How Japan Denies Its Genocide

Daja. I'm Nathan Rich aka Hugo Dawang.

I'm here in affluent Beijing where the temperature is very mild. Trust me, it's if anything, it's warm.

Sanitu in Beijing is uh still affluent as ever. The weather is uh amazing and

as ever. The weather is uh amazing and as I look around, I can't help but think about the history of Beijing and everything it's been through. If I were sitting here in this seat about a

hundred years ago, I'd be seeing camels and roaming vagabons and there' just be poor people everywhere. There'd be open

sewer pits, cesspools with god knows what bubbling up. And just like those bubbling cess pools, something has cropped up on the internet recently.

It's a very interesting piece of anti-China propaganda and that's the completely ridiculous notion that Japan

has apologized for its crimes in the Pacific War and World War II and the anti-China war.

[music] Recently, Japan decided to go out on a limb and threatened to invade China should it take action against the rebels

in Taiwan. And even more recently, Japan

in Taiwan. And even more recently, Japan has decided to move missiles closer to China, which puts the whole situation into proper perspective. Japan, of

course, says that it's defending its territory by moving missiles closer to China and talking about invading China, which all makes perfect sense as long as you just don't think about it. Of

course, everybody on the internet wants to talk about their side of this. All

the anti- uh China activists are loudly proclaiming that, you know, Taiwan is its own country because reasons and that

Japan has a right to defend itself by threatening to invade another sovereign nation. For those of you who aren't

nation. For those of you who aren't super familiar with Japanese and Chinese history, Japan has done this type of thing before. As I mentioned in one of

thing before. As I mentioned in one of my previous videos, Japan used very similar reasoning to invade China multiple times over the the last century

and had one of the most brutal regimes ruling over various parts of China. And

when I say brutal, I mean the type of stuff that you almost can't even mention on videos, otherwise it'll get flagged and banned, censored. Definitely can't

show you pictures. uh some of the videos you can see but suffice to say it was one of the most destructive and horrible reigns of any kind [music] of empire in

the modern history. Uh in many ways worse than German occupation of European countries significantly worse in some

cases and the death toll just citizens alone civilians was in the millions and millions. So, a very disturbing and

millions. So, a very disturbing and horrific ordeal all around. You can't

help but sort of draw parallels between Japan's reign in China, short as it was, and Germany's reign in Europe, short as it was. And we don't have to get into

it was. And we don't have to get into comparing the treatment of the captives [music] and the PS and the concentration camp prisoners and all that kind of stuff. We don't have to get into that

stuff. We don't have to get into that line of of discussion. But what is interesting to think about is today, how is Germany? How is Japan? How is Germany

is Germany? How is Japan? How is Germany in Israel? How is Japan in China? And

in Israel? How is Japan in China? And

something that people on the pro-logic side of things say online is that Japan hasn't really atoned or apologized for its actions against China. The

anti-China crowd is quick to provide Wikipedia links that say lists of apologies by the government of Japan over World War II or the Pacific War or whatever they want to call it. So, it's

a classic case of a small message format internet site such as uh Twitter or Waybo or other things not really having enough breathing room for actual

arguments to be made. So this idea that Japan has more than atoned and made up for its crimes is bubbling up like a

festering boil or a disgusting cesspit on the internet. So it's time to spray some disinfectant on that lie. Japan

over the decades has released various apologies. That's true. But when you

apologies. That's true. But when you actually look at the apologies, nearly all of them have the same characteristics.

First of all, they're very generalized and broad and vague kind of a oh uh we apologize for the misdeeds and bad

things that previous version of ourselves did to nearby nations this kind of thing. So very vague in general first of all and another thing is that

because Japan invaded and tried to destroy and conquer so many countries mostly in uh Southeast Asia by number it now can kind of hide behind that fact.

So whenever it has issued these quote unquote apologies it tends to just lump all the countries together. So it will say for example uh to all the countries

that we harmed or you know for the damage that we caused in multiple countries and they never really seem to target China for their apologies and say

look China we did this and this and this to your people back then and we sincerely apologize and here's what we're going to do to to fix it or atone

for it or whatever. It's very very rare.

Now to be fair, these sort of generalized and um vague apologies are quite normal in politics and even more so in East Asian politics. It is kind of

the way that they do things. So that's

not 100% on them. I mean is it is pretty normal to be sort of vague in their apologies. But distributing the

apologies. But distributing the apologies over many many countries and never really honing in on one to directly apologize for is an interesting strategy that they use. But there's a

lot more than just their vagueness and their distribution of apology. When I

first started looking into Unit 731, the common name for the um genocidal plague and infection-causing mass murder

torture device that Japan officially founded and pushed out throughout of most of Asia. That was actually years before I even first came to China. I had

learned about it a bit from a movie and just did my own brief research and trying to find out what it was all about. And back then, I remember seeing

about. And back then, I remember seeing on the internet lots of Japanese websites talking all about how the Nanjing massacre was a complete fraud.

It was all a lie made up by the Chinese government and how UNI 731 and all that was just totally fake. and they would use tactics like trying to find a picture that somebody posted on a

website saying that it was from unit 731 and then they would assert that they've proven that that photograph wasn't from unit 731 and so therefore it's all a scam and a hoax. And this is the really

the first time that I came across this subculture in Japan of essentially similar to Holocaust denialism. So they

deny the genocide that Japan perpetrated against China in particular. And there's

many different places you can find people from Japan living in Japan pushing out this message on the internet uh even today. But it's not just that

the Japanese government has been very vague and general about its apologies.

And it's also not just that they distributed these apologies over many countries to sort of blend them all together. And it's not just that there's

together. And it's not just that there's this subculture of individuals who push this denialism and hoaxism out on the

world. It's also that when you continue

world. It's also that when you continue to research Japan's reaction to its involvement in what we call World War II, you actually find that the

government itself takes a lot of actions to minimize and deny the most egregious parts of what it did. So local

governments in Japan take action to obfuscate, deny or hide evidence about crimes that were committed. And that's

not only tolerated, but it is supported.

There's an entire huge internal part of the Japanese government, the more sort of far-right neocon revisionist types that go out of their way to support as

much as they can, as much as is internationally vaguely tolerable. They

try to deny their involvement. But it's

not just that Japan is vague and tries to spread out its apologies to many countries and be very sort of avoiding talking about China directly. And it's

not just that there's individuals and even groups that try to deny and minimize their atrocities. It's not just that local government in Japan also does

that. And it's not just that the

that. And it's not just that the national government also supports it.

There's even more. If you look at Germany today, in Germany, it's illegal.

You can spend, I think it's 5 years in prison, illegal to be a Holocaust denier. So when you talk about apologies

denier. So when you talk about apologies and you talk about Japan, isn't it interesting that we don't hold them to that standard because not only is it not illegal, they actually encourage it

there. So that's the next piece. And

there. So that's the next piece. And

furthermore, Germany has gone out of its way to offer retribution by way of compensation, you know, any kind of atonement that a

government can participate towards Jews.

And this is something that Ben Shapiro may say hasn't affected the Jews at all.

It doesn't help them. I mean, who needs money? But the reality is, while of

money? But the reality is, while of course it's not going to make up for the Holocaust and all the dead civilians and all the atrocities, it's a different

posture on the world stage. It's trying

to own up, trying to take some responsibility for the past and trying to do something to be able to hold your head up high in light of the past. And

again, compare that to Japan. In the

70s, China forewent atonement via reimbursement from Japan with the interest of normalizing relations, starting up trade, all that kind of

stuff. So part of the responsibility

stuff. So part of the responsibility lies with the 70s government of China, but Japan was not exactly eager to give

restitution. So all in all, we're

restitution. So all in all, we're talking about a country which resists atonement, resists restitution,

supports denialism, supports hoaxism, and at nearly every level has players actively contributing to disinformation on the world stage about their

involvement in these atrocities. So when

we compare their reaction to what they did to Germany's reaction to what it did, doesn't mean it's perfect, but you know, when we compare these two things, we find that there's a night and day

difference. And the contrast is very

difference. And the contrast is very extreme. And that tells me that while

extreme. And that tells me that while you may be able to scrape up some vague apology from some Japanese diplomat here and there, sort of saying, "Oh, we're

sorry about whatever." You can also just as easily find that the next day or the next month or very soon thereafter they enshrined war criminals, right?

Literally taking these people who were massacring, gassing, mutilating and stomping and murdering and feeding people to dogs. Literally

taking these people and enshrining them as national heroes immediately after their apology. So this is just a classic

their apology. So this is just a classic case where on the internet somebody can pop up a little Wikipedia article and say see Japan has totally apologized.

But when you look into it you find that if any of them were sincere they were usually followed by betrayal of those apologies. Now, I don't know about you,

apologies. Now, I don't know about you, but the way that I am is that if somebody vaguely apologizes in my direction sort of and then immediately

betrays that apology and takes actions to secretly or otherwise, even sometimes out in the open, deny that they even did that thing, I don't really count that as

an actual apology. So, what does this all mean? Does Japan need to apologize

all mean? Does Japan need to apologize more? Should it continue to have its

more? Should it continue to have its diplomats bow down to Chinese diplomats?

Well, I don't know. I don't wish to tell Japan what to do. But I do want to just make it super clear for all those people out there pretending that Japan has already totally apologized so many times

and God, what else do you want from it?

It has gone out of its way to deny as much as possible and to avoid any responsibility. It's done everything

responsibility. It's done everything that it can to go back on those apologies. Personally, I wouldn't

apologies. Personally, I wouldn't consider that they had apologized to me if I were China. So, you can pretend that they've apologized all you want, but that doesn't actually match reality.

They don't care because no one's ever made them care. And another one last thing about this is that as I researched UNI 731 and other crimes today these

days one thing that's very very obvious when you contrast the Japanese government with the German government or even the American government is that

it's very very hard to find clear documentation and evidence that's provided by the Japanese government as to hey here's what we did here's what these troops did here's what these

soldiers did we said that they were doing this, but they were actually doing that. It's almost unheard of to find

that. It's almost unheard of to find that. They do things like release a name

that. They do things like release a name list of of a unit and then that link on the internet just sort of disappears and is quietly shut down and nobody ever

finds it again. They do things like uh give very broad general information that they know was captured by the US when the US was occupying Japan. They do

things like that, but they don't go further and say, "Let's get this out in the open. Here's what happened. We're

the open. Here's what happened. We're

not them anymore. We're ashamed of that, but here's what it actually was." They

don't do that. So, what I often have to depend on is Chinese sources, Chinese people who have documented their interactions with Japanese people from [music] back then, Chinese

interrogations, Russian interrogations, uh, American documents. There are

Japanese documents available, but they're, like I said, they're very general. They don't include extra

general. They don't include extra information. They don't include context.

information. They don't include context.

They don't include a thorough encyclopedic demonstration of what actually happened.

So again, to me, it just seems that they're doing the minimal possible while trying to avoid as much responsibility as possible. So to all you out there

as possible. So to all you out there thinking that Japan has totally apologized, I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

You wouldn't accept this as an apology in any form of interactions in your real life. So why would China? Anyway, uh if

life. So why would China? Anyway, uh if you want to support these videos, become a channel member and I will [music] talk to you next time. Thanks everybody. See

you.

[music] [cheering] [music]