Abstract
The Japanese like to see themselves as a unique nation, and their claim is not disputed by the rest of the world. But one element of this uniqueness – Japan’s peculiarly passive role in world politics – is now becoming so exaggerated as to be a problem not only for the Japanese, but also for the rest of the international community. The major cause of this imbalance between Japan’s power and its role in the international system is the long shadow of the Second World War. The nation’s reputation for aggressiveness and brutality in the half-century before 1945 continues to stunt its political life, both domestically and internationally. Old images of Japan still condition current perceptions of it, not only for outsiders but also among the Japanese themselves.
There is no question that Japan’s policy between 1895 and 1945 was aggressively expansionist and ruthlessly brutal. But the logic of continuing to hold present-day Japan accountable for its history rests on one or both of two assumptions: (1) that there was something so distinctively and abnormally awful about Japan’s record over this period that it deserves to be carried forward into the present and the future; and (2) that assumptions is tenable, and it is high time that the constraints they impose on Japan’s present-day international role were cleared away.
Read the article here.