Japan’s apologists are quick to point out that other countries have committed great wrongs with which they have not reckoned; that no matter what Japan does or says, its neighbors will never be satisfied, that they will continue to use the past as a stick with which to beat Japan. This is all true, but it is beside the point. It is not for the sake of the Koreans or the Chinese that a real reckoning with what happened in the 1930s needs to occur; it is for the sake of Japan.
