Explainer | Explained: the legacy of war in Asia

The Japanese government has offered several official apologies for its role in the second world war
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cast doubt on the need to keep apologising for Japan’s wartime actions

Legacy of war in Asia

SCMP Reporter

Published: 6:33pm, 16 Feb 2019

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The second world war left deep scars on Asia – they are still visible in the fraught ties between various countries today.

As Japan seeks to strengthen its military, South Korea and China are determined its wartime atrocities not be forgotten.

What happened in the Asian theatre during the second world war?

Although Japan sided with the Axis powers in Europe during the second world war, the Japanese militaristic expansion across Asia started before the war in Europe.

In 1910, Japan annexed the Korean peninsula. In 1931, the country orchestrated a military attack on its own forces as a pretext to invade Manchuria, China’s northeastern region. The war officially started in 1937, when Japan launched an invasion on the rest of China, quickly seizing control of the major Chinese coastal cities.

The conflict killed more than 20 million Chinese. Japan’s invasion of Nanking – now known as Nanjing and the Chinese capital of the day – involved a systematic campaign of rape and executions. More than 300,000 people were killed and it is considered one of the darkest episodes of the second world war.

Between 1941 and 1942, the Japanese control further expanded across Southeast Asia, where Japanese troops swiftly conquered most of the territory from the Philippines to Burma (now Myanmar).

The war did not end until the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Soon after, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender.

Why the conflict is still relevant today?

Over the years, the Japanese government has offered several official apologies for its role in the second world war. But Japan’s current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has cast doubts about the need to keep apologising for Japan’s wartime actions, and has questioned whether the occupation of China and the Korean peninsula can be described as an “invasion”.

Abe’s revisionist stance has damaged relations with China and South Korea. It coincides with his ambition of strengthening his country’s military capabilities and amending Article 9, the “war renouncing” clause, of its pacifist constitution.

South Korean survivor of Japan’s forced labour bears the scars

In 2015, during the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, Abe acknowledged the “immeasurable damage and suffering” Japan inflicted on “innocent people”. Despite this, Abe said later generations “who have nothing to do with the war” should not be “predestined to apologise”.

The statement angered both China and South Korea, who accused the Japanese premier of failing to sincerely atone for Japan’s wartime atrocities. The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticised Abe’s speech as “evasive” in a statement on its website. Park Geun-hye, then South Korean president, said the remarks contained “regrettable elements”.

A group of Japanese lawmakers at the Yasukuni Shrine. Photo: Kyodo

Where else is the legacy of the second world war evident?

Abe and other members of his cabinet have also been heavily criticised for repeatedly visiting and sending offerings to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where millions of war dead, including 14 war criminals, are honoured.

In the past, Abe also questioned evidence for the existence of “comfort women” from occupied countries forced to become sex slaves in Japanese military brothels.

In 2015, Japan and South Korea reached an agreement on the issue, with Japan apologising to the victims and providing funds to create an organisation to help the surviving victims.

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo soured after South Korean President Moon Jae-in rejected the deal, which was negotiated between the administrations of Abe and the impeached Park.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the accord ignored the views of victims. The Japanese government, however, insists there is “no other policy option”.

A diplomatic row over wartime forced labour has also strained ties between the two neighbours. The South Korean Supreme Court ruled twice last year that Japanese corporations must compensate South Koreans for their forced labour during the second world war.

Japan urged South Korea to overturn decisions, arguing the 1965 bilateral treaty, which normalised relations between the two countries, settled the issue of war reparations.

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