"Japan has made unforgivable mistakes against the people of Nanjing, and as a politician, I would like to express my deep apology to the people of Nanjing."
This is what Toshiki Kaibe, the 48th Prime Minister of Japan, said when he visited Nanjing to participate in the event. Under the circumstance that Japan's right-wing forces have long occupied the mainstream, it is rare to hear an apology to China from the Japanese population; especially from the mouth of the former Japanese prime minister, it is even more rare in history to publicly express an apology to China.
There may be many people who are not clear about what kind of political force the Japanese right wing is, but let me briefly describe its characteristics.
First: The Japanese right-wing is ideologically obsessed with dominating the world. For example, advocating the theory of racial superiority, reviving militarism, practicing absolute monarchy, and pursuing the aggressive line of preying on the weak and the strong are all the ideas of the Japanese right-wing forces. Even the current Peace Constitution has been resisted by right-wing forces, which strongly support the abolition of Article IX restricting force.
Second: The Japanese right has close ties with conservative parties. Many Japanese politicians or political parties are part of the right-wing forces, especially the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Restoration Association. For example, the founder of the Restoration Association, Toru Hashimoto, who served as the mayor of Osaka, publicly denied the japanese military's crime of forcibly recruiting comfort women in World War II; and Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister of the Liberal Democratic Party, publicly visited the Yasukuni Shrine five times in the name of the prime minister in the name of the prime minister in the name of the prime minister.
Third: Japan's right-wing is hostile to China. In terms of relations with China, the performance of Japan's right-wing is to strengthen the Japan-US alliance to jointly deal with China, and even openly deny the fact of the Nanjing Massacre as a lie made up by China. In textbooks, the history of invasion, massacre, and forced conscription of comfort women is deleted to brainwash the next generation of Japanese people.
All of the above acts are characteristic of Japan's right-wing forces.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visited the Nanjing Massacre Victims Memorial Hall
As a result, the right-wing forces in Japan have always occupied the mainstream, and the Japanese people have always been prejudiced and hostile to China. Let's take the most straightforward example. In June 2018, former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who is influential in Japanese politics, came to the Nanjing Massacre Victims Memorial Hall, but was insulted by right-wing forces in Japan, calling him a "national thief".
This is also an important factor in why Japanese people have a high bad impression of Chinese. In 2021, according to polls, the proportion of Japanese people who have a bad impression of China is as high as 90.9%.
And Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe is precisely from the liberal democratic party of the right-wing forces, so why can he face up to history and become a clear stream of right-wing parties?
In fact, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe's correct view of history has a lot to do with his life experience.
On January 2, 1931, Toshiki Kaibe was born in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, at this time Japan had begun the route of foreign aggression and expansion, and eight months after his birth, Japan launched the 918 Incident in northeast China, kicking off the prelude to China's 14-year War of Resistance.
It can be said that Toshiki Kaibe lived throughout his childhood in a period of expansion of Japanese militarism against foreign countries, and he not only witnessed the crimes of Japanese soldiers' aggression against China, but was also forced to participate indirectly in it.
Since at the end of World War II, Japan opened up fronts in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Theater, and invested a large number of troops, which greatly reduced the number of strong men in Japan, adults, including some minors, were pushed into the battlefield, and thirteen or fourteen-year-old children like Toshiki Kaibe were forced to work in Japanese military factories to support Japanese operations.
Toshiki Kaibe used to work on the engine part of the fighter jet in the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company factory, fixing the engine to avoid shaking during flight, and these fighters were used to fight with the US military and fly to China's airspace to launch ground attacks.
At the same time, Toshiki Kaibe was a victim of World War II. Japan simultaneously confronted China and the United States on both the east and west coasts of the Pacific, and this arrogant act of war provoked the Americans to join the ranks of the war against Japan. The U.S. military not only sent a large number of fighters to bomb the Japanese mainland, but also dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Toshiki Kaibe's home in Nagoya was blown up by A U.S. military plane.
For his part, Toshiki Kaibe hated war, and he hated the belligerence of the Japanese militarist forces, because the war launched by Japan caused Toshiki Kaibe to go to school and have no home to return to.
Emperor Hirohito of Japan read the instrument of surrender
When 14-year-old Toshiki Kaibe heard the surrender letter from Emperor Hirohito of Japan, he said in a liberating tone: Ah, it's good, relax.
Toshiki Kaibe, who has experienced battlefield trauma, has already left a deep imprint on his psychology, that is, Japan has brought great aggression to China, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia and other countries during World War II, and It is an indisputable fact that Japan is the perpetrator.
It is also based on this that Toshiki Kaibe vowed to actively enter the political arena and rely on political influence to be a lover and promoter of peace.
The 29-year-old Toshiki Kaibe, after completing his undergraduate and graduate studies at Waseda University, joined the Liberal Democratic Party, where Abe now belongs, and through his own efforts, he rose to higher positions step by step, and with the support of the largest faction, the Takeshita faction, he became prime minister in August 1989 at the age of 58, and was re-elected for another term, serving as prime minister for 812 days.
As Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe was at the peak of Japan's economic bubble during his tenure, he struggled to propose reforms and was forced to step down because he failed to meet his goals.
However, just 87 days before he was ousted, on August 10, 1991, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe visited China, which was then "sanctioned" by the United States and Europe, under great pressure, becoming the first Western head of state to still have face-to-face contact with China in that context.
It is worth noting that during Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe's visit to China, two more touching things happened.
First, Toshiki Kaibe pays tribute to Chinese heroes. On the second day of Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe's visit to China, he went to Tiananmen Square to lay wreaths at the Monument to the People's Heroes and to pay tribute to the heroes who sacrificed for China's national liberation and national independence, including, of course, the national heroes who died in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
At this point, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe became the fourth prime minister to lay a wreath at the Monument to the People's Heroes after Prime Minister Yoshiyuki Suzuki in 1982, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1984, and Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita in 1988. However, toshiki Kaibe's friendly behavior caused dissatisfaction among the right-wing forces, and the prime minister of Haibe ignored it.
Second, Toshiki Kaibe extended a helping hand to China's floods. During Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe's visit to China, he happened to see from the plane that east China had suffered a major flood, and he also specially instructed the pilot to fly at a low altitude under the premise of safety to confirm the situation of the flood. Therefore, when Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe talked with Premier Li Peng of the State Council, he specifically emphasized the flood disaster, saying: If there is anything we can do, please tell us, and we will help as much as possible.
It should be known that after China's reform and opening up, the Japanese government has begun to carry out a thirty- or forty-year china aid program with China, providing China with huge loans, various forms of technical cooperation or free aid. Previously, When Prime Minister Toshiki Umibe visited China, Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita promised to provide loans of 810 billion yen for 42 projects from 1990 to 1995, which coincided with the term of Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe. In view of the flood disaster in East China that Toshiki Kaibe saw during his visit to China, he also immediately decided to increase the Japanese government's aid to China to help China tide over the difficulties.
It can be seen from this that Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe is indeed a sentient and righteous head of government.
Although we did not see Prime Minister Toshiki Kaibe apologize on behalf of the Japanese government for his crimes of aggression that year, after stepping down as Prime Minister, Toshiki Kaibe visited Nanjing twice in 2000 and 2010 to express his apologies to the Chinese.
Toshiki Kaibe is also one of only four Japanese prime ministers who have visited Nanjing so far, along with Tomiichi Murayama, Yukio Hatoyama, and Yasuo Fukuda.
As for the facts of aggression, Toshiki Kaibe dared to admit and admit his mistakes. I remember that once the parent official of Toshiki Kaibe's hometown, Nagoya Mayor Takayuki Kawamura, denied the Nanjing Massacre, and Toshiki Haibe directly angered the mayor for stupidity and apologized to the Chinese people on behalf of the mayor. And he strongly recommended that the Yasukuni Shrine's Class-A war criminals be distinguished.
Now the Toshiki Ebbe people are gone! There are fewer and fewer people of insight in Japan.