One Step Forward

Is Japan’s traditional reluctance to face up publicly to the aggression and atrocities committed by its government and armed forces in the 1930s and 1940s finally ending? Maybe, but Tokyo still has a lot to do if it hopes to win the trust of its onetime victims.

The refusal to accept responsibility for past behavior has fed antipathy abroad even while promoting self-delusion at home. For a time Japan’s postwar school texts provided a relatively straightforward account of imperial expansionism and some of its related crimes, even as its officials found it expedient to say little about the period. But a decade ago the Education Ministry approved controversial textbook revisions that sought to sanitize wartime history. China and South Korea, both of which suffered heavily under Japanese occupation, complained bitterly.

Only last week did the Education Ministry approve new texts that refer to the “unbearable suffering” inflicted on Japan’s victims before and during World War II; whether and how widely those books will be adopted remain to be seen. Tokyo’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for documented atrocities remains a major reason that, nearly half a century after Japan’s aggression was rolled back, countries that once suffered under its harsh rule remain nervous and suspicious about Japan’s intentions.

This week Japan for the first time acknowledged official involvement in another human rights outrage from the past, the forced enlistment of tens of thousands of women--many of them from occupied countries--into Japanese army brothels. The admission ends decades of denial and follows revelations by a Japanese historian who found in government and army files the documentary evidence that supports recent public claims by a number of Korean women that they had been forced to be sex slaves --”comfort women” was the official euphemism--during World War II.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato apologized to “all of those . . . who endured indescribable pain and suffering.” This is a major step for Japan to take. It should be followed by offering generous compensation to those who endured the terror and humiliation of sexual bondage. Only when the past is faced with candor can the future be approached with confidence.