Japan in WWII

[huy.duong@ctsu.ox.ac.uk]

Dear Mr Tsuchikawa,

<<<The Treaty which define the relationship between Japan and VN was first 
signed on Sep 8, 1952.  This treaty is called San Francisco peace treaty 
and which ended up the rule by the Allied Powers (But the truth was 
United States.)

This treaty is multinational treaty and signed many countries including 
VN.>>>

In 1952 Vietnam was a colony/protectorate of France and as such had no say on
international treaties. 

<<<In this treaty,there is a sentence about compensation.  (#14)  Based on 
this sentence, Japan and Vietnam discussed about compensation and on May 
13, 1959 both sides signed two main documents.

One is about compensation and another is about ODA from Japan.>>>

There are three issues here. The 1959 documents were based on *a sentence*
in a treaty which Vietnam did not sign as an independent country. In 1959
the South could not and did not represent the North. By 1959 a government of
the South could not have realised the extent of Japanese war crimes.

<<<Their report has no effect in Japan, because the delegation was strongly 
affected by special politicl group and had no influence to Japanese 
society.  Average people felt that the group began to cause trouble to 
speak loudly about what might be myth.>>>

I hear that the Japanese education system is keen to portray the suffering of
the Japanese at the hands of the Allies in WWII, but it's keen to glib
over the Japanese's crime against other people. The average Japanese doesn't
know even the order of magitude of the number of people killed at Nanking.
The average Japanese doesn't know about the systematic and brutal 
experimentation on and the murder of Chinese prisoners. The average Japanese 
thinks that it might be a myth that the emperor's honourable army killed and 
caused the deaths of millions of civilians. No wonder when confronted with the 
deaths of millions of people the average Japanese thinks that it's myth and 
stirring up trouble. This covering up of the truth is a statement of shame on 
successive Japanese governments.  
  
<<<(Also the situation are the same 
about Korea "pleasure lady" which the Korean did the same thing in 1960s.
Taiwan and Korea had this system in their military system.) >>>

What a terrible thing to say! Is this supposed to lessen the crime
by the Japanese Imperial Army in any way? And what point of time did
the Koreans and Taiwanese military had `this system'? 

I don't think Vietnam as a country should demand a single cent of
compensation from Japan, but I find Japan failing to face up to
its crimes shameful: making excuses on the `Comfort Women' issue--
the Koreans and Taiwanese did it too; making excuses for treating allied 
prisoners of wars inhumanely--it's our proud samurai culture;
covering up the experimentation on live Chinese prisoners; 
covering up the link with the emperor; playing down, making excuse for 
killing millions of civilians in China and South East Asia.
 
Huy