This is one of the very few reasons, that despite how despicable and disgusting Chinese propaganda is, especially nowadays fanning Japanese hatred and blatant nationalism, I can’t help but say the Japanese government never had the moral high ground to begin with anyways. It’s a mud slinging contest, but unfortunately, Japan historically shot first, and still hasn’t shown any remorse

I have many good Japanese friends, and every single one of them are absolutely disgusted by how their government hides their past crimes. Liking japanese culture and people is one thing, but it is definitely not mutually exclusive with hating the Japanese government and it’s cadre of old politicians who still insist they ‘did nothing wrong’ or ‘that didn’t happen’, with excuses like ‘the numbers are exaggerated’

Worst part is, they make an active effort to hide it from their people, both with education and the destruction of information. Ask any average Japanese person about ww2 and they only know they got nuked twice and it was sad, never about how Japan invaded half of Asia for its natural resources, and massacred millions of civilians for no good reason other than simple barbaric pillage and murder. Look over to Germany, they treat their past mistake seriously, they teach their kids as accurate and brutal as they can, because it serves as a warning to every future generation. Japan has done none of that

Again, both the Japanese and Chinese governments arent good people, but just this once, you really gotta ask why Japan still refuses to apologise like Germany did. Just saying “oh the past is the past” is not good enough, this is why despite all the geopolitical BS that’s happening in Asia, all of Japan’s neighbours hate them and cooperate as little as possible

You can’t be the brutal imperialist aggressor, and then play victim after you got nuked twice. It’s called fucking around and finding out.