[Nerroth]

I once had a go at trying to write about why it was that Germany (and, to a lesser extent, Italy) was part of such a profound change in the nature of its political and cultural relationships to the rest of Europe, yet Japan had not been as successful at doing the same.


A lot of it boils down to the context that both states found themselves in - leaving the issue of unification slightly to one side for a moment.


Germany - or rather, the FRG - emerged post-war surrounded on one side by recovering democracies that were both trying to escape the cycle of conflict which had dogged Europe for centuries, and try and deal with the rapid onset of the Cold War, be it in terms of the increased American influence in western Europe, or the drawing of the Iron Curtain over central and eastern Europe.

Given the crucial place Germany sat upon - at the front lines of the NATO-Warsaw Pact divide - it was seen as imperative to do what had not been done at the end of the First World War, that is to try and both rehabilitate Germany and integrate it into a wider European framework.

Indeed, the latter part had its origins in the likes of the European Coal and Steel Pact - a sharing of resources between its signatories that both broke with the divisive past, and laid the first stone on the path to what is now the European Union.

Be it from a wish to find a voice in a world of two superpowers, to renounce the bloodied legacy of old, or to embrace a new dynamic of peace and co-operation, West Germany and its neighbours had far more reasons to work together than not - and since they were all democratic countries with compatible political systems, the joint infrastructure that was formed at the EC (now EU) level was able to work at least largely the way it was supposed to.

And in more recent times, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Warsaw Pact states went into the dustbins of history, a new re-united Germany (which was really more of an annexation of the GDR by the FRG - albeit one in which no-one realised how bare the cupboard had been left by the withdrawing Russians prior to 1990...) found itself at the heart of a new Europe.

One in which all of its neighbours, north, south, east and west (with the exception of Switzerland) are now members of the Union, in which relations with Russia are, if not stellar, a far cry from the darker days of the Cold War, in which Berlin is now at the crossroads of the new Europe, where the currency in your pocket is shared by 14 other countries (and will be shared by even more as the euro zone expands) and in which the gap between the former-GDR and the rest of the country can be worked on, albeit rather more slowly than anyone had expected...



Japan, in contrast, has few such advantages.


There aren't many other democratic states in East Asia - and many of them are relatively recent (and in the case of Taiwan, in quite a political tangle of its own) - besides which the country could try (or could have tried) and follow the kind of path Germany walked down in Europe.

Further, there is the somewhat minor matter of both mainland China and North Korea still being one-party dictatorships - and while there is a lot more trade between Japan and the PRC than there ever was between the West and the old USSR, just as the Cold War put a freeze on a wider reconciliation in Europe, there is a limit on what one can do to try and reconcile states when the governing bodies in Beijing or Pyongyang are, shall we say, less than open to certain kinds of political developments.

(The West didn't do this process any favours when they tried to rush things in post-USSR Russia - and thus leading to the ransacking of state assets, the rise of super-rich oligarchs, and the quite understandable disillusionment many might feel about the prospects of a more careful transition in China in the future.)

Plus, without the buffer of European co-operation, Japan is far more directly exposed to American influence than Germany was - not least since the Germans had France to do the arguing for them... - so has been more disposed to look across the Pacific, rather than to the rest of Asia, when looking for support.


And one thing to bear in mind is that even before the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had seen the likes of Gorbachev openly condemn the crimes of Stalin - whereas the CCP has yet to do the same concerning Mao (and may never do) and the 'Dear Leader' will hardly criticise his old man, or himself.

Thus, in Europe, the crimes of Nazi Germany and the horrors of Stalinism can be discussed and compared - although many in Western Europe, spared the worst of one and the experience of the other, don't see this.

When will the day come when the brutality of the Japanese occupations be discussed alongside the millions of dead at Mao's hands, or the decades of oppression inflicted on the people of the DPRK?


Only then, when that day comes, will there be the chance to finally, finally, try to do what has been done in Europe - and move forward in a more positive direction.