Zhongnanhai

Now, it’s one thing if the hated Japanese and their former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi make visits to the infamous Yasukuni Shrine.  The disgust with the Japanese runs deep here, and Koizumi’s decision to attend the shrine each year he was in office just confirmed Chinese beliefs that Japan, and its ruling Liberal Democratic Party, had not "come to terms with history."

But now this… former Taiwan President Lee Tung-hui plans to visit the shrine to pay respects to Japan’s war dead.  Why, you ask?  According to an article in the Taipei Times, he will be honoring his brother. 

Former president Lee Teng-hui yesterday said he would like to visit the Yasukuni shrine, a controversial memorial to war dead where his elder brother is enshrined.

Lee’s elder brother served in the Japanese navy and died while on duty in February 1945 in the Philippines.

"I have not yet decided on the timing, but since I am here, I think that I should go see my brother," Lee told reporters on his arrival at Narita airport near Tokyo.

"I will meet my brother for the first time in 60 years," Lee said.

Lee, accompanied by his wife Tseng Wen-hui, left for Japan yesterday for a 10-day visit.

Speaking to Japanese reporters on the flight from Taipei, the 84-year-old former leader said he wanted to pray at the Yasukuni shrine because he did not know how much longer he would live.

The issue has touched a nerve in Taiwan, and rightly so.  Last year I made a visit to Yaskuni myself.  It’s a very sombre place, and steeped in history. Adjacent to the shrine is the Yasukuni War Museum, which I also visited.  Outside the building it lists the different exhibits inside.  For example, "World War II", "The Meiji Restoration", etc.  And at the bottom of the list is the last exhibit, simply titled "The China Incident."

Inside, great pains are made by the museum to explain that Japan was never at war with China, because Tokyo had never "declared" war.  Thus, the word "incident".  After reading Iris Chang’s excellent book on the Nanjing Massacre, I was anxious to read what the museum had to say.  Indeed, it was simply called the "Nanking Incident". This is the exact wording:

After the Japanese surrounded Nanking in December 1937, Gen. Matsui Iwane distributed maps to his men with foreign settlements and the Safety Zone marked in red ink. Matsui told them that they were to observe military rules to the letter and that anyone committing unlawful acts would be severely punished.  He also warned Chinese troops to surrender, but Commander-in-Chief Tang Shengzhi ignored the warning.  Instead, he ordered his men to defend Nanking to the death, and then abandoned them.  The Chinese were soundly defeated, suffering heavy casualties.  Inside the city, residents were once again able to live their lives in peace.

I added the Italics. If that’s not enough, here is the official Japanese take on "the Russo-Japanese War to the Manchurian Incident".

Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War and subsequent annexation of Korea resolved concerns about national security, which had been festering for years. Relief and exultation delayed the Japanese response to a new world situation. When World War I began, Japan cooperated with the Allies, capturing German possessions (Qingdao and the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands), and dispatching a special fleet to the Mediterranean Sea and other troops to Siberia. Meanwhile, at the Washington Conference in the U.S., plans were made to disrupt the new, postwar order in Asia and to prevent further Japanese expansion. The Chinese, now nationalistic and xenophobic after the revolution, focused their animosity on Japan.  An anti-Japanese movement in Manchuria and discord within the Kwantung Army resulted in the Manchurian Incident and the establishment of Manchukuo.

The exhibit goes on to say that Manchukuo is territory that is "currently governed by the Chinese."

Clearly, this is the way that the Japanese military establishment views its past, and on that note I sympathize with the Chinese.  Anyone that knows me knows I love Japan and Japanese culture.  Japan, and what the country has been able to accomplish in the past 60 years, sets a great example for other countries, like China.  Japan is industrious, the people are hard-working, and it has been able to pull off something perhaps China is failing at: holding onto old traditions while embracing western culture and modernity (which are not the same, I hasten to add).

Nonetheless, places like the Yasukuni Museum puts a taint on Japan. I have no problem with Japanese leaders remembering their war dead, but enshrining class A war criminals goes too far. 

Back to Lee Tung-hui. His visit is being criticized by lawmakers in his former party, the KMT. This, from a second article in the Taipei Times:

KMT lawmakers Hung Hsiu-chu and Joanna Lei called a press conference yesterday morning to condemn Lee’s planned visit, calling Lee a "liar" for saying he wished to honor his deceased brother.

They said the spirit of Lee’s elder brother had been brought back to Taiwan about 20 years ago and put in Chihua Temple, Peipu Township, Hsinchu County.

They showed a picture of a tablet bearing the Japanese name of Lee’s brother, his date of birth and pointed to the name of Lee’s father, Lee Ching-long, as evidence.

"There is no tablet, remains or any spirit of his brother at Yasukuni. There is only an enshrinement list there. The spirits of [Taiwanese] soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni were all relocated to the Chihua temple. I don’t know what Lee is going to honor." Hung said.

Hung said she suspected that Lee’s planned visit to the shrine was aimed at infuriating China.

I would guess the two lawmakers are correct.  As much as I support the right of the Taiwanese to determine their own future, actions like Lee’s can only be seen to enrage China, and he has a long history of such actions. Hopefully Chinese leaders will ignore Lee’s provocative move.

In the 2004 Democratic primaries, I slowly became a John Edwards fan.  I felt John Kerry was unelectable to red-meat red-staters, and it turned out to be true.  Howard Dean was obviously too shrill and generally just nuts.  Edwards’ drawback was his inexperience (much like Barack Obama today), but he had charisma, was a great orator, was from the south, and seemed generally likeable (also like Obama, minus the south part).

It could be argued Edwards’ star has fallen since then, especially according to an article published in TIME magazine.  The article, written by veteran campaign manager Bob Shrum, recounts the days John Kerry was agonizing over who to select as his running mate. It says veteran Missouri Senator Dick Gephardt was the man Kerry felt most comfortable with.

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

Kerry did go on to pick Edwards, and the article concludes with Kerry regretting the decision. It also says Edwards promised Kerry he wouldn’t run against him in 2008, a promise we will never know if he had any intention of keeping.  But Shrum makes Edwards seem vacuous and power-hungry.

The article is actually an excerpt from Shrum’s new book, No Excuses - Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. Having read the article and some of the reviews on Amazon.com, I think this is a book I’ll likely be picking up on my next trip home.  Publisher’s Weekly characterized the book this way:

With this lengthy but frequently gripping memoir, Shrum recounts his three-decade career in American politics, which he began as a speechwriter for New York’s Mayor John Lindsay and ended as a campaign strategist for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. More insider history than memoir, the book focuses almost exclusively on the author’s professional experience, featuring richly detailed accounts of his efforts working on Edward Kennedy’s, Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential bids (conversely, Shrum covers his engagement and wedding to Marylouise, his wife of 18 years, in three swift pages). Unsurprisingly, given his background, Shrum writes with eloquence and passion; more unexpected is his disarming candor. He’s by turns effusive and brutal, for example waxing poetic about Edward Kennedy after vehemently criticizing Jimmy Carter. Later, he voices somewhat harsh ambivalence toward Bill Clinton. A deep sense of disappointment pervades the book: Shrum’s string of failed presidential campaigns led to talk of the "Shrum curse," which the author never managed to overcome. Casual judgments and frank disclosures along the way make this a provocative and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at American politics.