[47:36] actually right and had value." Where
[47:39] did this value lie? It was in the idea
[47:42] that if they hadn't fought that way, if
[47:44] they hadn't fought such a foolish war,
[47:46] we wouldn't have been defeated. If we
[47:50] hadn't been defeated, we wouldn't have
[47:52] had the chance to reflect, and without
[47:53] reflection, Japan would not have had
[47:55] the chance for rebirth. So what is this
[47:59] called? "No plum blossom can emit such
[48:01] fragrance without enduring the biting
[48:03] cold of winter." Under these
[48:05] circumstances, the entire Japanese
[48:07] memory of the war became narrower and
[48:09] stranger. It went so far that later,
[48:13] due to many unpopular actions by the
[48:15] American occupation forces—especially
[48:17] after MacArthur, who was initially very
[48:19] popular, returned home and told people
[48:21] that Japan was like a twelve-year-old
[48:23] child that needed strict discipline, a
[48:25] remark clearly tinged with racial
[48:26] discrimination—the Japanese began to
[48:28] wonder even more what had happened to
[48:30] us during those years under U.S.
[48:32] occupation. The Tokyo Trials were
[48:35] justice dictated by the victors, and
[48:37] our constitution was written by the
[48:38] Americans. Since we were clearly an
[48:42] occupied country and had many victims
[48:44] of our own, they began to see
[48:45] publications of memoirs written in
[48:47] prison by Japanese war criminals, even
[48:49] Class-A war criminals like Hideki Tojo.
[48:52] Upon reading these memoirs, one
[48:54] discovers, "Oh, look, they were also
[48:56] people with humanity." They worried
[48:59] about their children, they were filial,
[49:01] and they also thought a lot about the
[49:02] future of the nation of Japan. Actually
[49:05] , from this perspective, you could say
[49:06] Hitler was also very human, right? We
[49:08] know that during WWII, Hitler would
[49:10] watch animal documentaries. Every time
[49:13] he saw African lions killing antelopes,
[49:15] he would cry, "Oh no, oh no, it's too
[49:17] cruel." So, can you say Hitler was very
[49:20] human from that angle? Or should we say
[49:22] he was just twisted? At that point, if
[49:25] even a small minority starts to feel
[49:27] that even Tojo Hideki had humanity,
[49:29] then there’s a problem: if all war
[49:31] criminals are also pitiable, then what
[49:33] are they? They then turn it into the
[49:37] idea that even Class-A war criminals
[49:38] were victims of the war. Ultimately, a
[49:42] subconscious conclusion forms in their
[49:44] minds: the conclusion that war is truly
[49:47] cruel and truly bad. We must absolutely
[49:50] oppose war. This is what I believe most
[49:52] Japanese citizens still insist on today
[49:54] —being anti-war and pro-peace. Why?
[49:56] Because war harms everyone, including
[49:58] the Japanese. But when you talk about
[50:00] responsibility, it becomes very vague.
[50:02] Therefore, the Japan of today—or
[50:04] rather, the subsequent development of
[50:06] Japan—has produced a very strange
[50:08] social psychology. Everyone is anti-war
[50:10] , and everyone cherishes peace. But if
[50:14] you ask them about how to account for
[50:16] their past responsibilities, it gets
[50:18] very blurry; the whole memory is
[50:20] chaotic and fragmented. In*Embracing
[50:25] Defeat*, we see that this is because
[50:27] Japan did not thoroughly deal with
[50:28] these issues in those years after
[50:30] defeat, and what accumulated has become
[50:32] what we Chinese and Koreans face today.
[50:35] Yeah.
