[ggm]

Japan's refusal to fully acknowledge comfort women, and the evils of the co-prosperity sphere is feeding opposition in countries as diametrically different as south Korea and china.

If they want to defuse tension, stopping writing their history books as white out and celebrating yasakuni shrine war criminals would be a good start, based on the west German experience. I don't love the federal Republic of Germany or the CDU but they aren't in denial about 33-45.

[wahern]

No amount of prostrating will ever appease every faction, such as Polish conservatives regard Germany. It's all irrelevant anyhow as Japan and Germany are about distant from their pre-war selves in terms of militarism and nationalism as any country on this planet. What's actually keeping these debates alive are cultural enmities which predate WWII by centuries. That's why you don't see, e.g., Vietnam constantly making a fuss about American reverence for their soldiers who fought and killed Vietnamese--the history just isn't there to support that kind of national grudge even if there are plenty of individuals who might be bothered by it.

[ggm]

I probably agree with this in substance. It's an independent good of it's own accord akin to British public recognition of its role in slavery but probably has next to no real impact on the deep time resentments inside China.