In This Corner...

Japan is asking China for an apology for the protests breaking out all over the country. The government refuses. It is a boxing match of epic proportions! In this match, Korea is China's cutman, powerless without her man out there fighting for the honour of Asia.
Right, enough of the boxing analogies, even though they are quite good...
China has NOTHING to apologise for. The atrocities visited on that nation by the Japanese Imperial Army are unspeakable. Try reading the Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang which will lay them out for you. If you tend to believe the Japanese and think that China is writing history as they want and that Iris, being Chinese, is writing as she wants, then please read The Good Man of Nanking by John Rabe. John was a German and a Nazi, the allies of Japan. I think he was fairly inpartial. My post here is not to talk about these atrocities, but more to talk about Japan and where they are with their history.
Wow, I was just looking at reviews of the above books on Amazon.com and some of these people are truly representative of the problems above. A couple of Japanese "reviewers" are denying what has been written. To me this seems like denying the Holocaust. However when it comes to the Holocaust, German have accepted it as truth and by accepting guilt for this have been able to move on. The Japanese on the other hand feel they have nothing to apologise for and have gone as far as to amend history textbooks to de-emphasize their role as agressor in WW2. From my time in Korea, I have learned a lot about the crimes of the Japanese against Koreans. Japan made use of Korean resources, food, mineral as well as labour, for its' own advancement, and embarked on a policy later in their colonisation of Korea (1910-1945) of asimilation, banning Korean language and forcing all Koreans to adopt Japanese names. Koreans were moved to Japan for labour and there are many still there. There is still major problems with discrimination against these people. Korean women were taken by the Imperial Army to be used as sex slaves and Japanese men were forced to fight for the army. Koreans were treated by Japan as second class citizens and this is still something that Koreans feel. While Japan says that they regret what they did, this is not enough. The leader of Japan, the Prime Minister or even better the Emporer (like that is going to happen!) must come out and just say sorry for what they did. They must accept what they have done and most importantly they must tell the younger generation of Japan what was done during the dark times in Japanese history.
The Chinese government may be using these protesters as a way of one-upman-ship on the Japanese government, but this shouldn't divert us from the main cause. Asians still distrust Japan. Until Japan comes clean and accepts its' past, this will never change. By following the German model Japan can gain new respect from its' neighbours. It will gain nothing by a head in the sand education policy and demands for apologies from China.

San Nakji for President!