The next phase of human rights abuses in Asia occurred during interstate wars. The United States killed and otherwise abused hundreds of thousands of Japanese, North Koreans, and Vietnamese in the course of fighting twentieth-century wars in East Asia. And of course Japan is a major perpetrator in this period. It is guilty of terrible abuses of human rights, such as its repression in Korea; its mistreatment of POWs and use of forced labor; the Imperial Army’s use of sexual slavery; and medical experiments on Chinese POWs and civilians (Unit 731).

This brings us to the present, in which human rights are abused today by governments mistreating their own people. The Chinese government abuses dissidents, restricts political rights, and violently represses secessionist movements. In North Korea, the Kim regime killed, through famine caused by economic dysfunction, upwards of a million North Koreans. It rewards regime loyalists and punishes, incarcerates, tortures, or executes those who are less trustworthy—along with their family members.

By contrast, Japan and other liberal nations in the region are model global citizens. While imperfect, they participate in international organizations; they govern by rule of law; they believe in due process; they make their people prosperous and free. They devote their time, resources, and talents to promoting human rights around the world.

A virtue of this framing is that it no longer unfairly singles out Japan. It draws a sharp distinction between the human rights-abusing Japan of the past, and the exemplary Japan of the present; it also distinguishes between countries that used to commit human rights abuses and countries that today continue to deny basic human rights to their people.

In sum, the United States can indeed help its allies and partners deal with East Asia’s history problem, and a major contribution would be to reframe that problem. To the extent that people want to talk about past violence, the conversation should not focus exclusively on Japan’s World War II crimes and what makes Japan unable to apologize, but should include human rights abuses that all countries committed.

But more importantly, the conversation should emphasize how Japan, the United States, Britain, Australia, France, and other liberal democracies have moved past that; how today they treat their own people well, and demonstrate respect for human rights. And the conversation should highlight current human rights abuses in East Asia, which are principally being done by illiberal governments against their own people.

Foreign policy analysts have long lamented how the United States pursues national security interests at the expense of a human rights agenda. In East Asia today, by changing the frame about the region’s history wars, the United States faces an unusual opportunity to advance both.

Jennifer Lind is associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, and the author of Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (Cornell Univ. Press, 2008). Follow her on Twitter: @profLind.

Image: Flickr/Official Page of the Republic of Korea