How far is Japan from coming to terms with its record of conquest and atrocity in the Second World War? Just consider the events of the past few months.
In March, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe questioned whether the tens of thousands of women herded into military brothels by Japanese forces during the war had really been forced into their sexual slavery. Despite an international outcry, Mr. Abe kept his job.
On Saturday, Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma suggested that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 "brought the war to its end" and probably "couldn't be helped." There was such an uproar in Japan that, even though he retracted his remarks, apologized and accepted a reprimand from the Prime Minister, he was forced to resign.
So, this is the Japanese reality more than 60 years after the war. To suggest that the atomic bombings might have been justified by the need to end a war that was devouring thousands of lives a day is political suicide. To suggest that the Japanese military might not be responsible for the well-documented sexual enslavement of thousands of women for the convenience of Japanese troops is, apparently, just fine.
Nothing could better illustrate the deep sense of denial that still prevails in Japan over its war record. During a 15-year campaign of aggression in the 1930s and 1940s, Japan conquered much of East and Southeast Asia, subduing its neighbours with a savagery that is still remembered with bitterness. That savagery included looting, forced labour, massacres of civilians, rape, and the barbaric treatment of prisoners of war. In the case of the so-called comfort women, an estimated 200,000 women from Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, China and Taiwan were corralled into brothels for Japanese soldiers.
Yet, many Japanese persist in seeing their country as the victim in the Pacific war. The main reason is the atomic bomb. Japan is the only country to have suffered an atomic attack. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killed roughly 140,000 people and the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later 74,000. It also accomplished its objective: a swift end to the war. When Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, he blamed the enemy's use of a "new and most cruel bomb."
Mr. Kyuma was only acknowledging this fact - that the suffering inflicted by the bombs has to be weighed against the suffering if the war had dragged on. In his Saturday speech, he noted that, if the bomb had not been used and Japan kept fighting, the Soviets might have occupied part of Japan and the country might have ended up divided, like Germany and Korea.
Mr. Kyuma, who represents Nagasaki in parliament, later backtracked, saying that he still continues to oppose nuclear weapons and that "I think it was wrong to drop the atomic bombs when Japan was heading for defeat." Too late. By then, Japanese newspapers were condemning his "shocking display of insensitivity" and opposition leaders were calling for his head.
Mr. Kyuma had broken a taboo. In today's Japan, it is simply impermissible to say (as U.S. non-proliferation envoy Robert Joseph put it this week) that "the use of an atomic bomb brought to a close a war that would have cost millions of more lives, not just hundreds of thousands of Allied lives but literally millions of Japanese lives."
The A-bomb experience has become a Japanese fetish, blocking out a serious debate about Japan's record of aggression and putting its atrocities in the shade. By far the most important war memorial in Japan is the Hiroshima peace park, a shrine to Japanese suffering. No such memorial exists to commemorate the millions who suffered and died at the hands of Japanese imperialism. It is as if, instead of building a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, Germany put its biggest war monument in Dresden to keep alive the memory of the Allied bombing in February of 1945.
Right-wing Japanese politicians and academics routinely cause outrage in Asia by suggesting that atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking or the comfort-women brothels have been blown out of proportion. It is the Japanese version of Holocaust denial, except that, in Japan, it is not a fringe phenomenon - it is right smack in the mainstream.
Such denials would be unthinkable in Germany, because it has come to terms with its wartime misdeeds and atoned for them. Judged by recent events, Japan has not even begun.