In Japan and America, more and more people think Hiroshima bombing was wrong
A photograph made available by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum of the Hiroshima A-bomb blast photographed by the U.S. military on August 6, 1945.
This month, President Obama will become the first incumbent American president to visit Hiroshima, the Japanese city that was devastated when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.
That bomb — and a second atomic blast on Nagasaki on Aug. 9 — effectively ended World War II; Japan surrendered six days after the Hiroshima bombing. However, the human costs were huge. Estimates of those killed go as high as 150,000, and even for those who survived, it was a hellish, life-altering experience. At the same time, many believe that the bomb was preferable to a planned invasion of Japan, which would have likely brought massive casualties among civilians, Japanese forces and Allies.
During his visit to the city, Obama is expected to give a speech on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons — a topic that he has touched on many times before. He is not expected to apologize for the bombing itself.
Even so, such a visit may reflect shifting viewpoints of Americans on Hiroshima. Last year, Pew Research Center compiled a number of polls about public attitudes to the bombings in America and Japan.
Bells tolled and thousands bowed their heads in prayer in Hiroshima on Thursday at ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing. (Reuters)
In the first Gallup poll from 1945 just after the bombings, a huge 85 percent of Americans approved the bombings. However, figures from 2005 show a significant decline to 57 percent. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in the United States and Japan in 1991 found that 63 percent of Americans thought that the bombings were justified in a bid to end the war, while just 29 percent of Japanese did.
When Pew followed up on that question in 2015, they found that the numbers of people who thought the bombings were justified had dropped in both America and Japan — to 56 percent among Americans and just 14 percent among Japanese. The total percentage of people who thought the bombings were unjustified stood at 79 percent in Japan, up from 64 percent in 1991. In America, those who thought they were unjustified rose to 34 percent, from 29 percent in 1991.
The difference in viewpoints between the United States and Japan is obvious — one country dropped bombs on the other, after all — but there are also some more subtle things going on. Last year, WorldViews took a look at how the bombings were taught in countries all over the world. They have long been a major topic of study for Japanese and American children. But, in recent years, the way the bombings are taught to Americans has shifted, with more emphasis put on the bombs' human toll and not just the strategic value.
"The textbook has walked away from this idea that it speaks with this omniscient voice and it tells you facts," Christopher Hamner, a history professor at George Mason University, told WorldViews. "Textbooks will have documents from both sides. They acknowledge that there are multiple perspectives."
This change may have contributed to a generational shift seen in Pew's research: Just 47 percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the use of atomic weapons was justified when asked last year, compared to 70 percent of those 65 or older.
John Kerry became the first U.S. secretary of state to pay his respects at Hiroshima's memorial to victims of the 1945 U.S. bombing. Ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States laid wreaths at the site on April 11. (Reuters)
The widespread support for the bombing of Hiroshima among Americans has long led incumbent U.S. presidents to refuse to visit the city, fearing it would be construed as an apology. Obama's visit seems to reflect the perception that support for the bombings has dropped, even if he doesn't apologize.
While many Japanese view the bombings as unjustifiable, some in Hiroshima may well be satisfied even without an apology.
"What's done is done," one Hiroshima resident told The Washington Post in 2009. "I don't need an apology. But if Obama hasn't seen what an A-bomb can do to you, then he should come and look."
It’s okay not to apologize for Hiroshima, says Chinese state media
By Ishaan Tharoor April 11
Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Monday paid what he called a "gut-wrenching" visit to a memorial in Hiroshima, the Japanese city hit by a nuclear bomb seven decades ago, killing as many as 140,000 people. The attack on Hiroshima, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki, signaled the first and last time that nuclear weapons were used in a time of war.
Kerry was part of a delegation of foreign ministers at a two-day meeting of the Group of Seven bloc of nations. Ahead of the visit, it was made clear that the U.S. secretary of state would not be specifically apologizing for the destruction of these two cities, which led to the end of World War II. Rather, both senior U.S. and Japanese officials emphasized the need to look not to the past, but to the future.
The G-7 ministers issued a joint declaration that said their countries "share the deep desire of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear weapons never be used again."
China, though, seemed unmoved, revealing a degree of wariness and cynicism about the bonhomie among Japan and leading Western powers.
An editorial in Xinhua, China's state news agency, poured scorn on the solemn meeting in Hiroshima. The horrors of the bombing, it noted, "should serve as a reminder that the reflection on the tragedy should focus more on its root cause than Japan's much-trumpeted victimhood."
It went on to lambaste "Japan's militaristic aggression" and legacy of "brutal violence" during World War II, when the country occupied a vast swath of Asia and provoked the United States into joining the global conflict with the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
In the past year, the governments in Beijing and Seoul have been dismayed at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's refusal to fully apologize for Japan's war crimes.
"I bow my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at home and abroad. I express my feelings of profound grief and my eternal, sincere condolences,” Abe said in a speech last year marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. But he added: "We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize."
The Xinhua editorial insisted that "it is Tokyo's lasting moral obligation to let that notorious chapter known by every citizen of the country and make compensations and apologies fair and square to the affected individuals and facilities, not just in Japan but also in other stricken nations."
It went on to accuse both the United States and Japan of escalating "the simmering tension in the region" by reprimanding North Korea in the G-7 Hiroshima declaration, which condemned in "the strongest terms" North Korea's "continued development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs."
This sort of censure is apparently unwelcome in Beijing, and the Xinhua editorial inveighed against a supposed larger history of Western provocations.
"Speaking from a broader spectrum, the current Korean deadlock is the bitter legacy of decades of the West's distrust, animosity and confrontation wrought by its ingrained Cold War mentality," the editorial said. "It is no coincidence that most of the world's current hotspots and disturbances should be attributed to the West's biased policies."
The Japanese government itself is not particularly keen on soliciting a U.S. apology for Hiroshima, but the arrival of the G-7 foreign ministers in the city has been considered a diplomatic victory for Tokyo. Attention now switches to a potential visit from President Obama, which would be the first such trip by a sitting U.S. president.
Opinion: Victimhood should not be hyped up amid reflection on Hiroshima tragedy
(Xinhua)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/11/c_135268292.htm
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