Japan must know it can't sell revisionism

In an open letter, 187 prominent Asia scholars from 10 countries have urged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to "act boldly" in addressing his country's colonial rule and aggression before and during World War II. They have told Abe that the nationalists-led efforts to revise Japan's war history are preventing East Asia from properly celebrating 70th years of peace and prosperity after the end of WWII.

The scholars include John Dower of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ezra Vogel and Akira Iriye of Harvard University, Ronald Dore of the London School of Economics and Herbert Bix of New York's Binghamton University.

Not surprisingly, the academics' letter has angered Japanese nationalists and rightists. Yoshihisa Komori, a veteran journalist associated with Sankei Shimbun, called the 187 academics people of "arrogance and prejudice" in his blog on Yahoo's Japanese website on Monday. He has asked, what the US would do if Japanese scholars wrote President Barack Obama and told him to reflect on all the wrongs his country has committed in the past.