September 3 is a V day in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. A question occurred to me when I was pondering the stagnated Sino-Japanese political ties at present. Japanese writer Handou Kazutoshi reminisced in his works, the "History of Showa (1945-1989) in Postwar Years", published in April this year that a law minister and other cabinet officials then secretly drafted before the Tokyo trial a "plan for the trial of war criminals", and met with opposition from Emperor Showa.

Kazutoshi, the writer, set forth a hypothesis: what would be the outcome of the trial at the end of World War II if the trial was conducted by the Japanese themselves, and it is indeed an intriguing question. If that was the case, according to his inferences, there could be more death penalties,.

People in Japan then had a memory of their deep-rooted tragedies in the war years with a vehement hatred for the war. If the Japanese people put war criminals on trial themselves, more of these criminals would possibly be brought to justice with even severer penalties possibly given to them than by the international war crime tribunal. As history cannot be hypothesized, it was impossible for the epoch-making Tokyo trial to recur.

The Japanese people was plunged into a 50-year war cycle, which began with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 launched by the Japanese troops to annex Korea and invade China and the Japan-Russia war of 1905 and ended with World War II in 1945. The prices they paid in these wars within such a chronic cycle and in all dimensions imbued the people in Japan with a very, special approach toward criticism.

The Japanese people, who have endured untold sufferings during the second world war, are full aware that the war crimes have to be traced back not only to the Pacific War Japan started in 1941, but all the way back to the wars of aggression it launched against China, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and the Japan-Russia War of 1905. Meanwhile, the war crimes should not be limited to the battlefields but the causes of wars have to be checked and verified.

The Japanese militarists defeated during World War II had dreamed of leniency from the trials possibly to be held by Japan as they overestimated their status in the minds of the Japanese people. It was surely an in-depth, profound education for the entire people of Japan in denouncing war crimes of Japanese war criminals.

The conclusion of the world war is of course done by the whole international community and, in the final analysis, however, it is up to the 130 million people in Japan to transform their own society.

The Tokyo Trial 60 years ago has gone down as part of the world history; and there will be more similar opportunities in the future and the Japanese people should be the leading force to do away with war trashes. As for China, it will place all the more hope on the part of the Japanese people whenever more twists and turns possibly emerge in Sino-Japanese relations.

Whenever comparisons are made between Japan and Germany, people will refer Japan as a nation with a lesser sense of remorse toward history. A noted Japanese thinker, named Taheshi Umehara, acknowledged in his book "Theory of Japanese Culture": one has to get to know fully the intrinsic, in-depth Japanese cultural characteristics if he really wants to understand Japan more thoroughly. The greatest cultural feature of Japan, he said, lies in the "diversity" of its national characteristics and its modern road of "conservancy."

The diversity of Japan have made its innate political nature more subtle and deceptive. To date, many people in Japan still do not know much about what Japanese war veterans had done to the people of other nations during World War II, as these veterans, either before and after the war, passed themselves off as normal, kind and amiable people before commoners in Japan and ordinary Japanese today are unwilling or even reluctant to admit the ugly side of these elders.

Moreover, Japan is one of the few typical major powers worldwide without undergoing violent revolutions. Ever since the Meiji Restoration (or Reform) of 1868-1912, major social changes and transformations have been done mainly through peaceful reform measures and the country has followed the conservative capitalist mode of development and eventually embarked on the road of militarism. And the six-decade steady growth in the postwar period has provided a breeding ground for the conservative force of Japanese society.

The character of conservatism has greatly restricted the diversity of the Japanese nation and turned the combination of the team work spirit and exclusiveness into the narrow nationalism. The diplomatic moves, which look absurd, ignorant and evil to other nations, has played a role on the basis of internal factors in Japan and, with the manipulation of some politicians, has led to a dilemma facing the people of Japan today.

If the war crime trial was held by the Japanese themselves, they would certainly give scope to the diversity of their nation, and many of them will expose and analyze the leading role of internal factors and come to realize the necessity for the remorse. At the end of their visit to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, quite a few Japanese "were as if they worked up from their dreams". As a matter of fact, it is hard for a nation to avoid mistakes. Nevertheless, it provides the nation with a chance to turn over a new leaf if it is able to mercilessly expose and criticize its own errors. And the international community should provide Japan with such opportunities with greater courage.

In the past six-decade postwar period, Japan has been very strict with other nations but is kind and lenient toward itself. Some Japanese compare the Nanjing Massacre to the "Atom Bombs Dropping " in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 in a vain bid to justify the towering crimes of intruding Japanese troops in the city of Nanjing. So, there is more room for Japanese conservative forces to maneuver, and so the Japanese people feel in mind even more distant from the people elsewhere in Asia and the world at large. Such changes in Japan today are worrisome in the wake of increasing globalization today.

If the clock of history turns 60 years backward, do anyone dare to pay homage to Japan's war dead at Yasukuni Shrine, including 14 convicted class A war Criminals, and whoever prime minister dare openly prostrate himself in worship to war criminals?

Japan's problems are brought by the Japanese themselves, as the hypothesis indicates, and it is only up to the Japanese themselves to resolve them. And the crux of matter lies in the fostering of the correct ideology and mode of action in Japan.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in mid August has again drawn big repercussions in Japan and repeated criticisms from various walks of life. The people of Japan should not miss this chance of retrospection on history and the international community should also exert itself to create ample conditions to translate it into reality. In fact, the Japanese people have never ceased reflecting on what their nation has done and is bent on making self-trials of various forms. So, people around the world have ample reasons to confide in the Japanese people amid the ongoing tide of the world's peaceful development.

Source: Global Times, translated by People's Daily Online