The disasters in Japan early this year dredged up some awkward and uncomfortable issues that stand between our two nations.
Despite being Australia's top trading partner for much of post-war history, our relationship with Japan has never redressed the deep divisions that remain from our challenging wartime experiences. Australian experiences of Japanese cruelty have not been forgotten, and Japan's apparent reluctance to fully own up to its wartime atrocities has remained an issue of some contention.
But the problems are not all on the Japanese side.
When the tsunami receded, it left in its wake scenes of destruction reminiscent of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Daily Mail report made the parallels explicit, matching images from the tsunami's aftermath to historic photographs from the sites of the two atomic bombings under the headline: 'The nightmare returns'.
Our sympathy for Japan could not help but conflict with our moral complicity in that original nightmare 66 years ago. Australia, along with other allied nations, would rather forget the atrocities committed for the sake of our victory, yet at the time, the public welcomed and approved of them.
When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 85 per cent of Americans registered their approval, while only 10 per cent disapproved. Percentages for Britain were recorded at 72 per cent and 21 per cent respectively, and for Canada 77 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. (Percentages for Australia are unknown but presumed to be similar.)
A separate poll in December 1945 recorded the disturbing result that 22.7 per cent of Americans believed 'We should have quickly used many more of [the bombs] before Japan had a chance to surrender'. As of 2009, 61 per cent of Americans still believed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do, while 22 per cent disagreed.
To this day, many Westerners defend the bombings as a 'necessary' action within the context of a fanatically hostile Japanese civilian and military population.The suicidal ferocity and stubbornness of the Japanese military was well known, and the invasion of Okinawa demonstrated that the Japanese military could coerce civilian populations into mass suicide.
Necessary evils have never been a part of Western ethical tradition, nor has the deliberate killing of enemy non-combatants ever been an accepted military tactic. Yet while the narrative of Japanese fanaticism is upheld, the majority of Westerners seem willing to make an exception.
Whether there were reasonable