Trading doesn't make you friends. Ok, maybe thats a better word. Who is Japans "Friend" in Asia?
And i might be a bit incoherent from medication now but I still think you don't get what I mean about Japan and its relations with other Asian Countries. You are playing spin doctor.
kochisho said:
Oh is it? Go to China, Korea, Taiwan and do a poll on public opinion about the Japanese. I bet its a negative landslide
You don't need to go to a country to do that, lots of companies do public opinion polls. I wouldn't be at all suprised if a lot of people in countries occupied by Japan during the war had negative views about Japan. They have a right to be. There have been a lot of anti-Japan demonstrations in China recently, but in other countries like South Korea relations are much better and improving year by year.
kochiso said:
Read the papers? of course bad news is the only news being broadcast out of Iraq. While 90 percent of the Country is peaceful and thriving. I know Marines in Iraq now. My cousin being one of them. I believe what they see then what I read in a socialist rag like the NY Times
I wasn't really interested in debating Iraq, I was just using that as an example to illustrate the point that travel to a country isn't a prerequisite to voicing one's opinion on it. I highly doubt that 90% of the country is peaceful and thriving though. I don't read the socialist press, but even the conservative papers like the wall street journal admit that unemployment is sky high, reconstruction has been ground to a halt by kidnappings of foreign workers and Iraq's main source of income, oil revenue, has been slashed by continual rebel attacks on pipelines. Hard to see what is thriving about all that.
kochiso said:
I agree about the honoring of the war dead is wrong, i mentioned it above but disagree with you about it not being important.
Japan needs Asia Allies more than ever. Japan didn't have much competition in Asia because other Countries didn't practice capitalism. Not any more.
If you think public opinion isn't important then the Saudi's wouldn't be spending millions of dollars on radio ads in the united states promoting they are America's friend and a partner in the war on terror.
I don't think there is anything wrong with honoring war dead, I just think the honoring of war criminals is wrong. If public opinion were that important, the US would have invaded Iraq alone because the publics in every member of the 'coalition of the willing' were overwhelmingly against the war, including Japan and South Korea. As it is, I think Japan does have an interest in improving its relations with its foreign neighbors mainly because, as you implied, the economies in those countries are growing at a high rate. Koizumi is an idiot for not trying to do so, but in the end I don't think its going to matter in the long run. The generation that can remember Japanese atrocities will be dead within the next decade or two and presumably no government is going to let memories of events that happened more than half a century ago stand in the way of their national interests.