LONDON -- At the end of his visit to India last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao made a strong political attack on Japan. With respect to Japan's bid for a seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Wen opined that "Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins over the trust of the people in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibilities in the international community."
These strong words refer to the record of Japan's army and police forces in carrying out atrocities during the Japanese occupation of parts of China from 1931 until 1945, during its annexation of Korea from 1905 until 1945 and in other Asian countries during World War II. They also refer to the continued failure of the Japanese government to make a satisfactory (to Chinese ears) apology for these atrocities and its approval of history books that ignore them for Japanese schools. Mention is also made of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honored.
There is, however, a whiff of hypocrisy about Wen's outburst. He is a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP ran the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1965 until 1976. Experts claim the CCP's policies led to the starvation of more than 30,000,000 people. Some communities were reduced to cannibalism. Tens of millions of families had their lives disrupted by forced migrations and millions were thrown in prison, many of them tortured and summarily executed.