ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:
Not sure that the Japan of today is as hung up on honour, as the generation that lived in the first half of the 20th century.
'Losing face' is still a
very big thing to them. It's not tied to the militaristic version of bushido like it used to be, but it's still there all the same.
The Japanese are also acutely aware of the Western abuse of a sincere apology - something else that is still a very big thing in Japan. I mention it because this factors into their avoidance of the question of any guilt for just about anything that has to do with foreign diplomacy.
In Japan one can be responsible for something
awful and then offer a sincere apology and most people will accept that and forgive whatever the offence was. Partly because refusing a such an apology in their country is akin to telling someone to go kill themselves as that is one of the predictable things that happens to people who cannot redeem themselves socially.
In the West we like to demand that people apologize for whatever they did and then we routinely turn around and use their apology as an
admission of guilt. And instead of accepting the apology we use it as a weapon to destroy the person who apologized.
Example:
A Japanese politician gets caught in a moderate level scandal. S/he apologizes and grovels appropriately and keeps his/her job. Might lose their next election, but they don't get hounded out of office.
A Western politician gets caught in a
minor social gaffe...not even a scandal...and apologizes and then the demands start for the person to resign and to be hounded to the ends of the earth.
To the Japanese mind we're a bunch of
duplicitous barbarians who spit on people who apologize in good faith...so why bother dealing with us on our terms in the first place?
They not only have nothing to gain from such a public acknowledgement they fully anticipate (based on our past behavior) that we'll use their earnest apology as a weapon against them.
And maybe they're right.
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