WW II was much larger in scale and longer in time than WW I. There were two major war theaters, one on the Continent of Europe and One in Asia Pacific. The first theater was the principal battle ground for the Allied, the U.S., U.K., France, China (and Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the Soviet Union), fighting against the Axis Germany and Italy, whereas the Asia Pacific theater was the main battle ground for the Allied, China, the U.S., U.K., France (and the Soviet Union, India, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) fighting against the Axis Imperial Japan (the order of Allied nations signify the size of military forces involved in the theater). Post WW II, numerous books, films and documents especially news media and Hollywood productions are devoted to the European part of WW II. This is because that Germany, after its surrender, has assumed its responsibility of committing the war crimes. Just on the holocaust alone, the world has learned all the naked truth from the published materials, many based on valuable and indisputable official records. On the other hand, the world (particularly young generations born decades after the war) knows very little details about the WW II in the Asia Pacific Theater other than the atomic bomb made Japan surrender. Basically, Japan after surrender tried every means to deny its war crimes against Asian nations, to this day still white-washing the WW II crimes in Japanese textbooks. Japan denies the Nanking Massacre where 300,000 innocent people were slaughtered. Japan also denies its sex slavery program known as ‘Comfort Women’. Japan has hidden the truth about its biological warfare and bacteria experiments applied to civilians and POWs.
 
Recently, an exhibit, Forgotten Camp: POW at Shenyang, was held at the the WWII Pacific War Memorial Hall, 809 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, from November 21 to December 5, 2017. The US edition of China Daily and the Chinese Consulate of San Francisco sponsored the exhibit. The Memorial Hall is small but the story is big and significant for Americans, especially for American veterans. The Japanese Imperial Army ignored the Geneva Convention and treated POWs cruelly. Tens of thousands of American POW died of torture and inhumane treatment. It is too sad and hard for anyone to tell the horrible stories. Only through a curator’s exhibit one may realize how the POWs were brutally treated by the Japanese Imperial Army. Shenyang camp is just one example of the 200+ camps. In contrast to the European theater, the Japanese military was far more brutal than the Germans as evidenced by the numerous massacres caught on film and photos. The Shenyang POW Exhibit was shown in the U.S. for the first time, but it should be exhibited everywhere for every American to understand the truth about the suffering of POWs. The Chinese government and Asian Americans in California should be applauded for their effort to put up this exhibit. The U.S. government and other states should make similar effort to inform Americans everywhere about the Shenyang POWs.
 
The Shenyang POW Camp was established to lock up the high-ranking officials of the Allied forces taken prisoner during the war, including 2,000 captives from the Allied Nations from 1942 to 1945 with about 1,200 being Americans. The exhibition is called "The Forgotten Camp" because this camp and its story went forgotten for half a century until scholars uncovered it in 2003. Japanese forces incarcerated some 2,000 Allied troops at this notorious Mukden POW Camp also known as Shenyang WW II Allied POW Camp located in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang. It is maintained as a historic site and museum today, the best preserved of the more than 200 POW camps established by Japanese forces in the Asian-Pacific Theater. Through assembled photographs, drawings and artifacts, the exhibition offers a glimpse into the hardships endured by the nearly 2,000 Allied prisoners, some among the high-ranking officers taken captive. The exhibit also reveals the friendships that took root between the prisoners and the local Chinese workers who risked their lives to help the POWs.
 
Compared with the European theater in WW II, the American public has heard so little about the atrocities and sufferings inflicted upon the Chinese people and POWs of the Allied Nations by the Japanese Imperial Army in China as well as in other Asian countries. Showing this exhibit in the home country of those POWs is significant in that the forgotten truth about the service men, who had fought side by side and helped one another but unfortunately mercilessly murdered by the Japanese Army, is finally told. Shenyang Camp was established to prison the high-ranking officials of the Allied forces captured during WW II. Among those notable inmates was US Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, commander of Allied forces in the Philippines, who survived and received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Fall of Bataan. The Battle of Bataan (7 January – 9 April 1942) represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during WW II. Despite a lack of supplies, Filipino and American forces managed to fight the Japanese for three months. After the surrender at Bataan, 76000 soldiers altogether were forced into the Bataan Death March, a 60+miles march under severe physical abuse and wanton killings.
 
Jewish Americans were credited for their effort in exposing the holocaust and preventing it to ever happen again. Germany has made sincere apology and contributed to the Memorial effort. Germans are respected for supporting their postwar government’s actions condemning the war crimes including legislations to outlaw speeches to praise Nazis and their WW II crimes. On the other hand, Japan is doing the opposite hiding and distorting the facts about the Asia Pacific WW II. Postwar Japanese government denies Nanking massacre, comfort women, and bacteria experiments on human which happened in Shenyang POW camp. One puzzles why the U.S. having the first hand experience with the brutal Japanese war crimes is rather lame regarding telling the truth, rarely taking a position to challenge Japan’s lies and denials about war crimes, whitewashing its textbooks and protesting American citizens for erecting a ‘Comfort Women’ statue in San Francisco.
 
Allowing Japan continuously denying its war crimes for seven decades is utterly unfair to the American WW II servicemen. Does the U.S. government take such an injustice position simply because the U.S. and Japan have a mutual defense treaty? Precisely because of such a Treaty, we should be more open and honest about the past war crimes. Only when Japan sincerely admits its war crimes and accepts the guilt like Germans did, then American soldiers can ever trust the Japanese soldiers and fight for their defense. One also puzzles why the Japanese people living in a democratic society keep voting for politicians whose ancestry having strong ties with the Japanese Imperial Army, thus making the above said denials and distorted textbooks persistent for seven decades. If the world does not stand up to challenge the Japanese war crime denials and lies, we should be afraid that those crimes may be committed again!
 
The two puzzling questions cited above present a psychological burden to Americans and Japanese. Japanese Americans resented the internment during WW II but the American government had apologized for such injustice. American citizens all regret it ever happened. However, the internment camps were in no way comparable to the cruel POW Camps ran by the Japanese Imperial Army. Why shouldn’t Japan admit its guilt so its citizens can be free from this psychological burden? The perpetual denial and unwillingness to apologize and show remorse is casting Japan into a dark character and all Japanese citizen hypocrites! Why can’t Japan admit its war crimes like Germany?!
 


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San Francisco is one of the most attractive and iconic cities in the U.S., most picturesque in her natural beauty and man-made structures, represented by the rolling hills, ocean views, street cars and the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge across the San Francisco Bay. San Francisco became American in 1848 after the U.S. won the Mexican-American War. After independence from Mexico, immediately came the gold rush of 1849, the city quickly became the largest and most important town and a commercial, naval, and financial center in the American West. Then, San Francisco was devastated by a great earthquake and fire in 1906, but she was quickly rebuilt and developed into a major business city through and to mid 1950. In the latter half of the 1960s, San Francisco became the city most famous for the hippie movement. In recent decades, with the rise of hi-tech industry in Silicon Valley lifting Californians’ tech industry and residents’ income, San Francisco has become an important center of finance and advanced technology. Consequently it also became one of America's most expensive places to live. San Francisco is the most attractive and respected city on the West coast.
 
Recently, San Francisco appeared in all the news media because of a statue. A string of publications in US major news media reported on the Comfort Women again because San Francisco accepted a comfort women statue. For example, Why Is the Plight of Comfort Women Still So Controversial by Ilara Maria Sala was published in NYTimes on 8-14-2017, An Important Statue of Comfort Women in San Francisco by Sally McGrane appeared in The New Yorker on 10-12-2017 and Comfort Women Statue in S.F. Leads to Japanese City to Cut Ties was published by Jacey Fortin in NYTimes, 11-25-2017. In public opinion, it is a good thing that the US media are paying more attention to the Comfort Women statue being erected to memorialize the victimized women as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during WW II, since the issue has always confused the Americans why Japan cannot simply accept this historical fact and put the issue to rest. The Japanese media, not surprisingly, commented again in a sour tone about the S.F. comfort women statue; a typical response was represented by the Editorial of Japan Forward: Japan Should Call for Removal of the Comfort Women Statue(s) in the U.S. published on 12-1-2017. Thus, we know we cannot stop discussing the ‘Comfort Women’ issue until Justice is finally served.
 
The San Francisco Comfort Women Statue, is the first one established in a major US City and is located at the St Mary’s Square in San Francisco. The Statue was promoted by the Chinese American communities and supported by the Korean-, Filipino-, Japanese- and Jewish-Americans organizations as well. The Project in its design phase was championed by the former S.F. City Supervisor, Eric Mar. The artist created the statue, Steven Whyte, voluntarily reduced his fees to do this project and did extensive research for this project. The statue of three women holding hand-in-hand was well done symbolizing the 200,000 Korean, Chinese and Filipino women who had been tortured as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army from 1932 to1945. The current San Francisco Mayor, Edwin Lee, officially accepted this donation of Comfort Woman Statue as a  public property of San Francisco on 11-22-2017. Many positive supportive comments from the public are in sharp contrast to the angry criticism from the Osaka Mayor and the Japanese diplomatic officials’ denouncement. Even Whyte received 1200 negative mails threatening to boycott his art.  Therefore, sadly, it looks like that the Comfort Women issue may never be resolved as a human rights issue before the few still remaining comfort women survivals, now in their nineties, die.
 
According to the research of Prof. Elisabeth Jean Wood, Political Science, Yale University, the Japanese ‘Comfort Stations’ (housing comfort women) were initiated in 1930’s and the program was greatly expanded after the Nanking Massacre in 1937. A comfort woman victim, Lee Ok-Seon, Korean, testified in a video: “In one day, we had to serve 40-50 soldiers! Girls who refused were tied up against the wall and slashed open with knives.” Another victim, Dutch woman, Jan Ruff-O’Herne, testified in a television interview: “The Japanese soldiers laughed at our protests (the forced sex slavery was a crime based on the Geneva Convention).” Jan lived in shames for decades not daring to tell her two daughters what happened to her. Prof. Elaine Kim, professor of Asian-American and Asian-Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley, commented about the statue: “Publicly memorializing the rape of woman is rare. Women are half of humanity (but) women are not represented in history. Nothing will be done about the crimes done to these comfort women if they remain in the shadows.”
 
The 42 year old Osaka Mayor (12/2015 - present), Hirofumi Yoshimura (born 6-17-1975), vowed to stop his city’s sister city relation with S.F. City, if she accepts the comfort women statue. Yoshimura claimed that the comfort women story differed from his own understanding of the history. This is a common problem for Japanese born after WW II. They were brought up and educated with the Japanese government white washed history textbooks about WW II war crimes. The purpose was to honor the WW II Japanese Imperial Army. Yoshimura’s political mentor, former Osaka Mayor, Tory Hashimoto (born 6-29-1969, a political ally of Abe Shinzo), had expressed similar philosophy about the Japanese war crime, saying that the comfort women were necessary for the Japanese Imperial Army during the war. Commenting on the rape crimes committed by the US soldiers in Okinawa military base, he recommended: “the American soldiers have too much energy, they should be encouraged to use the local adult entertainment industry to relieve their energy.” This kind of philosophy was used without conscience to provide the Japanese Imperial soldiers with comfort women during WW II.
 
Former Congressman, Mike Honda, a Japanese American who experienced the internment during WW II, made the following fair assessment about the comfort women issue: “The Japanese government’s stance on the issue has been a problem (causing many Asian people being angry at Japan)” Honda cited Japan’s Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo’s flip-flop statements as evidence. Abe Shinzo once said:”We are really sorry.” Then flipped: “It never happened.” Honda had brought Jan Ruff-O’Herne to testify before the Congress, but that did not seem to produce any sincere apology or true remorse from the Japanese government. When President Trump was making a State visit to South Korea recently, President Moon Jae-In invited comfort women victims to the State Dinner for Trump, with a clear message – the U.S. should take an honest stand on the Comfort Women Issue.
 
San Francisco has 18 sister cities. Osaka was the first city requesting a sister-city tie with San Francisco in 1968. Osaka’s cutting the sister-city tie with S.F. will only make S.F. more respectful and will make a serious blemish on the image of Osaka and Japan. A shame Osaka brings to herself. The world will be reminded that Japan still denies its war crimes - comfort women and others, crimes condemned by the U.N. investigation and evidenced by numerous testimonies. Japan’s denial is directly traceable to the dishonest distortion of history textbooks created by the Japanese government. Actually, there are honest Japanese scholars who understand and believe in the true historical facts. Unfortunately, they are demonized by politicians with ancestry tied to Japanese Imperial Army. Japan’s distorted textbooks are like malicious tumors; their presence and growth will eventually corrupt Japan’s conscience, disconnecting Japan from the international community. The sooner Japan can cut off these tumors, the earlier the Japanese people can live in peace with themselves and the world!
 
Ifay Chang. Ph.D. Producer/Host, Community Education - Scrammble Game Show, Weekly TV Columnist, www.us-chinaforum.org . Trustee, Somers Central School District.
 
 
 

 
Since the United States established her independence from the British Empire, it took over one hundred years to get her onto the world stage as a world power. The American foreign policy like that of   every other nation has always placed her own interest first, i.e. American First. Even her first major foreign policy doctrine, the Monroe doctrine, was designed to be American First. Since clearly it was to the U.S. interest to stop the various imperial powers to expand their influence especially occupation into the North and South American Continents. As a nation, the U.S. has applied the American First principle very well through the WW I and WW II eventually achieving the number one superpower status. Since the end of WW II, the U.S. has become the strongest nation in the world unchallenged.
 
Today, the U.S. is still the strongest nation; however, she does face a number of serious challenges in maintaining her world number one status, especially regarding her ability to control the stacking order of the world powers. The fact that President Trump got elected based on the campaign slogan, America First, is simply a reflection of the situation that the current American domestic issues and international relations have shaken the U.S. ability to control the stacking order of the world, even possibly losing her number one status. Therefore, it is necessary to retune the American First principle to revitalize America through reconstruction of the U.S. infrastructure, recharge her national productivity and redraft the US international trade agreements. President Trump’s campaign victory is basically a confirmation of the need of retuning the American First principle.
 
In the past 70 years post WW II, the U.S. was able to conduct her foreign policies not only in maintaining her superpower status but also in controlling the world stacking order, especially determining which nation be a distant second, a third, etc. The U.S. rightly recognized the threat of the Soviet style communism, expansionistic in nature, right after WW II; hence anti-communism has been adopted as the principal pillar of the American First principle. During the post WW II recovery period, the U.S. was suppressing the Soviet Union and reconstructing the UK, Japan, Germany and France with an obvious goal to prevent the Soviet from challenging the U.S. and to arrange a distant second, third, fourth and fifth world power. It made all the sense to offer a Marshall plan in Europe and to conduct a rebuilding Japan blue print for such a goal. In order to contain the Soviet Union, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established.
 
Asia was so devastated by the Japanese aggression throughout WW II. Controlling Japan was essential for controlling Asia since China and India were very weak. Even though Japan was bombed by atomic bombs, Japan was still a far more developed nation which had looted all sorts of resources from other Asian nations prior to and during WW II. It was expected that Japan could recover fast in Asia. Indeed, her economy had risen to be number two in the world next to the U.S. in the 1980’s. Will Japan ever threaten the U.S. was never out of the question in the minds of world statesmen, however, Japan had played a loyal second role honoring the American First principle especially after her economy experienced an asset bubble collapse (1986-1991) bringing her economy down to stagnation even to this date.
 
The post WW II anti-Soviet policy evolved into a Cold War lasted four decades or more. Eventually, the dual strategy of economic sanction and arms race between the US led NATO and Soviet led WARSAW resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. The U.S. economy started its boom from 1991, after the first Gulf War (1990-1991, oil price crisis), a high inflation spike (1988-89) and recession (1989-1991). The boom lasted for ten years, initially a jobless recovery then an investment in dot.com propelling the stock market boom until the dot.com collapsed in 2000 resulting in a recession (2001). The 9-11 terrorists attack on the New York World Trade Center occurred in 2001 and subsequently Second Gulf War (Iraq war) took place from 2003 to 2011 with the global financial crisis happened in 2008 which resulted in a slow recovery for the U.S., not yet fully recovered today.
 
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, while Japan was in a stagnant state, her ‘lost decades’, and the U.S. was mounting huge national debt, dealing with war expense, explosive financial crisis and slow recovery, China maintained a high economic growth ranging from a double digit to an enviable 6-7% over nearly three decades. One cannot say that China’s economic performance has escaped the notice of the U.S. or Japan, rather it has been put in the back burner so to speak while dealing with their own issues, centered around decreasing national productivity related to an aging population for Japan and national debt issue caused by the Middle East War for the U.S. The Chinese government has gradually embraced the Western capitalism since the 1980’s and her economic growth indeed has generated wealth for the nation but it also has brought the typical problems of wealth gap and inequitable distribution as well as asset bubble and inflation.
 
Since 2011, the U.S. has advocated a ‘Pivot to Asia’, later renamed ‘Rebalancing in Asia’, presumably a policy based on American First and a goal to maintain the number one position of the U.S. and to retain control of stacking order of the world. However, the risings of China, India and even smaller nations in Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam have changed the scenario. Controlling Japan and keeping her as a dependable number two is becoming somewhat an outdated idea. In fact, Japan’s right-wing faction currently in power is eagerly trying to revive Japan’s pre-War glory, thus the US-Japan relation even bonded by a mutual defense treaty will likely not to support a permanent US first and Japan distant second status quo. On the other hand, China, with her own China First principle (Chinese Dream), was concerned with the threatening neighbors such as Japan. China would not accept a stacking order prescribed by the U.S. In fact, the more the U.S. is pursuing the legacy approach of maintaining world stacking order, the more likely China will challenge such an order. When the U.S. is courting India and Australia as a part of the legacy strategy to suppress China, it only provokes China’s distrust of the U.S. and her intentions.
 
Both the U.S. and China do understand that a stable world order is in the interest of global peace and prosperity. The goal of American First, to maintain the U.S. at the number one position and keep a manageable world order is actually achievable, if the U.S. would respect China as the number two power in the world not treat it as an enemy. The G2 relationship touted before makes a lot of sense. China is a big country with 1.4 billion people but with only 800 million people lifted from poverty line. China has a long way to bring her people to middle class. On the other hand, the U.S. is a big nation having the richest resources in the world and possessing the most advanced technology and military power. China is following the U.S. footsteps to transform from a manufacturing based economy to a consumption based economy whereas the U.S. is rejuvenating her manufacturing to lessen her dependence on foreign imports. Wouldn’t you think that the U.S. and China can maintain a stable G2 relationship allowing America First and China First to coexist so that a peaceful and prosperous world would be maintained?