Four-star General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, Commander of the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific, opines that comments by the leaders of Japan and the Philippines drawing parallels between China and events in pre-war Europe are "not helpful." The general suggests that the Japanese "need to think hard about what is provocative to other nations."

He was talking about Shinzo Abe's comments made at Davos, likening China to pre-war Germany; and Aquino III, mimicking Abe to draw a parallel of China and Nazi's annexation of the Sudetenland.

Both parallels are far-fetched and downright absurd. Abe and Aquino are standing facts on their heads. China has not occupied an inch of foreign territory, and has not challenged any dominant power. Both the Diaoyu and Huangyan Islands are inherent Chinese territories that Japan and the Philippines are trying to grab.

It is Abe's Japan that is bent on reviving militarism, and provoking China in order to realize his ultra-rightist nationalist dream.

One of Abe's latest moves has been the appointment of his rightist close associates to NHK, Japan's public broadcasting network. And they immediately made outrageous statements.

Katsuto Momii, the newly installed head of NHK, claimed that all countries involved in World War II provided "comfort women" to their soldiers. But in fact, Japan's "comfort women" were unique: they were forced to be sex slaves, to be routinely raped by Japanese soldiers. Recently, surviving "comfort women" in South Korea and the Philippines staged protests in front of Japanese embassies, demanding justice.

The U.S. House of Representatives took a landmark step against Japan's sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women during World War II. In a document attached to a spending bill for 2014, Congress urged the Secretary of State to pay more attention to the matter, and encourage the implementation of a 2007 resolution on the "comfort women" issue. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), co-chair of Congressional Caucus on Korea, called on Japan to acknowledge wrongdoings committed against Korea.

Then, Naoki Hyakuta, an NHK board member also appointed by Shinzo Abe, denied that the 1937 Nanjing massacre, known as the Rape of Nanjing, ever existed. He also said the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were massacres, and that the United States staged the Tokyo trials after Japan's defeat in 1945 to cover up U.S. war crimes. Those comments immediately drew a sharp response from the U.S. Embassy. A spokesman in Tokyo called those suggestions "preposterous."

In the name of "free speech", those outrageous comments were not condemned by the Japanese authorities. In fact, it is the policy of the Abe government to deny Japan's war crimes so as to legitimize Japanese militarism. It has been called "denialism" in a Washington Post editorial.

In contrast to General Carlisle's sensible comment, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry re-emphasized the U.S. treaty obligation to "defend Japan against China." That shows how much Washington depends on its ally. At the same time, it will continue to uphold Sino-US new-type relationship. That's what Obama calls "rebalance."

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/zhaojinglun.htm

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