https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Yasukuni_Shrine_2012.JPG/1280px-Yasukuni_Shrine_2012.JPG

The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine that is more or less Japan's equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery. The names, origins, and death dates of several million people (and some animals) are logged here. All of them are people judged to have died in the service of the Japanese emperor.

Every few years, the shrine gets in the news because the Japanese prime minister pays a visit to it. This enrages Koreans, Chinese, and various shitlibs because, along with millions of ordinary soldiers, the shrine also honors major war criminals from the World War 2 era.

The initial approach to the shrine is dominated by a statue of Omura Masujiro.

https://i.imgur.com/Yu8N3tG.jpg

Omura is credited with founding the Japanese army as a modern force modeled on that of the European great powers. In that regard, he was also essential to the modernization of Japanese society, as he was a fierce advocate for abolishing the feudal domains and stripping all privileges from the samurai class. Omura paid with his life for his modernizing efforts, as several disgruntled ex-samurai stabbed him to death in 1869. Getting stabbed to death would be a recurring theme in pre-WW2 Japanese politics.

The statue itself is notable; it was created in the 1890s and is the first Western-style bronze statue in Japan.

Another statue nearby shows great moments from the Russo-Japanese war:

https://i.imgur.com/ZfjvAET.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/P0ohwLe.jpg

The shrine itself is thronged with worshipers remembering fallen Japanese soldiers:

https://i.imgur.com/RlJFX2N.jpg

It's difficult to see, but out the back deeper into the shrine it's possible to see the shrine's priests carrying out a ritual (accompanied by a visitor in a business suit):

https://i.imgur.com/jTYQ3Mz.jpg

The shrine includes a warning for pesky media people:

https://i.imgur.com/sVWo0ML.jpg

Anyway, the real point of this post isn't the shrine, which isn't terribly different from many other religious sites you might visit in Japan. No, the focus of this post is the shrine's museum, the Yushukan. The Yushukan is Japan's premier military history museum. It has a lot of interesting historical objects, but those aren't the chief draw of the place. Instead, the main attraction is the spin the museum puts on Japan's military history.

Apologies in advance for photo quality; photos are actually banned inside the Yushukan and all of these had to be snapped quickly.

The foyer of the museum naturally has a Mitsubishi Zero fighter jet:

https://i.imgur.com/92jpRWN.jpg

The temporary exhibit is about the history of the shrine itself. When the shrine was opened, the festivities included a big sumo tournament:

https://i.imgur.com/fcjKHFb.jpg

One section relates how a Catholic priest intervened with General MacArthur to save the shrine from destruction:

https://i.imgur.com/icTksnZ.jpg

This exhibit includes our first indicators of what's to come. A brief mention of the Manchurian Incident notes that the invasion of Manchuria occurred after "the bombing of a railway." It's not mentioned that the bombing was a false flag, conducted by an officer of the Kwantung Army.

https://i.imgur.com/rzVctk0.jpg

Similary, the museum includes proclamations from Japan's prime minister seeking an early end to the war in China:

https://i.imgur.com/uMvs861.jpg

The crown jewel of the museum is its treatment of the Rape of Nanking, estimated to have killed several hundred thousand people. The entire matter is dealt with extremely briefly, with these two paragraphs noting the refusal of Chinese forces to surrender, as well as robust attacks on "Chinese soldiers disguised in civilian clothes."

https://i.imgur.com/ID2NM7f.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/lkLFNdA.jpg

Another section, on the Wuhan campaign, notes Japan's great care for civilians and historical objects (sorry for shitty photo):

https://i.imgur.com/EhsJgc8.jpg

The lead-up to the Pacific War includes a section on "Japan's Quest For Avoiding a War."

https://i.imgur.com/OhcRxEW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4NpgblI.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/QYe6YgY.jpg

A random painting on the walls shows an American plane going down in flames, defeated by a Japanese pilot:

https://i.imgur.com/kUYceZX.jpg

Sadly, a lot of the smaller historical artifacts (like what seems to be a bottle of Admiral Togo beer) don't have English signage with them:

https://i.imgur.com/V8qkUtH.jpg

Japan's kamikazes are famous, but the military also fielded manned, suicide torpedoes. One such torpedo is on display:

https://i.imgur.com/jEbA7I5.jpg

This bugle on display comes with a weird story:

https://i.imgur.com/M7zHnsm.jpg

The bugle was owned by a Mongolian soldier serving at the Battle of Khalkin Gol. The soldier saw some Japanese paratroopers land in the middle of the Soviet lines. They were swiftly surrounded by several tanks, but rather than be captured, they each committed suicide while saluting toward the east. The Mongolian guy thought that was so hardcore that in 2003 he visited Japan to play a funeral tune in their honor.

BTW, the museum also claims that Khalkhin Gol was a purely defensive battle by the Japanese:

https://i.imgur.com/rLXN2zk.jpg

The section on the end of the Pacific War argues that, while Japan may have lost WW2 in the short term, they won in the long term by inspiring people all over the world to fight for independence and racial equality. Yeah:

https://i.imgur.com/AbfSRd0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/D7kP37Z.jpg

Just like you might see in a Western war museum, there's a large section dedicated to the letters soldiers sent to loved ones. What makes the Japanese ones stand out is how hardcore they were, and how many of the letters were sent by guys who committed suicide. There are also final statements from major Japanese commanders, several of whom committed suicide once the war was lost:

https://i.imgur.com/FkXBj2j.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UWHSUYm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/KwL4Svx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/NetrTYu.jpg

My favorite is this one where a soldier's final advice to his wife is, in essence, "don't go to law school."

https://i.imgur.com/Qr2P7Ac.jpg

This display profiles several of Japan's top war criminals, who were executed by the allies. This, notably, is perhaps the largest block of text in the museum with no English translation:

https://i.imgur.com/ieyCTei.jpg

This naval rope was made from a bunch of women's hair. Japan is pretty hardcore:

https://i.imgur.com/6kz8lOq.jpg

Overall, the Yushukan is a very 180 visit, assuming you don't get MAF from the insane Japanese nationalism of it. I highly recommend it to any XOpos with an interest in history who find themselves in Tokyo.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39332433)

not just shitlibs, bro, but any fucking red blooded american should be angry as fuck about the WW2 war criminals having been re-interred at Yasukuni decades after the war in a fit of Japanese nationalism

the us fought a war over this shit, bro

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39332460)

What is your scholarly take on how blameworthy the Japanese war criminals were

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39332506)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333692)

(Jew lecturing you self-righteously and without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness about how “it’s not about winning, it’s about the truth and acknowledging true history!”)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333769)

http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3836658&forum_id=2#34977297

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39512561)

we've won the peace, why litigate it further?

this is one museum in a country where millions of people are going about their life, peacefully, un-antagonistically to the world around them

pick your battles

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333826)

http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333671

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333841)

but people will have their pride and ego,

whether you give them permission to have it or not,

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333945)

People have pride and ego of course. Many times they have worse things.

No one needs permission to act a certain way, but people don't need permission to condemn lying either.

Yasukuni Shrine on the Rape of Nanking which it calls 'The Nanking Incident':

"The purpose of the Nankin Campaign was to surround and occupy the capital, thus discouraging the Chinese from continuing their resistance against the Japanese. Garrison Commander Tang Shengzhi ignored the Japanese demand to surrender. He ordered his troops to defend Nanking to the death and then escaped. After the confused battles, Nanking fell on December 13."

The actuality of the Rape of Nanking:

The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing, alternately written the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking, was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000,[7][8] and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.[9][10]

Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated in 1946 that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the incident.[11] China's official estimate is more than 300,000 dead based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in 1947. The death toll has been actively contested among scholars since the 1980s.[3][12]

The event remains a contentious political issue and a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations. The Chinese government has been accused of exaggerating aspects of the massacre such as the death toll by many Japanese,[13] while historical negationists and Japanese nationalists go as far as claiming the massacre was fabricated for propaganda purposes.[8][14][15][16] The controversy surrounding the massacre remains a central issue in Japanese relations with other Asia-Pacific nations as well, such as South Korea.[17]

Although the Japanese government has admitted to the killing of many non-combatants, looting, and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanjing,[18][19] and Japanese veterans who served there have confirmed that a massacre took place,[20] a small but vocal minority within both the Japanese government and society have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. Denial of the massacre and revisionist accounts of the killings have become a staple of Japanese nationalism.[21] In Japan, public opinion of the massacre varies, but few deny outright that the event occurred.[21]

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333984)

How insistent should I be that there's not a museum anywhere that diverges from global monoculture?

Should I go to Ulaanbaatar and be MAF if there's a monument to Genghis Khan that's not appropriately apologetic for the bad things he did?

If a poster travels to Ulaanbaatar, are you going to shit up his thread if he posts pictures of an unapproved monument?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334058)

The way Germany has reconciled with its past is a commendable example. Japan never has. People have a right to call them out on this, continually, until such time they do. That's my opinion. I didn't say anyone needs to be "MAF".

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334144)

"That is truly shameful. On this point, the victims of Japanese atrocities have a right to be angry and should continue to demand Japan owns up to its crimes."

"Honestly reading this makes me want to drop the atom bombs again"

sound MAF to me, but maybe I'm just misreading your tone

-------

You're right, it is on them,

its not on us

The interesting thing here, is that Charles presented it (at least how I took it, maybe I misread him), as an interesting example of how cultures find ways to lie about or whitewash their own histories

I didn't read him as asking you to condone or approve of that version of the history

That's one of the interesting things about visiting other places in the world,

they have a different spin on the history we're familiar with

its interesting to hear that different spin, even if you don't agree with it

--------

I had actually never heard of this place,

I'm happy Charles visited there, took pictures, shared them with us,

Now its a place I know more about than I did this morning,

You getting MAF about it, makes posters a little less likely to share the interesting places they come across in the world

And collectively makes us all dumber and more ignorant about the world

-----

Live your life how your choose to live it,

But the world will be a tiny bit better, if you don't reflexively get MAF when you encounter things bump up against your worldview

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334243)

I am very fascinated with Charles' poasting about this and how they present their history to their own population and the world. I didn't critique Charles' take on it at all.

The only person who seems reflexively MAF about anything is you, at me, for stating something you disagree with based on your misinterpretation about what I'm saying.

Maybe if someone like you could be less reflexively MAF about people who say something you may be misunderstanding, the world wouldn't have to suffer through tedious explanations like this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334358)

peace be with you

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334384)

The Jap cries out in pain as he strikes you.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333680)

Just don't go looking for that info at Yasukuni because you won't find it there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39334377)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_border_conflicts

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333610)

Russo-Japanese War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

Not to be confused with Soviet–Japanese War.

Russo-Japanese War

RUSSOJAPANESEWARIMAGE.jpg

Clockwise from top: Russian cruiser Pallada under fire at Port Arthur, Russian cavalry at Mukden, Russian cruiser Varyag and gunboat Korietz at Chemulpo Bay, Japanese dead at Port Arthur, Japanese infantry crossing the Yalu River

Date 8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905

(1 year, 6 months and 4 weeks)

Location

Manchuria, Yellow Sea, Korean Peninsula, Sea of Japan

Result Japanese victory; Treaty of Portsmouth

Territorial

changes Russia cedes Guandong Leased Territory and South Sakhalin to Japan

Belligerents

Empire of Japan

Russian Empire

Commanders and leaders

Meiji

Empire of Japan Ōyama Iwao

Empire of Japan Kodama Gentarō

Empire of Japan Nogi Maresuke

Empire of Japan Kuroki Tamemoto

Empire of Japan Tōgō Heihachirō

Nicholas II

Russian Empire Aleksey Kuropatkin

Russian Empire Yevgeni Alekseyev

Russian Empire Zinovy Rozhestvensky

Russian Empire Robert Viren

Russian Empire Stepan Makarov †

Strength

1,200,000 (total)[1]

650,000 (peak)

1,365,000 (total)[1]

700,000 (peak)

Casualties and losses

47,152–47,400 killed

11,424–11,500 died of wounds

21,802–27,200 died of disease

Total: 58,000–86,100[2][3]

34,000–52,623 killed or died of wounds

9,300–18,830 died of disease

146,032 wounded

74,369 captured

Total: 43,300–120,000[2][3]

vte

Russo-Japanese War

vte

Japanese colonial campaigns

Events leading to World War I

Bloqueo de Venezuela por las potencias europeas 1902.jpg

Congress of Berlin 1878

Triple Alliance 1882

Franco-Russian Alliance 1894

Anglo-German naval arms race 1898–1912

Entente Cordiale 1904

Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905

First Moroccan Crisis 1905–1906

Anglo-Russian Entente 1907

Bosnian Crisis 1908–1909

Agadir Crisis 1911

Italo-Turkish War 1911–1912

Balkan Wars 1912–1913

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 1914

July Crisis 1914

vte

The Russo-Japanese War (Russian: Ру́сско-японска́я во́йна, romanized: Rússko-yaponskáya vóyna; Japanese: 日露戦争, romanized: Nichiro sensō; "Japanese-Russian War") was fought during 1904 and 1905 between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea.[4] The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea.

Russia sought a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean for its navy and for maritime trade. Vladivostok was operational only during the summer, whereas Port Arthur, a naval base in Liaodong Province leased to Russia by China, was operational all year. Since the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian encroachment on its plans to create a sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuria. Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in the Siberian Far East from the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century.[5]

Seeing Russia as a rival, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan. The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to their plans for expansion into Asia and chose to go to war. After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack.

Russia suffered multiple defeats by Japan, but Tsar Nicholas II was convinced that Russia would win and chose to remain engaged in the war; at first, to await the outcomes of certain naval battles, and later to preserve the dignity of Russia by averting a "humiliating peace". Russia ignored Japan's willingness early on to agree to an armistice and rejected the idea to bring the dispute to the Arbitration Court at The Hague. The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. The complete victory of the Japanese military surprised world observers. The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage. It was the first major military victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one. Scholars continue to debate the historical significance of the war.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333617)

And acknowledging war crimes is a sign of strength and character, not capitulation.

If Japan is unwilling or unable to do this, there is a disturbing deformity in their national character that has never been resolved.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333673)

Germans offered Jews a compromise and the chance to leave, but since they refused, they were placed in camps. Conditions of camps varied, but many Jews chose to succumb to pressure rather than change their perspective."

I'm sure it would go something like this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333708)

Denial of the rape of Nanking is one thing but...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4409120&forum_id=2#39333739)