It is the US that should ditch its Cold War mentality
- By Leng Baoqing
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 15, 2013
Today, August 15, marks the 68th anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II, following the Japanese Emperor Hirohito's national radio address. It is also an unforgettable date for China, a country that sustained huge losses in the eight-year-long war against the Japanese invasion.
The date is more pertinent for China, following Japan's recent pro-rightwing acts.
On August 6, Japan launched a helicopter carrier, a warship it claimed to be a frigate, but which bore a strong resemblance to an aircraft carrier. Japan named the vessel Izumo after a navy flagship that participated in its invasion of China. The Japanese government also claimed in a statement that the Rising Sun Flags (Japan's WWII military ensign), carried by the ships of the maritime Self-Defense Forces, represented Japan in the same way the flag of Japan did.
The Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said in a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) internal meeting that he would learn from Adolf Hitler's technique of subtly turning the Weimar Constitution into a Nazi constitution. Recordings from the meeting were somehow obtained by a South Korean TV station, which attracted strong repulsion from both South Korea and China.
The message that Japan wishes to convey through its recent manoeuvres is obvious.
But the United States, the only victorious country in WWII that maintains a military presence in Japan, seems ignorant of this.
The attitude of the U.S. of appeasing Japan smacks of Washington's frustration that Edward Snowden was successful gaining Russian temporary asylum. U.S. President Barack Obama, on NBC's Tonight Show, accused the Kremlin more than once of slipping back "into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality."
But in fact, the U.S. should be able to see clearly that it is Washington that has slipped back into a Cold War mentality.
The U.S has contributed to shaping Japan's ideology of regarding China as an imaginary enemy and primary threat.
The U.S. dropped charges again Japan's Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, just to obtain its experimental data on living human bodies. The U.S. has remained ambiguous over the Yasukuni Shrine issue, irrespective of its imperialist militant nature.
It is clear that Europe and the U.S. would not tolerate a German chancellor visiting a Nazi shrines, so, how can the U.S. justify its attitude in backing Japan to contain China?
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A nationalist in Japanese military uniform at Yasukuni Shrine. [File photo] |
The U.S. attitude towards Japan is strikingly similar to the British and French appeasement policy on the eve of World War II. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain purposefully sacrificed small countries to divert the war eastward, as western Europe considered the former Soviet Union a bigger enemy than Nazi Germany. But Moscow reacted similarly. It even signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (officially known as the Treaty of Non-aggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) with Hitler.
Shaking hands with Hitler had bad consequences for all sides. Britain, France and the former Soviet Union all suffered either invasions or bombings by Nazi forces.
It is clear that extreme nationalism and militarism is the enemy of mankind. Would the U.S. consider the bombings of socialist countries less brutal than the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
Despite Obama's stance on China, we should all understand that Japan is taking an old-fashioned mentality and is set to cause a major disaster in the world again. The U.S. has to shake off its Cold War logic and be matter-of-fact in judging Japan's recent irregular acts if it wants to live up to its superpower name.
This article was translated by Chen Boyuan.
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