Opinion | Only true repentance from Japan can resolve East Asia’s ‘memory wars’

I wanted my children to learn history honestly, to understand what war does to people. I shared stories my grandma had told me: as she fled town, a bomb fell on a nearby street. One neighbour vanished. Only bits of her remained stuck to a wall. Yet, the older my children grow, the more I realise that in Asia, history is not a settled fact but contested territory. The past is also a weapon. East Asia remains trapped in what scholars call “memory wars”. China, Japan and South Korea, three neighbours with deep cultural links and enormous economic interdependence, still…