A lot of Westerners are puzzled why so many Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos or people in other Asian nations still cannot get over the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army more than 60 years after the end of World War II.

But the words and antics of right-wing Japanese political leaders in recent months have shown why.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dismissed the notion that the country's wartime actions amounted to "aggression", saying such a definition has yet to be "firmly determined" by academics or the international community.