Germany's External Reconciliation as a Defining Feature of Foreign Policy: Lessons for Japan?
By Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman

Page Two of Two

6. The German process has meant constant confrontation with the past. History cannot be a mere footnote in the relationship, but rather must act as a constant constructive irritant to structure a fundamentally different relationship from the past. There are two ways that history is important. First, it provides a stimulus for the new relationship with the goal of structuring relations in an entirely different way. Second, it involves the ongoing work of institutions through memorials and commemorations, education, and the recording of the past and the telling of stories.

Discussions with Japanese audiences centered on the fact that there is no consensus on history, and insufficient political acceptance of Japan as the wartime aggressor. The unleashing of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has allowed some Japanese to see themselves as victims and not as perpetrators.

However, the recent work of Sven Saaler, a German scholar of Japan, has demonstrated that the historical revisionism of the political right in Japan does not resonate with the general public, who in numerous surveys express themselves as being in favor of reconciliation and confrontation with the past.

7. Reconciliation does not mean harmony, but rather provides a framework in which the two sides are symmetrical in terms of rights and responsibilities and in which differences can be negotiated (and not necessarily eliminated).

This idea was completely new to the Japanese, and provided a sense of a more realistic goal in reconciliation with Japan's neighbors.

8. In concrete manifestations, reconciliation means the demonstration of preference (mutually appreciated) and the development of bi-national institutions at the governmental and non-governmental levels in all areas of policy and societal activity. In all cases of societal initiatives, bi-national history textbook commissions have been crucial for moving forward, as have youth exchange programs. A third common feature is friendship associations with prominent politicians in leadership positions. For governments, four areas stand out: reparations and restitution, economics, defense, and science and technology.

Fully-developed bi-national institutions between Japan and China and Japan and South Korea are limited, but there is some degree of increased partnership in the last few years, for example in the Japan-China Economic Partnership Consultation, the Japan-China-Korea Directors-General Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation, and the Japan-China and Japan-Korea defense exchanges. However, high-level visits as an expression of such institutionalization have fallen victim on several occasions to tensions elsewhere in the relationships. Both China and South Korea refused last fall to meet with Prime Minister Koizumi as a reaction to textbook content that whitewashes the past and the Yasakuni Shrine visits.

The Japanese government believes it met its reparations and restitution obligations in the 1951 San Francisco Treaty and subsequent bilateral treaties, even though China was not a signatory. Issues of slave labor and comfort women continue to be mired in the courts.

Textbooks have been an ongoing area of discord, including recent Chinese and South Korean concern about the Japanese government's insistence over the portrayal of disputed territory as belonging to Japan. These territorial disputes continue to inflame Japan's diplomatic and security relations with China (the Senkaku Islands) and South Korea (the Dokdo Islands). Youth exchanges financed by the Japanese government are small in number of participants and number of programs, but the Japan Foundation is developing a well-funded new program for youth exchange in the region.

"Sister-city" partnerships of cities and municipalities was also an area for discussion, with a comparison drawn between the Japan-South Korea case of 88 "sister city" partners and the Franco-German case of over 2200 such connections. Friendship associations comparable in societal breadth and political profile to the bilateral organizations Germany has with France, Israel, Poland and the Czech Republic are missing, although there was a recent coordination of seven Japan-China friendship groups from Japan for a visit to China.

9. Germany's motives for reconciliation have been both moral and pragmatic.

Japan's official efforts at reconciliation have been framed in terms of legal arguments (the San Francisco Peace Treaty), and there is little official moral reasoning or acceptance of guilt or shame. Audiences were particularly interested in the reality that Germany had no legal obligation to negotiate a reparations agreement with Israel (a state that did not exist at the time of the crimes), but did so out of moral compunction, demonstrating that extra-legal initiatives can be both desirable and possible.  There was also intense discussion of the fact that Germany was additionally propelled by practical interests (its need for political rehabilitation and the return of sovereignty), and of the need for Japan to calculate its economic self-interest in reconciliation. For Japanese audiences, the presence of pragmatism in the German case helped dissipate the fear that they were being contrasted to purely altruistic Germans.

10. A larger international environment (in Germany's case, the European Union and transatlantic relations) can facilitate the process of reconciliation, but ultimately reconciliation has to emanate from the political will of the two countries.

The kind of multilateral environment in which Germany's reconciliation took place -- the presence of the European Coal and Steel Community, then NATO and the EC -- is absent in the Japanese case. Certainly the supranational dimensions of the European Union framework are and will remain sui generis. There was reference to the recent Japanese proposal for the East Asia Free Trade Zone (ASEAN plus Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia and New Zealand), which would parallel the EU in size, but not in terms of the degree of economic integration.

In terms of the role of the U.S., it was felt that the U.S. was closely involved at the beginning of Germany's external reconciliation, in a way it never has been in the Asian case.  Moreover, Japan was able to hide behind a large American defense umbrella whereas Germany participated in the structuring of European defense after World War II, making reconciliation with France a high priority. Ultimately in the German case, it was Germany's own initiative, moral resolve and political will that accounted for reconciliation as a central focus of both German society and the political class.

Conclusion
The study of the German framework in considering Japan's experience with reconciliation towards China and South Korea has revealed many differences between the two situations. Nonetheless, comparison remains a useful tool to clarify the features of a particular case, to generate debate, and to open a window for potential change. Prime Minister Koizumi will leave office in September, and his successor probably will continue the government's policy of limited reconciliation. Opportunities for change will have to emerge, then, from civil society. This requires leadership and public support, and the former is slowly emerging. The latter is present as a latent force to be tapped, according to Sven Saaler.  He refers to the possibility of an Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (Außerparlamentarische Opposition) developing in Japan on questions of reconciliation. The German model of that type of political organization might also prove instructive to Japanese scholars and activists.

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This essay appeared in the April 28, 2006 AICGS Advisor.

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Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman recently returned from a lecture tour in Japan.  She is currently a Senior Fellow in Residence at AICGS.