Divided Memories and Reconciliation

The 70th anniversary of the 1937 Japanese attack on the Chinese capital of Nanjing, and the mass atrocities that followed, were marked in relatively low-key fashion in China. At a time when the Chinese government is anxious to improve its ties with Japan, it sent only junior officials to the commemoration ceremony unveiling a refurbished museum that attempts to document an event that has become emblematic, for the Chinese at least, of the war with Japan.

Despite the decision to downplay the anniversary, a wave of films, many of them backed by the Chinese government, had already been set in motion, begun at a time when Sino-Japanese tensions were high. Almost a dozen new movies on the “Nanjing Massacre,” including some supported by U.S. and European money, are in production. In Japan, a documentary supported by a group of conservative lawmakers and academics that claims there is no evidence of a Japanese massacre is also slated for release.

This is the latest indication of how Asia’s wartime past bedevils its present. From relations between governments to the interactions of ordinary citizens, disputes over past wrongs continue to occupy newspapers, cinema screens, and school textbooks. All nations in the region, rather than taking responsibility, have some sense of victimization and often blame others. Anti-Japanese sentiments seem undiminished in China and Korea, even among the younger generation with no experience of war or colonialism. The Japanese suffer from “apology fatigue,” questioning why they must continue to repent for events that took place six or seven decades ago.

The failure to address historical injustice and to reconcile differing views of the past has strained Sino-Japanese relations and friction between Japan and South Korea about Japan’s colonial past remains intense. Even South Korea and China are sparring over the history of the ancient kingdom of Koguryo . Taiwan as well is immersed in a re-examination of the historical past. The history question touches upon the most sensitive issues of national identity and now fuels the fires of nationalism in Northeast Asia.

There is widespread recognition of the need for reconciliation and the final resolution of historical injustices. But the existence of divided, even conflicting, historical memories is a fundamental obstacle to such reconciliation. All of the nations involved are bound by distinct, often contradictory perceptions of history and separated by different accounts of past events. These perceptions are deeply imbedded in public consciousness, transmitted by education, popular culture, and the mass media.

At the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, we have embarked on the “Divided Memories and Reconciliation” project that seeks to tackle the history issue from a comparative perspective. Rather than trying to forge a common historical account or to reach a consensus among scholars on specific events, we believe that a more fruitful approach lies in understanding how historical memory is formed in each country. Recognizing how each country engages in the selective creation of its own, divided memory can lead to mutual understanding. Ironically, the very realization that there is no absolute historical truth on which everyone can agree creates a path to reconciliation.

These divided memories are a foundation of national identity—and the formation of national myths that have a powerful role to this day. Whether it is Japanese atrocities in China or the decision to drop atomic weapons on Japan, no nation is immune from the charge that they have formed a less than complete view of the past. All share a reluctance to fully confront the complexity of that past and tend to blame others.

The United States is no less guilty of forming its own divided memory of these historical events—witness the response to the controversy surrounding the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. And the United States had a key role to play in shaping the failure to confront these historical issues in a timely fashion, through its handling of the postwar justice issues for example and the troubling legacy of the problems left unresolved by the 1951 San Francisco Treaty.

Our research project compares the formation of these divided memories in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. The project has begun with a comparative examination of high school history textbooks in those five places, focusing on the period from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war in 1931 until the formal conclusion of the Pacific war with the San Francisco Peace Treaty. This will be followed by a second comparative study of popular cinema dealing with historical subjects from roughly the same period. In parallel with these two comparative studies, Shorenstein APARC plans to design and carry out a comprehensive survey of the views of elite opinion-makers in all five countries on these historical issues. The project has garnered important support from donors in Asia and the United States, among them Korea’s Northeast Asia History Foundation, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and the U.S.-Japan Foundation.

The translations of the most widely circulated high school history textbooks— both national and world history textbooks—have been completed. In February 2008, Shorenstein APARC will convene an international conference of historians and other scholars to conduct a comparative analysis of the textbooks and to discuss, from personal experience, the process of textbook writing and revision. Stanford historians Peter Duus and Mark Peattie, the authors of numerous volumes on this historical period, will lead the comparative analysis. Textbook authors from all five countries will also offer their views.

Textbooks have been a subject of particular controversy in Asia since the 1950s, though focused almost entirely on the content of Japanese textbooks and complaints from China, Korea, and elsewhere that they offer a distorted account of wartime events. One approach to solving this problem has been to form joint committees to study history and to create jointly written textbooks. These efforts are ongoing but they have proved so far to be a very difficult path to reconciliation. A Japan-South Korea joint committee to create a shared history was launched in 2001 but has made little real headway. A similar Sino-Japanese joint committee of 20 prominent historians was formed in October 2006 but it also quickly bogged down in disagreements over what to include in a joint history.

These official efforts only reinforce the value of the “Divided Memories and Reconciliation” project. As an effort by scholars, without official involvement, and as the first attempt to treat this issue comparatively, with the inclusion of the United States, it breaks new ground. The February conference will produce not only a book but also will be reproduced in workshops in all the participating Asian countries, held in collaboration with scholarly institutions. Together with our partners, Shorenstein APARC hopes to generate a public dialogue, not only with scholars but also with the general public through media and other venues. The project is also intended to provide policymakers in Northeast Asia and the United States with data and analysis that will aid their own efforts at easing tensions over the history issue.