Survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima have reacted angrily to an agreement that links the city’s peace park with a memorial in Pearl Harbor.
The sister-park agreement, signed this week by US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, is designed to promote peace and friendship between the former Pacific war enemies.
“Nobody can go to Pearl Harbor, and nobody can go to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and enter the front door, walk out the exit door and be the same person,” Emanuel said at a signing ceremony at the US embassy in Tokyo.
“I think the hope here is that we inspire people from all over the United States and all over Japan to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial and to visit Pearl Harbor so they can learn the spirit of reconciliation,” he said.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii would promote exchanges and share experiences of restoring historic structures and landscapes, as well as in educating young people and tourism, media reports said.
“The sister arrangement between the two parks related to the beginning and end of the war will be a proof that mankind, despite making the mistake of waging a war, can come to its senses, reconcile and pursue peace,” Matsui said.
However, representatives of hibakusha — survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — condemned the agreement as inappropriate, saying that while the Pearl Harbor attack targeted a naval base, the bombing of Hiroshima indiscriminately killed large numbers of civilians.
Haruko Moritaki, an A-bomb victim and adviser to the Hiroshima Association for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, said the agreement was an “insult” to survivors.
“The historical backgrounds of the two parks will forever be different,” she told the Chugoku Shimbun.
Several groups wrote to the Hiroshima city government asking Matsui not to sign the agreement, saying that the two wartime attacks were “not something we should forgive each other for,” the Nikkei Asia reported.
“They are historic lessons to learn from and never repeat,” they said.
Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organization chairman Kunihiko Sakuma said that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had been unnecessary.
“It did not end the war and save the lives of American soldiers, as the US claims,” he told the Nikkei. “It was clear that Japan was going to lose. Unless that fundamental issue is addressed, we can’t just focus on the future.”
More than 2,300 US service personnel were killed in Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, bringing the US into the Pacific war.
About 80,000 people died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, with the death toll rising to 140,000 by the end of the year.
Another 70,000 people died in Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, six days before Japan surrendered.
Emanuel said he was aware of the objections raised by hibakusha groups.
“I understand anguish and angst is an emotion, but I don’t think you should be trapped by that,” he said, adding that reconciliation between the US and Japan “is the example of what I think this world desperately needs right now.”
The two sites have been associated with reconciliation since Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, in May 2016. Then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe made a reciprocal visit to Pearl Harbor in December the same year.
In a statement to mark the sister-park agreement, Obama said his and Abe’s visits had been the “key steps in deepening the alliance between our two nations,” and described the Hiroshima-Pearl Harbor agreement as “another historic accomplishment.”
“By connecting our two peoples to our shared past, we can build a shared future grounded in peace and cooperation,” Obama said.
Shigeru Mori, a hibakusha who met Obama in Hiroshima, said he welcomed the agreement.
“Pearl Harbor is a painful place for Americans to remember the war,” the Chugoku Shimbun quoted him as saying. “I want Japan and the US to join hands and do their best to work for peace.”
Additional reporting by AP
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
RSS