All states have dark secrets, and none finds it easy to confront them. Yet the best assurance that past mistakes and misdeeds will not be repeated is that they be faced, responsibility recognized, and apology and compensation attempted.

In Northeast Asia the record on this score is mixed. It was 1995, a half century after the end of the Japanese colonial empire, before Japanese Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi expressed Japan's regret and apology for the pain and harm done by the four decades of colonialism. A few years later, a similar apology was extended to cover the Comfort Women and in 1998 that apology was explicitly directed to South Korea (by Prime Minister Obuchi).