What Japan's Government has Actually Said About Sexual Slavery and Comfort Women: The Kono Statement & Abe's Words

Well put. The Japanese government says that it is not currently in possession of any documents that explicitly link it to the sexual enslavement of women.

Maybe I'm misplacing the source, but didn't Dower mention that the Japanese authorities spent a lot of time just after the war ended disposing of written evidence?

Also, what was the evidence unearthed that caused the "Kono Statement" in the first place? Is it still available to the public?

The official Yasakuni Shrine website has been upgraded recently and there is little left to provide information on it or the reasons it exists. I guess that is part of the Japanese government's attempts at sanitizing the issue - yasukuni

All of this settled down last year after a series of odious exchanges with China and South Korea. Now, along with Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe's strange comments recently. there have been at least two other significant issues in Japan.

One was the comment by a top aide, Shoichi Nakagawa, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, charged that Japan risks becoming a Chinese province due to Beijing's military spending. "...If something goes awry in Taiwan in the next 15 years, then within 20 years Japan might become just another one of China's provinces .....If Taiwan comes under (China's) complete rule, Japan could be next...". channelnewsasia .com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/260889/1/.html

The other was the security pact signed by Australia and Japan last week which was a virtual extension of the Australia-USA ANZUS treaty and a new development for Australia's role in the region. China and South Korea are always especially sensitive to political moves by Japan but they must have been very disappointed to see their major "quarry" (supplier of iron + coal + gas) in the West Pacific region re-aligning itself with the USA and Japan and particularly despite China's recent supply contracts with and investments in Australia.

In a very bitter response, Shi Yin Hong, professor of international affairs at the People's University in Beijing states:- "...We will also of course take our long-term measures, but this new agreement doesn't mean too much in the short to medium term ....It won't cause any excessive reaction from China ....It's a normal-enough phenomenon if, for us, a negative one ....We know Japan doesn't love us - we don't love them either - and views us as a possible long-term threat .....But normal relations will continue..." theaustralian.news

Excellent article Fatso. Thanks!

What was a Clintonian endeavor to finagle his way out of an awkward situation through semantics was reported around the world as a categorical denial that the wartime Japanese Army induced women into brothels.

Nice turn of a phrase. I suspect those guys must be serious students of American politics, and may have studied some political figures beyond Clinton, as Shinzo's words here seem positively Rovian:

The question should be whether the women were taken out of their houses forcibly, or they wanted to choose to not go but they were in an environment that compelled them to go in the end. The latter can be regarded as a case of coercion in he broad sense of the word.

Have there been a lot of former "comfort women" (do I detect the influence of Frank Luntz here? What's wrong with the term "sex slaves?") who have come forward and claimed that they wanted to choose to not go but they were in an environment that compelled them to go in the end, and that they therefore chose to go? What kind of "environment" causes a woman to "choose" enslavement and rape, aside from a serious and realistic threat of physical violence?

I don't know what the Japanese people and the Japanese government will do, or should do about this issue. I think it's admirable that they've at least addressed it. I don't think it would hurt them to be a bit more forthright in the way that they talk about it. Their predecessors committed some heinous acts, and this isn't the only case. We Americans have some skeletons in our closet, too, of course, and we're slowly getting around to addressing them. We'll be better off once we work through our issues, and the Japanese will be better off once they do, too.

Quote Fatso:- "Do you think China, if it did indeed attack Taiwan, would not hit Japan..?"

Not necessarily, and backing Japan against China is the worst of choices, Fatso. They are still learning to resolve their differences and enormous past bitterness. Once China feels threatened it will responds but it will be a fight with Japan over oil reserves in the South China Sea and further north. You are right about the the Yushukan War Museum, though, and it has been the main seat of contention. The only real threat Japan has to endure from China is the prospect of Japan becoming a convenient shopping mall for rich Chinese.

If you think that "...China is also spending a huge amount of it's new found wealth on weapons...", that is only an upgrade in the People's Liberation Army budget which has very little to do with actual significant "military strength" in any large degree but is simply addressing the need for a modern military as opposed to keeping an otherwise unemployable 2 million (mostly) men in uniform doing odd jobs in a very unbalanced economy. They are still along way from anything other than "asymmetrical warfare", if you have any idea what that is.

Apart from that, the PRC does have to keep pace with the threats (yes, threats) posed by (a) the US forces in S.Korea, (b) N.Korea, (c) the US forces in Japan and Okinawa, (d) Japan, (e) US forces elsewhere in the W.Pacific, (f) Taiwan, (g) India, (h) Russia, (i) US forces in W.Asia or the M.East, (j) Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, etc, (k) Mongolia, (l) Myanmar or Burma, (m) Vietnam and Laos, (n) interests in the South China Sea, etc etc. These are all countries or seas on its borders, some of which it has been to war with in the past and some of which are currently unstable for one reason or another.

At present, the US and N.Korea are finally resolving some long-standing issues and it would be unrealistic to think that China has not played a large part in facilitating that peace. In exchange for eliminating threats of nuclear missiles being fired against the USA, surely China could expect the same from the US in helping peacefully end the Taiwan cross-straits tensions. As long as the US wishes to keep Taiwan as a thorn in China's side, there must always be the potential for invasion. Quite frankly, though, no countries anywhere in the region including ASEAN want to see that happen.

* "Outside of its immediate area, Australia is not a military factor..."

The Howard government in Australia is still deliriously pandering to the Washington Neocons as though Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were just a bad dream. That must have something to do with their age-old fears of the "yellow peril" to the North which seems to keep their fantasy role of being an illusory US "deputy-sherriff" in the S.E. Asia region alive. One of the reasons for that, though, is that (a) they have several US military satellite communications bases on their soil, (b) they are acquiring Cruise missiles (nuclear?) with which they have already threatened first strikes against any supposed terrorist cells amongst their neighbours to the North, and (c) they have just signed up with the USA for participation in a joint development of new generation fighter aircraft regardless of the cost or delivery date.

Thanks for your kind words, Fatso. I don't know how long I'll be around, though, if stories keep disappearing off the front page at the rate they seem to here. Bulletin-board forums are better for keeping track. The only avenue for me to find my way back in was via my "history" page. How many others are going to read what we post, then?

First, with regard to the "comfort women" issue which you started with, it was reported in ChannelNewsAsia that North Korea will take part in an international conference on "comfort women" in Seoul on May 19-21, according to the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. That should make an interesting change for Japan to having their missiles fired overhead - and a face-saver for Kim at Abe's expense. I guess that serves him right for bringing the issue up again!

Talking about sexual slavery and Korea, though, there is a modern sequel with the 'Diary of a sex slave" four-part series published in San Francisco last year by sfgate .com/sextrafficking/ - quote: "...After paying off her debt to int'l sex traffickers, You Mi still owed $40K and creditors in S. Korea were circling her family. So she went to work in an SF massage parlor...". That is slavery in the USA but it makes a notable comparison to a report I saw on the net about "comfort women" in 1944 - Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces, India-Burma Theater - exordio .com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html - about "...the interrogation of twenty Korean "comfort girls" and two Japanese civilians captured ......in the mopping up operations after the fall of Myitkyina in Burma...".

"The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen....". That is also like the present-day Korean girl (and others) who is either duped or forced into being sent overseas to be kept against her will in a brothel in Australia or Europe or the USA. Just to get some more facts, see twotigers .org and click your way through the links on the left of the page.

Abe clarified his remarks today:

In a debate in parliament, under intense questioning by an opposition lawmaker, Mr. Abe refused to withdraw a recent statement in which he said there was no evidence that the military had forcibly recruited women to work in brothels established throughout Asia.

But Mr. Abe carefully chose his words today to avoid repeating his earlier denial, saying only: "What I said about coercion during the news conference, all of it became news, so that's the way it was."

When Haruko Yoshikawa, a Communist parliamentarian, asked Mr. Abe whether he did not consider as proof of coercion testimony given by former comfort women in the U.S. House of Representatives recently, Mr. Abe said that he had no comment on their testimony.

The House of Representatives is considering a non-binding resolution that would call on Japan to unambiguously acknowledge and apologize for its wartime slavery.

So, yet again, another Japanese "little emperor" was forced into making yeat another apology. How sincere!

To not back Japan in a potential conflict with China would be ridiculous. No nation on this side of the world is more closely aligned with Western interests and Western values than Japan.

Well, my friend, maybe those western interests and values themselves are ridiculous from another point of view, mine included. Taiwan is South Carolina gone astray in the 1800s and Japan went berserk in the 1900s. I am an old pilot, but if the Flying Tigers were needed again, I'd sign up.