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fter being eclipsed by China and South Korea in prestige for the last five years, Japan is making headlines again, for mixed reasons.

The good news is '€œAbenomics'€, a trident of economic movements to cure the nation'€™s longstanding slump. The bad news uncovers the ugly side of Japan '€” which still cannot repent its Fascist past and that still holds disturbing views on both women and other Asians.

Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, was previously known only to Japanese and some Western academics and correspondents.

He was a maverick politician who defied categorization '€” he supported Trans-Pacific free trade, opposed nuclear power plants, and suggested joint management over the disputed Liancourt Rocks.

But he also demanded teachers to be more patriotic and asked Okinawans to put up with American warplanes '€” while refusing their presence around Osaka.

Now, however, everyone outside Japan agrees that he is not a figure to admire. Hashimoto proposed sex slave camps set up by Japan in the Second World War as a working model for brothels to cater for American Marines in Japan.

In the end, he apologized to United States (citing cultural differences) and half-heartedly apologized to South Korea, but not before a member of his Japan Restoration Party commented that he associated Korean women with Osaka'€™s prostitutes. In the end, both men said that their comments were lost in translation and were taken out of context.

The seemingly insensitive and offensive statements made by these Japanese politicians baffled Westerners and hurt Asians, and it was not new.

Actually, there are new and old developments here. Japan has become the most admired Asian country in the second part of the 20th century, after being reviled in the West and the Chinese-speaking world for the first half of the century. While the charms of Japanese technology, economy and culture won so many admirers, it refused to acknowledge its dark past the way Germany has.

 And it succeeded in doing so as all Asian countries wanted to become like Japan, Europe felt humbled by its technological advantage, and United States and Canada counted it as their best friend in Asia.

The Japanese enjoy the highest living standards in Asia, but it is quite difficult to live as a Japanese woman. While enjoying the longest life expectancy in the world and viewed globally as the most charming and elegant ladies, their workplaces do not allow them to take on the managerial and executive roles.

The glorification of Japanese school girls through anime and advertisements have placed normal teenagers as objects of desire.

Finally, in the age of e-commerce and smartphones, married Japanese women are still not expected to run their own enterprises.

Furthermore, the culture of late night drinking for office workers might be responsible for low
frequency of sex between married couples in Japan.    

Things have been like that in Japan. But there have been two recent developments. First, women across Asia have enjoyed better access to promotion, self-employment and equality '€” for instance in Singapore and even China.

Second, the rise of assertive nationalism in China and South Korea has resulted in their antagonism toward Japan on the twin issues of maritime disputes and history.

Until last year it was fair to say that China and South Korea were exploiting fair grievances, but Japan has made the situation worse.

This year Japan has been flexing its own hawkish nationalism, to the critical point of once again denying its war crimes.

During the invasion of China in 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Army enslaved Korean and Chinese women. According to the accepted racist view at that time, they were lowly creatures whose sexual servitude was necessary for the morale of Japanese soldiers.

The nationalities and numbers of the women increased as Japan moved into Southeast Asia. The plight of Indonesian sex slaves made headlines in the 1990s, but the press used the Japanese term jugun ianfu '€” military comfort women '€” to cover the sense of humiliation (of modern men instead of the victims'€™) and to cushion the disturbing topic.

Indonesia, like many other Southeast Asian nations, has never pursued the issue the way South Korea has.

Mayor Hashimoto, like many other Japanese politicians, had maintained that the women were typical prostitutes that followed every army. But recently he said that their agonies were necessary since Japanese soldiers needed '€œto relax'€.

The painful comment was made to argue that the US can learn something from Japan in managing its soldiers, and he believed that the analogy was correct.

He is not alone, and while public polls chastise him, other politicians hardly contradict him. Japanese media hardly grills politicians with tough questions, out of a culture of conformity rather than censorship.

Japanese history textbooks maintain that Japan was forced by circumstances to join the Second World War and barely refer to its pre-war invasion of China.

Hashimoto'€™s effort to apologize to South Korea was new since Japan tends to see itself a level above other Asian countries. In the Japanese mindset, '€œAsia'€ is still a loaded word associated with poverty, incompetence and crime.

Far from its sophisticated image, Japan'€™s sexual awareness is still immature. While Korean pop conquers the Japanese market and multilingual Koreans are employed overseas, both J-pop and anime have lost many fans not only due to lack of creativity but also due to the recent trend of infantilizing female singers and characters.

For decades Western consultants and scholars have futilely asked Japan to utilize its highly qualified females to revive the economy and technology.

The Hashimoto controversy itself was a challenge for Japanese women to take to the streets and the media, but nothing was televised apart from the speech of a couple of Korean former sex slaves in Osaka.

If Japan cannot appreciate and treat fairly its women, it is almost impossible to hope that it will be mature and brave enough to admit its crimes against Asian women.

It is certainly impossible to hope that intelligent and creative Japanese women can help the nation to recover, as the ceiling is not made of glass but of hardwood.

The writer teaches English and Australian cultural studies at Uni-Bridge, St. Aloysius High School, Bandung.