SoukouDragon

Yes it's a big number. My main point is that if both sides don't have a shared consensus on the events then it's not possible for an exchange of apology and forgiveness to occur. I'm speaking from the perspective resolving the issue. Japan says PRC inflates the numbers. PRC says Japan whitewashes. They need to at least establish a consensus that is somewhat near each other. The max number of deaths which includes all kinds of civilian killings in addition to typical massacre style killing is a range of 100,000 to 200,000 killed. The difference is quite substantial with PRC's numbers and the PRC won't budge even slightly to enable the passing of apology and forgiveness. That's why discussion on the number of deaths is important. It's to establish common ground for both sides.

I have to get some sleep now. Only have 1 hour and a half before getting ready for work.

And for the comfort women, this fund wasn't satisfactory enough for them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Women%27s_Fund

It's important to remember the nature of the CCP. They aren't like France, Germany, or Sweden today. Single party total control heavy propaganda. They can't be reasoned with. Liu Xiaobo currently in Chinese jail. The end of the video says 3 years but it's been extended to 11 years. His release is 2020. Although he won't be allowed to do anything of course.

In fact serious looks into what happened in China during WW2 were initiated by Japanese because Chinese couldn't do real scholarship work under their tight government. As I said earlier, Mao kept the Nanking Massacre a secret because it could legitimize RoC credibility in its fight against Japan. Mao didnt want to give RoC good propaganda material.

The reason why the historical issue feels like it is dragging on today is because during the 1960s through to the 1980s. Both needed Japanese tech and finances. Naturally their not going to get it if they press historical issues. Their societies have also been under tight government control so Chinese and Koreans couldn't look into their past history. During the 1980s, Japanese and PRC relations were improving. Trade was going up and cultural exchanges were happening. PRC would air Japanese dramas on TV even. Of course anti-Japanese resentment lingered, but there was a large wash of the materialism and looking forward. And PRC was starting to open up. Then came the 1989 Tianamen massacre. The PRC government quickly retracted it's opening up and the CCP became very unpopular. So how were they going to restore the people's opinion in their one party rule? Simple. During the 1990s, the PRC cranked up anti-Japanese propaganda in order to create an external bad guy to regathering public support. CCP did that to just save their own skin. Relations were on the mend. But CCP being what it is resulted in a reversal. The Japanese tried to counter that reversal with apologies but to no avail during the 1990s to China.

Of course not. It's kind of pointless to interject alternative course of history. Why did Japan go down the path of militarism is a very important topic. In any case, I do not endorse Japan went down the right path into its aggressive war and ultimately, I do hold in my opinion that the ultimate destruction of Imperial Japan by the US was a good thing. The issue is taken what Japan did in the past and to continue pressing it on Japan today. PRC continues to trumpet 300,000 massacre at Nanking. If the Japanese apologize, CCP says it's not sincere because they disagree with 300,000 massacred at Nanking. If historians do real sincere and honest historical research and conclude that about 50,000 were massacred and express apology and remorse and compensation with that in mind, the CCP declines it citing their 300,000 figures. It's a total loss.

If the alternative was the Holocaust, it's pretty obvious which way was better. It's still very very bad, but proper perspective is necessary.

You're too kind. Let me fry. I'm used to it.

The US and Great Britain were able to abandon it because they achieved top power status. They no longer had too continue it. The US was particularly blessed with so much land with such relatively low Native American population occupying it. Raising powers would have to do so to ascend. It is a little hypocritically to finally establish high moral grounds after having achieved top power status. But better done so than never. If there was no opium wars against China, Great Britain wouldn't have achieved the scale of its empire. It's all relative.

Japan has provided compensation as well, most notable to South Korea in 1965. China was wavered because it was the CCP, not RoC. They agreed on that under Mao's time. Of course Imperial Japan has many examples of senseless manslaughter. But on a whole, the empire function on creating collaborators. It's specific deep scare in the case of Korea. But again that is how it worked. There were many Chinese collaborators too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Jingwei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorganized_National_Government_of_the_Republic_of_China

In entirety, no, Imperial Japan was worse than the British empire. Malaysia is one example.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_war_crimes

British in Malaysia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

This picture was an apology to the Jews. The Japanese did not do what the Nazis did. 5-6 million Jews massacred simply because of being Jewish is a whole different league of evilness. That is genocide. Imperial Japan conducted massacres where the majority were of fighting capable men. It's bad, it's terrible, but it was part of the process of establishing control. Imperial Japan was a colonial power. Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese, were all fitted in the Imperial Japanese machine. The Jews? Automatic death every single man, woman, child, elderly, because of their Jewsih blood. The Germans did much worse than the Japanese. That's why the Germans had to apologize as they did. People think that just because both countries were of the axis that Japan should apologize at equal level which is a gross simplification.

What about the Americans and native Americans? The Turks and the Armenians, The Soviet Union and the Ukrainians, The Germans and the Jews, the British and Malaysia, Boer War, Kenya, etc, the Belgiums and the Congo? Bottom line is that is an awful lot of unbelievable god awful stuff that has happened. To single out Japan is totally unfair.

They were abused. Well it was a mixed bag. Most were recruited with lies, giving the impression that they were going to work at a factory or something, and upon arrival, it ended being a comfort women station. There's definitely bad in this that I don't disagree. But the demands for apologies exceeds what is necessary. That's where I start to side with Japan. Compensation money is not sufficient in their view. They want a public apology by the prime minister and they want legal action against the Japanese government. No idea what kind of legal result their looking for but legal action is what they called for. In comparison to all other imperial powers, this is unreasonable in my opinion.

Of course Japan did many horrible acts in their war of aggression which includes massacres, rape, Unit 731, and the comfort women system, forced conscription, and worked to death projects. The percentage of population that fill the denier camp is not the majority. Most do recognize that this events have happened. Of this group is further divisions of opinion. Those that, if we take the Nanking Massacre, believe that about 200,000 were massacred, which is closer to PRC statements of 300,000 massacred. Then there are those that think the amount massacred was more like 50,000. Then of course there are those that don't have much of an opinion in any way. Here's the thing that complicates it in regards to China. The current government is the CCP. They are not the government that suffered from the Nanking massacre. That was the nationalists government which currently resides in Taiwan. Look at Taiwan today. They are a democracy and they have good relations with Japan. So that means the CCP can't really hold Japan to much in war crimes. In fact during Mao's reign, he kept the Nanking Massacre a secret because it could legitamize the RoC in Taiwan. Now with the government to the side, just straight up to Chinese people, Japan has a heavy history to recognize. It is up to individual to individual, the historians, companies, etc. Here's an example of Mitsubishi providing compensation and apology to forced Chinese laborers. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/24/national/history/mitsubishi-materials-apologize-settle-3765-chinese-wwii-forced-labor-redress-claims/

Mass media never talks about the issue entirely like it doesn't with many things.

The comfort women issue is an extraordinarily complex issue mixed up with deep emotions and politicization. It is a very tiresome issue. Here is a post I made about the comfort women and it's gonna put me under some heat since I generally side with Japan. The the post linked below is very long however it is still far from including everything to say about the comfort women issue. And ultimately, there's nothing that can be done if the deep down bottom gut emotions is left to decide a judgement. My ideas about the issue have matured some more since making this post below, but it still has a lot of information that will be necessary for one to familiarize oneself with before being able to debate for either position. http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/427963-deliciousmulnaengmyeon-personal-post/page__st__20__pid__8713650#entry8713650 Several months after this, I had a heated discussion about it with Daigensui in the T110 thread. The tolerance of the thread was reaching it's limit but it's probably no surprise that we didn't persuade each other over to the other's opinion. In fairness to Dai, since she can't post here, one book I mentioned by Sarah Soh, Dai later called the book in the T110 discussion "sensationalism" or something to that effect. In short, she disagrees with it. I feel compel to post this. If I'm going to post about all the new military toys Japan is getting, then I'll have to go through this topic as well, sort of as a complete package. Ultimately, I think the controversial deal that South Korea and Japan reached was because of some serious pressure coming onto the Park administration. One factor is that the US wants both Japan and South Korea to cooperate with each other on defense. Another factor is that South Korea is getting left out of TPP negotiations. It is being predicted that if South Korea is left out, they will face a disadvantage economically. Giving that South Korean economic growth is already slowing down, a negative effect because of not being part of TPP would hurt them more. In short, good relations with Japan will be necessary for South Korea to join TPP. Of course TPP still has a lot of hurdles to go through, it's a whole other topic. Anyway, the link above.. to just get things started, if y'all dare to dig into this issue.

Some more pictures of J-20 model 2101.

Japan has plans to purchase 42 F-35As. The first 6 are to be payed for by the 2016 defense budget. Of the 42, the first 4 are being manufactured in the US. The rest will be licensed produced in Japan. That will come with a lot of technology transfers. Here are pictures of Japanese F-35As being built in the US.

The full scale prototype was first revealed to the public on a televised program last year, around May, if I recall correctly. So you've probably have seen it. Before that, it was a somewhat smaller black mock up built to test the stealth capabilities which was tested in France about 5 years ago or so. Before this black mock up was a smaller, 1/5 scale or so RC to test the designs ability to fly. The whole program has been going for a long time. Originally, the earliest flight test for the full prototype was announced to be late 2014. But they kept on delaying, month after months, delays. It actually still hasn't had it's first flight test. The latest announced first flight plan is the earliest by the middle of this month, but could be later. The reasons they gave was restart-up issues with the engines. After it's first flight, it's planned that the X-2 will fly at most 200 hours for 2016. And it is planned that a decision will be in 2018 as to whether or not to entirely develop a new F3 fighter from the prototype entirely domestically or to seek joint development with international partners. Decisions on whether or not should it be available for export will also be decided on in 2018. Entry into service of the F3 is currently aimed for the 2030s. It's first flight is planned to be a flight from Nagoya airport to ASDF Gifu airbase. Here are some pictures of it in Nagoya.

Those are reasonable conditions for a good posting environment. It tempts me to explore a little. I'll make a few additional posts on the forums for a bit.

Yeah maybe