It’s been 60 years, and Japan keeps apologizing. That’s not enough for most of Asia, it seems.
Today’s Japan is not Hirohito’s Japan, just as today’s Germany is not Hitler’s Germany. But the victims of Japan’s World War II atrocities have long memories.
I think, too, that there is an aspect of jealousy at work–jealousy of Japan’s highly favorable relationship with the U.S., of its economic successes in the past six decades. Maybe it doesn’t seem to Japan’s World War II victims that the country has suffered enough, due to how well the country is doing now.
With the anti-Japan propaganda that saturates the lives of people in many parts of Asia, I’m not sure if even the passing on of the people directly involved in the war will have any effect on tensions among the countries. I only hope we’re not seeing the beginnings of a new Israel and Palestine.