As many as over 70 years have passed since the World War II ended.
Records of history have become somewhat mossed with the passage of decades and centuries, yet the people cannot fail to remember with bitter feelings the wounds of catastrophic war which drove the entire humankind into the miseries, and they are burning their hearts with endless indignation and hatred towards the war criminals who destroyed the world peace and trampled on the precious lives.
However, there is yet a country which goes so far as to embellish its blood-stained history of the past, not content with the total negation of it. That is none other than Japan.
Japan is now overtly flying the “flag of rising sun shedding rays” even at the sports festivals – which advocate peace and friendship as its fundamental ideas – with its sinister intention to disguise the “flag” as a “symbol of peace”, which is in fact the blood-stained flag once tied to the bayonets of the aggression troops of the Japanese Imperialism who annexed the Asian continent, crying out for “domination of the Orient.” The Japanese politicians have gone to the length of openly encouraging the visit to Yasukuni Shrine haunted by the specters of A-class war criminals, taking it as one of their election pledges.
A few days ago, Japanese Ambassador to Australia posted on his twitter a message that reads “I am glad to see the flag of rising sun shedding rays in Darwin.” He also posted the pictures of the Japanese marine “self-defense forces” and the “flag of rising sun shedding rays.” All of these are sufficient to fathom the scale of infiltration of the nascent militaristic idea into Japan.
The move by Japan, a war criminal state, to justify its past crime of having inflicted the horrible disaster upon the humankind is a part of its dangerous attempts to realize its ambition for reinvasion, that is, to repeat its history of aggression. And its move of flying again the “flag of rising sun shedding rays” – symbol of militarism – and giving a deep bow to the specters of militarism is an apparent sign of its cherished wild ambition for reinvasion and revenge.
Through these moves, Japan has revealed itself to the whole world that what it calls as a “peaceful state” is a mere sham and that it remains unchanged as being a belligerent force, and it is a peace-threatening state which might ignite a war at any moment.
The more Japan praises the A-class war criminals by taking out the garbage buried in the grave of defeat, the more conspicuous its true color as a peace-violating state will become. Day by day, there are growing criticisms by the international society directed at the Japanese militaristic forces who encourage the usage of “flag of rising sun shedding rays” and the visit to Yasukuni Shrine.
The descendants of the war criminal state that turned a blind eye to the liquidation of its past would never hold their heads up before the international society out of their feelings of guilt and disgrace.
Cha Hye Gyong
Researcher, Institute for Studies of Japan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
