Why Japan, South Korea, and China Are So Riled Up Over a Few Tiny Islands

The old nationalist tensions are rising over some disputed Asian islands. >
Japanese nationalists protest the South Korean president's visit to a disputed island. (Reuters)

August 15 marks the anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia.  Japan's defeat was complete, and its losses unprecedented. Today,  Japanese television coverage traced the final days of devastation, with  those who lived through the war (now in their 80s) narrating accounts of the firebombing that ruined most of Tokyo and the atomic bombing that  obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For Japanese it continues to be a  day of national mourning for those lost, and an annual opportunity to  remind the nation and its neighbors of Japan's postwar commitment to  peace.

For Japan's neighbors, however, it seems that August 15 is  increasingly an opportunity to demonstrate their own national narratives of the war. This year South Korean president Lee Myung-bak became the  first president to visit the contested Takeshima/Tokdo Islands, and his  speech celebrating Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation reminded  Japan that Koreans will not forgive their neighbor for its wartime  enslavement of Korean women.

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