Abe Shinzo is a revisionist who can't face the history ?

Is Japan's Prime Minister Abe Shinzo a revisionist, who can't face the history, as the Washington post claims?

With regards to annexation of Korea, Mr. Abe mentioned in the parliament that "the definition of what constitutes aggression has yet to be established in academia or in the international community." Washington Post then writes, "Japan occupied Korea. It occupied Manchuria... It committed aggression. Why... are facts so difficult for some in Japan to acknowledge?"

Imperialist Japan went into war to invade and committed atrocities - is this the whole truth of the story, as commonly held?

General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 at the US senate testified as follows: 

"There is practically nothing indigenous to Japan except the silk worm. They lack cotton, they lack wool, they lack petroleum products, they lack tin, they lack rubber, they lack a great many other things, all of which was in the Asiatic basin. They feared that if those supplies were cut off, there would be 10 to 12 million people unoccupied in Japan. Their purpose, therefore, in going to war was largely dictated by security."

And indeed the US and the allies cut off the supply channels, and Japan was left with small amount of oil reserve.

Alleyne Ireland, an American administrative scholar, published a book called "The New Korea" in 1926, describing the policies and measures taken by the Japanese occupational government in Korea at the time of annexation between 1910-1945. In his 300-page book, Ireland described that Japanese administration in Korea ensured education for all Koreans, dramatically improved public health eradicating epidemics, and brought about significant economic development. 

Ireland wrote: "The Japanese administration in Korea has done more to advance the interests of Korea than any other government has done to advance the interests of any country in the world within the period... That Korean agricultural exports should have increased in little more than a decade by more than 1,000%, industrial exports by more than 3,000%, fishery exports by nearly 3,000%..... would, if Korea were a self-governing country instead of a Japanese colonial dependency, be hailed throughout the Western world as an astounding example of national progress" (page 288).

Both MacArthur's and Ireland's statements give very different, and objective, outlooks on what Japan did.

68 years after the end of the WWII, it is high time to come out of the "winners' view" set by the Tokyo Tribunal. 

Mr. Abe is facing the history.