Apology Failures: Japan’s Strategies Towards China and Korea in Dealing with Its Imperialist Past

Abstract

This article analyzes different attitudes of Japanese governments regarding official apologies towards China and Korea for Japan’s imperialist past. It demonstrates how the revelation of the “comfort women” issue in the early 1990s has initiated a process of frequent, direct, and public apologies by Japanese prime ministers towards Korea. By contrast, despite the fact that comparable crimes, including the Nanjing Massacre, were committed by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, Japanese governments have been reluctant to express more than “regret” to the Chinese. As many Japanese governments have adopted a revisionist position towards Japan’s imperialist past, both in Korea and in China Japanese expressions of regret are viewed as insincere and “void.” This chapter discusses the apology issue in the larger context of the political instrumentalization of history in East Asia.