Keen observers know that Japan’s ugly territorial disputes with its neighbors aren’t really about fishing grounds or oil and gas reserves or ancient historical claims. What they’re about is that the Japanese still – still – won’t admit they did anything wrong during the Second World War or during their long colonial rule in Asia. That’s how the neighbors see it, anyway. And it explains why arguments with China and South Korea over  islands of questionable value have turned into volatile confrontations. Armed ships are conducting rival patrols around the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, which Japan controls but are claimed by China; Japan and South Korea are in a bitter feud over Dokdo (Takeshima) Island, which South Korea controls but which Japan claims. (MORE: Japan: A Wave of Patriotism) Now comes author Thomas U. Berger to explain why Japan is viewed as so unrepentant. Some 20 million people died and millions more were subjugated and oppressed during Japan’s half-century of war and colonial expansion, which ended in 1945. Cambridge University Press In a new book, War, Guilt and Politics After World War II, Berger says a complex web of culture, politics, geography and shifting notions of justice have made it more difficult for the Japanese to apologize for past transgressions than other societies. That’s particularly true compared to Germany, whose crimes outstripped even those of Japan, but which has largely reconciled with former victims. Berger is an associate professor of international relations at Boston University and a frequent traveler to Japan; he is currently lecturing at Tokyo’s Keio University.   I chatted with Berger about his book via email this week. Here are excerpts: Why did you decide to write this book? I had done research previously on the impact of historical issues on defense and foreign policy in both Germany and Japan. So when disputes flared up in the 1990s over how Japan was dealing with its past, a number of my friends thought it would be a natural topic for me to look at. I wrote a couple of … Continue reading Why Japan Is Still Not Sorry Enough