If I Were a Japanese
Xiao Qian

If I were a Japanese, I would, on this war commemoration day, feel very bad and ashamed, and keep my head bowed before the people of Asia. Not that Japan was defeated 50 years ago, but that it today persists in denying the disaster it brought upon millions upon millions of common people. In the eyes of all Asians, Japan remains absolutely unrepentant. As is known to all, over 60 years ago, the Japanese Guangdong Army occupied by making a pretext the vast expanse of land in Northeast China, and over 50 years ago Japan started the War of East Asia by staging the Lugou Bridge Incident. Wherever the flag of the Rising Sun fluttered, burning, killing and looting would follow and people would be plunged into the abyss of untold suffering. And then Japan spread the flames of war to Southeast Asia and even Oceania. The Japanese Imperial Army left behind great destruction and mass graves everywhere. And yet they now describe their acts of aggression euphemistically as "making an entry" and insist on calling the hell of their doing by the good name of "land of happiness"!
Only by comparison can we distinguish between right and wrong. Japan's Nazi buddies during WWII brought equally frightful calamity to Europe, killing, for instance, at least a total of several million people in the concentration camps by means of crematories, gas chambers and vivisection. Nevertheless, after Germany was defeated, the Germans had the courage to accept the consequences of their own actions. They, from top to bottom, hung their heads to admit their guilt rather than deny facts. They bowed with hands clasped or went down on their knees. They owned up to everything they had said or done. Consequently, standing erect and with chin up, they have won the trust and respect of the world community of nations. France, the first European country victimized by Nazi invasion, has now been happy for years about Franc0-German friendship. As a Japanese, I would be disgusted with my higher-ups' tricky hems and haws on the subject of the last war and their flat refusal to acknowledge Japan's crimes. Our bigwigs continue to burn incense and kowtow before the memorial tablets of the notorious war criminals—an act tantamount to expressing gratitude to slaughterers for massacring common people. They are telling lies not only to the Asians and the world at large, but also in school textbooks to mislead their own younger generations. As a Japanese at the turn of the century I would be heavy-hearted and unable to raise my head.
But I'm not a Japanese.
I'm an old man of 86 from China having experienced many vicissitudes of life. While the young folks around me will burn with rage at the mention of Japan's stubborn refusal to own up, I, being a world-wise old man, will stay calm and collected. Everything, however, has two aspects. I think Japan's refusal to admit its crimes is due to its failure to be mentally prepared to drop the butcher's knife. So long as the ghost to Tojo lingers on, none can assure you that militarism will never revive in a new guise in the next century. The lingering shadow serves to warm us and our Asian brothers against the fantasy that the world will be at peace in the days to come and we can sit back and relax.
I wonder if the bell still strikes at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. If it does, it serves as a warning to the people of China and Asia not to drop guard while the adherents to militarism are mourning over their late war criminals. Although the world is tranquil for the time being, vigilance is indispensably necessary before the potential hegemonist is completely disillusioned. An adventurist that refuses to be reconciled to defeat may stage a comeback at any time.