On the afternoon of October 25th, 2013, Yuko Watanabe, professor of Meiji Gakuin University and Zhang Kaiyuan Academic Foundation visiting scholar, made an academic speech titled How to Face the Past History – from the Perspective of the History of Meiji Gakuin University. She demonstrated the tortuous course of the history of Japan through the discourse of the pre-war and post-war changes of Meiji Gakuin University. From the perspective of Japanese, she portrayed a real Japanese society for teachers and students. She believed that Japanese government does not face the responsibility of invasion, which is the reason why Japan fails to receive the respect of Asian countries. She emphasized that absence of Nanking Massacre in Japanese textbooks will lead to students’ inaccessibility to true history. Professor Watanabe also pointed out that though the mainstream of Japanese Christianity loses rationality, the church institutions represented by Meiji Gakuin insists on the Christian pacifism and the spirit of justice. She strongly hoped that only by facing the history of invasion and bravely embracing the pains of the past, will Japanese government usher in a bright future for its country.
