For the first time in recent memory, a top Japanese official has told the truth about some of the events that brought the Pacific war to a close in 1945.
It cost him his job – and likely his political career as well.
Fumio Kyuma last week was forced to step down as Japan’s defense minister, just days after delivering a speech in which he said he understood why America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“I understand that the bombings ended the war, and I think that it couldn’t be helped,” said Kyuma – who, incidentally, was born in Nagasaki.
Indeed, he added, though the attacks caused great suffering in the two cities, the sudden end of the war spared Japan from losing part of its northern territories to the Soviet Union – which had declared war and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria on the day Nagasaki was bombed.
Predictably, a political maelstrom erupted.
That’s because Kyuma’s remarks, though historically accurate, are completely at odds with Japan’s revisionist notion of its role in World War II, not to mention the national sensitivity over nuclear weapons.
Amid angry denunciations, Kyuma tried apologizing and accepted an official reprimand. But the outcry refused to die down.
On Tuesday, he accepted the inevitable and resigned – much to relief of embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who faces national elections this month at a time when his standing in the polls has plummeted below 30 percent.
Of course, the atomic bombings are far from the only wartime issue on which Japan maintains its own version of events.
Abe himself has faced international criticism for his assertion, as recently as last March, that 200,000 Asian “comfort women” were not forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military.
Kyuma’s remarks, though, touch a particular nerve – even as Japan is beginning to confront regional nuclear issues involving North Korea’s WMD ambitions.
And they come also at a time when ancient Japanese-Chinese rivalries are reviving, and when calls are growing for Japan to adopt security postures commensurate with its role as a global economic power.
When that happens, a nuclear-armed Japan won’t be far behind.
Meanwhile, Americans need feel no guilt or shame over having used the weapon more than 60 years ago.
Nor should Kyuma, for having spoken a politically unpopular, but nevertheless undeniable, truth.