Should The Japanese Apologies Have Been Gained By Japan During World War II?

Further effort is required from Japan in order to reconcile with the victims aggrieved by the military’s conduct during WW2. Over 70 years after the end of the war, victims’ demands for justice still has not been fulfilled

Japanese leaders have issued numerous statements of regret and remorse for the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII. However, all have fallen short of what is actually desired by victims of Japanese war crimes. Apologies have been insincere and inconsistent, often motivated by political expediency and undercut by revisionist statements from senior politicians. Official apologies are widely viewed as inadequate by many of the survivors who contend the lack of acknowledgement and recognition of particular

The Japanese government has paid in compensation to POWs from western allies, a total of £4,500,000 through the Red Cross. However, the Japanese court has rejected every individual compensation claim. Moreover, in a number of Asian countries, claims for compensation have been either abandoned for political reasons, or paid by Japan to the respective government, but used instead for other purposes. Hence, a large number of individual victims in Asia received no compensation. In addition, many victims feel that material reparations, such as monetary compensation, without a meaningful acknowledgement of responsibility, falls short of reconciliation.

By the end of 1958, ten years after the Tokyo Trials, all convicted Japanese war criminals were released from prison and politically rehabilitated. In 1957, the Japanese government announced that all Japanese war criminals were to be regarded henceforth as unconditionally free from the terms of their parole. In 1978, 1,068 convicted war criminals, were secretly enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine. Japanese government officials have frequently made visits to the shrine drawing condemnation from China &