央视网 03-13-2015
By Dr. Chen Tao, German Studies Center at Tongji University
Japan and Germany have developed a relationship of long-distance friends, and become neighbors in spirit, wrote the German ambassador to Japan, Dr Hans Carl von Werthern, in the liberal Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun on the first day of Chancellor Merkel’s two-day visit to Japan.
This visit was directly aimed at preparing for the G7 summit to be held in June in Schloss Elmau, Germany. According to convention, the leader of the summit host is supposed to visit the six other countries to discuss the conference agenda in advance. Japan was the last country on Merkel’s travel plan. Before her visit to Japan, Merkel went to the USA, Canada, Italy, France and the UK.
Japan has a lot to learn from its 'long-distance friend'
There are enough reasons why Merkel chose the spring of 2015 to visit Japan. The Ukraine crisis, for example, deemed one of biggest geopolitical challenges for Germany and the West, has occupied the time and energy of Merkel and her government team.
This year is also the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In a speech organized by the Asahi Shimbun upon her arrival in Tokyo on March 9, Merkel said, “This year we are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.” For postwar Germans, the war’s end in Europe was not purely an end but also a “liberation.” Merkel referred to the 1985 speech of the late West German President Richard von Weizsäcker: “liberation from Nazi barbarism, from the horrors of the Second World War that had been unleashed by Germany, and from the betrayal of all civilised values in the form of the Shoah.”
Viewing the end of the war as liberation also means having the courage to accept blame from others and acknowledge faults during the war. It requires something be done first with society. Germany and Japan were both defeated in the war. Despite the long and complicated process of coming to terms with their past and through concerted efforts by prudent political leaders and critical scholars, Germans stood up.
In postwar Germany there were several very important academic debates over the crimes of Nazi Germany both at home and abroad. These debates provoked German scholars and society to ponder how best to deal with memories of the war. Through open debate in society over history, Germans gradually came to rethink their own behavior and thoughts during the war. This laid the very foundation for Germans to come to terms with their own past.
However, in the current official declarations of Japan we seldom find any interpretation of the end of the war as a “liberation.” And there were no wide or open debates in postwar Japan like those of Germany.
In Japan, it was the pain of the nuclear explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than the Lugou (Marco Polo) Bridge Incident or the Nanjing Massacre that deeply affected the Japanese people. Recent deeds and expressions by some of Japan’s top politicians even glorify war history.
Postwar Germany’s other achievement is reconciliation with its neighbors. Chancellor Merkel said in the same speech that coming to terms with the past “made it possible for us to succeed in finding our way back into the international community.” She said, “Germans will never forget the hand of reconciliation that was extended to us after all the suffering that our country had brought to Europe and the world.”
To reconcile with former foes is even more difficult than civil remorse at home. It requires a leading politician to see far and wide and take the lead in regional reconciliation, even in a situation where a war may break out at any moment.
In the most tense years of the Cold War, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt at the monument to victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, forming the foundation of Germany’s reconciliation with Poland and even the rest of the former East European countries. Without this, German reunification in 1990 would have been impossible.
Unlike Germany, Japanese politicians, especially top officials, have never visited the places where the Japanese invasion took a heavy toll during the war. Some Japanese officials argue that the time is still not ripe for such a visit.
But thanks to Willy Brandt’s Neue Ostpolitik, we know that only through constant expressions of guilt and heartfelt apologies can reconciliation be achieved. Top Japanese officials should take a lead in regaining the trust of neighboring countries. For them, this year’s commemorative activities for the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in neighboring countries could be a huge occasion for reconciliation.
Official diplomatic relations between Germany and Japan have lasted for more than 100 years since the Meiji Reform. The two countries have become “long-distance friends.” Germany has done very well in its efforts to reconcile with neighboring countries. As a “neighbor in spirit,” Japan has a lot to learn from Germany.
