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Mutual Complicity: Denial of War Responsibilities in Japan & the US

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Yuki Tanaka
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Abstract

In France and Germany, it would have been unthinkable for a cabinet member of the Vichy government or the Nazi regime to become a national leader after the war. This was not the case in Japan with Kishi Nobusuke, who served as Minister of Trade and Industry in the wartime Tōjō cabinet. Astonishingly, Kishi became Prime Minister in February 1957. Similarly, Emperor Hirohito's war guilt and responsibility were never questioned at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, despite the abundance of crystal-clear evidence. In this article, I discuss how closely the U.S. and Japanese governments have been collaborating for the last 78 years since the end of the Asia-Pacific War in August 1945, supporting one another to whitewash each other's war crimes and responsibility in every possible way.

Keywords

War CrimesWar responsibilityDenial of responsibilityWhitewash of crimesUS-Japan mutual support
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 7 , July 2023 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2023

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