AHC: Make WW2 Japanese atrocities no longer rating machine in East Asia

That's what the greivance degenrated into IOTL; a quick rating fix for down-on-luck politicians in East Asia wanting to get out of jam, provide voters' distractions or for no-hopers to try to launch the campaign. Even cottage industry of using this to extort concessions from Japan has sprung up.

What could happen in the past that make this angle stop being a quick political hay in Taiwan, South Korea and Mainland China? So much so that whoever brought this up in ATL got laugh or boo at as a desperate no-hoper using below the belt tactics.

You could just made grandchildren and great-grandchildren of sufferers no longer resonate with the history, and politicans who play this card being viewed by youngsters as dinosaurs. A career killer for whoever trying to attract young supporters.

For businesses to go against this, it could be mundane reason such as 'Your speech is driving customers away' or 'Your blurb cost us the deal' and so on.
 
A far more active and interventionist PRC in the Cold War... that leads them to pick too many fights and leads to their fall, along with far larger and more horrific scale of evil acts.

Then people would be using the PRC as the go to evil villains and boogeyman.
 
That's what the greivance degenrated into IOTL; a quick rating fix for down-on-luck politicians in East Asia wanting to get out of jam, provide voters' distractions or for no-hopers to try to launch the campaign. Even cottage industry of using this to extort concessions from Japan has sprung up.

What could happen in the past that make this angle stop being a quick political hay in Taiwan, South Korea and Mainland China? So much so that whoever brought this up in ATL got laugh or boo at as a desperate no-hoper using below the belt tactics.

You could just made grandchildren and great-grandchildren of sufferers no longer resonate with the history, and politicans who play this card being viewed by youngsters as dinosaurs. A career killer for whoever trying to attract young supporters.

For businesses to go against this, it could be mundane reason such as 'Your speech is driving customers away' or 'Your blurb cost us the deal' and so on.

I would not call it degeneration when the Japanese had a literal policy to kill all, burn all, and loot all as scorched earth tactics, that sounds straight out of Warhammer. If the post-war Japanese were encouraged to do more than simple apologies, or maybe the Nationalists win in the Chinese Civil War, leaving Japan strategically insignificant for the most part, Japan would be pressured to do more.
 
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I would not call it degeneration when the Japanese had a literal policy to kill all, burn all, and loot all as scorched earth tactics, that sounds straight out of Warhammer. If the post-war Japanese were encouraged to do more than simple apologies, or maybe the Nationalists win in the Chinese Civil War, leaving Japan strategically insignificant for the most part, Japan would be pressured to do more.
I am not expecting it to happen during the Cold War, but the effects should kick in afterward, led by granchildren of war survivors and war memories faded. Similar to how U.S.-Cuban policy is changing because anti-Castro votes faction in Miami have died out and there is no more vote to be had boycotting Cuba?
 
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It would help a lot if Japan would be owning up to its crimes in the way Germany has.
Germany is seen as the gold standard in terms of apologizing for what it's done, but that's only because it was completely occupied for decades. Most great powers are closer to the Turkish or the Japanese attitudes towards the more horrendous episodes in their history.
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Nobody forced Willy Brandt.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0WUgPmEc2DjOZT6KNZNGYi

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I've heard about South Korean pols as of late calling the Rising Sun flag the "war crimes flag"[1] and comparing it to the Nazi flag. Ignoring the fact that some form of the Rising Sun Flag has been used in some form for probably for at least four centuries, and the Nazi flag was used for not even fourteen years, and had no antecedents in past or future German flag design.
[1]: Yes, it was the banner of the Imperial Japanese military, which indeed committed a wide range of war crimes to subjugated populations; but the symbols themselves are very ancient, and have been used in a very wide variety of settings and by a wide variety of people. Nowadays, a form of the sun and rays is used as the logo of the Asahi Shimbun. Japan definitely needs more awareness of the darker chapters of its history (case in point: comfort women), but it should retain its national symbols, retaining them in particular as to ease concerns about change (and yes concerns are bound to appear - especially in a change-adverse society like Japan's).
 
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That's what the greivance degenrated into IOTL; a quick rating fix for down-on-luck politicians in East Asia wanting to get out of jam, provide voters' distractions or for no-hopers to try to launch the campaign. Even cottage industry of using this to extort concessions from Japan has sprung up.

What could happen in the past that make this angle stop being a quick political hay in Taiwan, South Korea and Mainland China? So much so that whoever brought this up in ATL got laugh or boo at as a desperate no-hoper using below the belt tactics.

You could just made grandchildren and great-grandchildren of sufferers no longer resonate with the history, and politicans who play this card being viewed by youngsters as dinosaurs. A career killer for whoever trying to attract young supporters.

For businesses to go against this, it could be mundane reason such as 'Your speech is driving customers away' or 'Your blurb cost us the deal' and so on.
The best solution is to moderate (or eliminate altogether) the abuses that underline why people rightfully are angry at Imperial Japan's record. A Japan that never got victory disease, that kept the Taisho democracy, that never invaded China post-1931, and that retained its sanity. Unfortunately, that's a hard get while also keeping the region recognizable relative to how it is in present day.
 
The most likely way that this issue would get downplayed is if there is a consensus among the political elite in South Korea, Taiwan, etc. that they need to get in bed with Japan for geopolitical reasons.

A plausible cause Beijing pulls a particularly bad temper tantrum over Taiwan or some dumb island dispute to rally support for the party during an economic downturn, or a much slimmer military gap vis a vis China and America. America went from hysterical WW1 propaganda about "eebil krauts" coming after American puppies and babies to overlooking the "muh clean wehrmacht" myth about 30 years later because we needed a rearmed Germany during the Cold War.

Almost any dispute can start to heal with time, and it will be a fundamentally different dynamic in a few decades when the generations that lived through WW2 have passed away. I could only see each side burying the hatchet once the people who lived through the events in question are long gone. The lack of common enemy for all East Asian countries makes reconciliation much harder, the need to band together during the Cold War probably helped the Franco-German reconciliation.

I'm not from any of the East Asian countries in question, but on a personal level I can certainly see where the angry protesters burning Japanese flags are coming from. If I was Chinese I don't think I would be able to forgive Japan for what it did. War is always horrible, but there is no excuse for that kind of dishonorable conduct toward civilians and prisoners of war. The European eastern front was a war between two more or less industrialized militaries, but China didn't have the ability to retaliate against the Japanese home islands. The military disparity between the countries involved makes Japanese conduct seem especially shameful and sadistic.
 
Have Japan go Communist, especially while Sanzo Nosaka is alive. This peaceful Japan would make it sort of pointless for politicians in China/Korea to reuse the WW2 issues with Japan in political context.
 
The best solution is to moderate (or eliminate altogether) the abuses that underline why people rightfully are angry at Imperial Japan's record. A Japan that never got victory disease, that kept the Taisho democracy, that never invaded China post-1931, and that retained its sanity. Unfortunately, that's a hard get while also keeping the region recognizable relative to how it is in present day.
And having non-apology Japan around is too useful for their neighbors' politicians. Everytime no-confidence votes, bribery scandals or budget battle popped up, you wrapped yourself in the flag and shout 'Japan is Evil' from the roof of the Presidential palace and all will be well soon.

Would you call IOTL Taiwanese, Korean and Mainland politicians become addicted to boogeyman politics?

It would help a lot if Japan would be owning up to its crimes in the way Germany has.
But abusing and exploiting your, albet geniune, greivances for never ending concessions and political brownie points don't sound too good either.

The victim abused his own suffering for concessions and preferential treatments for too long only to burn up your own goodwill and cause people who once sympatized with your plight into your detractors? That is the situation I am looking for. And make it happen to the domestic audience of Eastern Asian leadership who has no memory of war and all those atrocities, while real, are just ancient history.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
But abusing and exploiting your, albet geniune, greivances for never ending concessions and political brownie points don't sound too good either.

The victim abused his own suffering for concessions and preferential treatments for too long only to burn up your own goodwill and cause people who once sympatized with your plight into your detractors? That is the situation I am looking for. And make it happen to the domestic audience of Eastern Asian leadership who has no memory of war and all those atrocities, while real, are just ancient history.

I'm not really sure I understand what you are saying.

The problem isn't that Japan gave away to much in an effort to come clean, the problem is that Japan has never really taken the effort to clean itself up.
 
I'm not really sure I understand what you are saying.

The problem isn't that Japan gave away to much in an effort to come clean, the problem is that Japan has never really taken the effort to clean itself up.
We are in OTL situation that East Asian politicians actually do not want Japan to clean up. They want boogeyman, a common enemy to deflect their own shortcomings and rally supporters any time they want quick boost in ratings.

It worked like a charm to keep South Korean junta in power until 1990's. Their own political position was too weak to survive into industrialization period in the 70's without it.
 
Germany is seen as the gold standard in terms of apologizing for what it's done, but that's only because it was completely occupied for decades. Most great powers are closer to the Turkish or the Japanese attitudes towards the more horrendous episodes in their history.

Germany had it forced on them, the Japanese did not. There was a deliberate decision to allow the Japanese to sweep their atrocities under the rug and we all the driving force behind that decision was the American General that we love to hate on this forum.
 
Germany had it forced on them, the Japanese did not. There was a deliberate decision to allow the Japanese to sweep their atrocities under the rug and we all the driving force behind that decision was the American General that we love to hate on this forum.
Yeah, in a fairer postwar world Hirohito would've been tried for war crimes, and at least forced to step down and face life in prison if he wasn't executed. The Japanese war criminals got off way too easy.
 
Germany had it forced on them, the Japanese did not. There was a deliberate decision to allow the Japanese to sweep their atrocities under the rug and we all the driving force behind that decision was the American General that we love to hate on this forum.
Was the plan included abandoning Seoul and Taipei governments to the wolves and retreat to Japan with Battle of Okinawa soon to follow?
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
We are in OTL situation that East Asian politicians actually do not want Japan to clean up. They want boogeyman, a common enemy to deflect their own shortcomings and rally supporters any time they want quick boost in ratings.

It worked like a charm to keep South Korean junta in power until 1990's. Their own political position was too weak to survive into industrialization period in the 70's without it.

If you want East Asian politicians to not 'use' Japan as boogeyman, the solution would be to not let Japan be a boogeyman. If we compare Japans situation with that of Germany, Germany doesn't have this problem. Why? Because it did it's damned best to make up for it's crimes, instead of covering them up.
 
Well, to answer the first point, greater economic ties and investments and a common fear of Chinese interests normalized Japanese-Filipino relations. Granted, their relations mainly soured during the war and the two aren't geographically close and thus lack some of the conflicting interests of Japan-rest of East Asia, but it'd be a start. Geopolitical goals and economic ties trump past ties, as mentioned above with the examples of US-German and US-Japanese relations.

On the other hand,
And make it happen to the domestic audience of Eastern Asian leadership who has no memory of war and all those atrocities, while real, are just ancient history.
WWII has been a while but it's hardly ancient history and, while the survivors are certainly in dwindling supply, there were plenty of people who lived through WWII or were raised by people in the 70s-90s and that sort of political climate is hard to dissipate without a great deal of effort towards reconciliation by both sides, which, as you've noted, is not the case at the present.

And it's not just an issue of Japan's neighbors; Japan's own revisionist actions with their history textbooks, for example, have only succeeded in enflaming the issue. The Yasukuni Shrine visits by various politicians as well, while private ventures, are an open source of agitation as well and have been for decades, yet Prime Ministers like Shinzo Abe, knowing full well what reactions their visits would incur in their neighbors, have time and time again gone to the Shrine.

Japan's territorial disputes with its neighbors makes it much harder for anti-Japanese sentiment to die down, besides. The Liancourt Rocks dispute over the rich seas in the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the Pinnacle Islands in the East China Sea make it much easier to keep a grudge against Japan alive, since the justifications for those issue are somewhat rooted Japan's colonial past (when exactly they acquired them and by what legal means, as ownership there was fuzzy until the 1890-early 1900s when Japan was the sole formal owner) and thus tend to get tied up with other unresolved issues between Japan and its neighbors.

And Japan's poor relations with the rest of East Asia isn't just a WWII thing; Japan chipped away (and later tore) various parts of Chinese land from the Qing and Republic of China over the course of 50 years (from the First Sino-Japanese War to WWII, 1890s to 1940s) through multiple wars and diplomatic incidents, with most of them being started by Japan and overtly aggressive in nature (the Mukden and Shanghai Incidents were staged by the Japanese military). Korea had been colonised by Japan for around 40 years, having lost its independence right when it had begun active modernisation efforts and thus was forced into Japan's militaristic ventures (which ultimately led to the partition of the peninsula).

And it's not like Germany's exempt from the snide comments and strained relations with its neighbors, with Jarosław Kaczyński proving as much. Making references to Japan's atrocities become laughable isn't happening if Germany still gets criticised for its past crimes and Japan isn't willing to go as far as Germany to try and smooth over relations with their victims.
 
What could happen in the past that make this angle stop being a quick political hay in Taiwan, South Korea and Mainland China? So much so that whoever brought this up in ATL got laugh or boo at as a desperate no-hoper using below the belt tactics.

Not have Japan act like the four horsemen when they invade
 
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