Still fighting

AS WARS fade from living memory, time should heal the emotional scars. In Asia, however, it seems only to deepen wounds left by the second world war. The 70th anniversary this year of the conflict’s end is likely to attract more attention than even the 50th or 60th. That would seem to offer a chance to pursue an elusive reconciliation between Japan and the countries that were victims of its aggression in the 20th century. But such countries continue to complain that successive Japanese governments, and notably the one led by Shinzo Abe, the present prime minister, have not done enough to atone and want to rewrite history. Little suggests that reconciliation is on the cards.

For a start, China’s government does not seem in the mood for it. For the first time, it will mark the anniversary of victory over Japan with a big military parade. China Daily, an official newspaper, insists this is not to taunt Japan, and that the government is merely following “international practice” by highlighting China’s important but “underreported” role in the “World Anti-Fascist War”, in which, the paper says, it suffered some 30m casualties.