Summary
There have been allegations that some of the mission's members had serious conflicts of interest because they represented American financial organizations that had extensive pre-war dealings with the Japan's so-called zaibatsus, which were the industrial groupings that dominated the Japanese economy in the first half of the 20th century. If there were more frankness in Japan, Koizumi would see less profit in posturing at the Yasukuni Shrine (a controversial war memorial notorious for honoring war criminals by name).
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Extract
Life After Wartime
IN ALL THE PUBLIC BICKERING REcently between Japan and China, one fact has received remarkably little attention: Japan's continuing refusal to pay compensation to victims of its militarist-era brutality.
Ever since Japan surrendered in August 1945, one of the Japanese government's key policy objectives has been to slough off all such compensation claims. Japanese officials seem never to have discussed their argument against compensation publicly, but it would appear to amount to no more than the sotto voce invocation of the old saw that all's fair in love and war. Any defense lawyer taking Japan's case would no doubt a...See the full content of this document
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