What would be a sufficient apology on the issue of comfort women? According to an article published in the Japan Times, South Korean lawmaker Yoo Ki Hong pointed to:
the 1970 example of then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who dropped to his knees at a ceremony in Warsaw to symbolically atone for the crimes committed by Nazi Germany in World War II.
“If (Abe) sincerely wants a true South Korea-Japan friendship as well as peace in Asia, he should apologize for the past war crimes.”
I think the chances of something like this happening in the near future are highly unlikely. But it would make for quite a graphic moment.
I think Japan is placing all of its hope for improving Asian relations in strategically adding non-Japanese members to Morning Musume.
Just you wait and see. Following on the recent announcement of two Chinese coming in, next you’ll be hearing about a South Korean being welcomed into the group.
This is part of the problem. Just because one German politician made a big gesture, some people expect Japan to do the same thing. But a lot of Japanese would see doing what Brandt did as being demeaning.
Also Japan has issued an apology specifically to South Korea. What happened to that? Let me guess - it wasn’t good enough? It’s just the same old excuse wheeled out to grab some votes.
The Germans did right what has been eluding Japanese: they made their past transgressions go away through closure. None of their German successors did anything that would undermine what Brandt did with his “apology”. The same can’t be said with the government of Japan, which keeps repeating this vicious cycle due to poor party discipline and actions of later governments.
Why can’t the Japanese government just let this die and stop digging themselves deeper into a hole. Their actions are just proving the Americans were right in passing that resolution that started this in the first place.
“The Germans did right what has been eluding Japanese: they made their past transgressions go away through closure.”
I hate this offensive notion of closure. There can never be absolution of guilt for what the Germans (or the Japanese) did. The best you can do is say sorry and do what you can to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In any case, the German benchmark for “ideal” apologies should be taken with a grain of salt.
According to The Marmot’s Hole (http://www.rjkoehler.com/?p=2891): “However, the Germans have been much less apologetic concerning atrocities committed prior to World War II. It took until 2004 for Germany to issue anything resembling an apology for its genocidal 1904 campaign against the Herero people of Namibia. And even that apology was made by a cabinet minister, not the German chancellor or president, and the apology has yet to be followed by compensation from either the German state or German corporations that were involved. Nor will you find pictures of the German chancellor in Tanzania dropping to his knees in profound reflection for his country’s brutal suppression of the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905-1907. No apology has ever been issued for that episode in the white man’s mission to bring civilization to the heart of Africa, although the German Embassy in Dar Es Salaam did issue a statement of regret earlier this year and offered money to renovate the Maji Maji Museum. Big woop.”
“The Germans did right what has been eluding Japanese: they made their past transgressions go away through closure.”
The Germans have only apologised for the Holocaust and related events. They still refuse to apologise for starting the war, invading other countries and generally causing mayhem. The Poles are still asking for an apology - does that mean the Germans aren’t sorry?
Hello. I am Japanese right-winger. It is first time to post a comment here, so I am afraid if I am breaking some of rules or manners in this web page; if I do, please let me know.
“None of their German successors did anything that would undermine what Brandt did with his “apology”. The same can’t be said with the government of Japan, which keeps repeating this vicious cycle due to poor party discipline and actions of later governments”
Comment by MarkMilton — 3/19/2007 @ 3:52 am
I think one of the problems solving historical issues between Japan and China/Korea are exaggerations and propagandas from Korea or China. Many Japanese people feel sorry about victims of WWII, but at the same time, some people feel annoyed with exaggerations and point them out. Due to freedom of speech about historical issues in Japan unlike Germany, people can discuss about the issues and point out if something wrong with the issue. Especially nowadays, more and more people can reach to primary sources on internet and distinguish exaggerations and propagandas.
For examples, China say Japanese Army killed 300,000 people in Nanking, but when Japanese army came to Nanking, the population of Nanking was 200,000. Also, the biggest number primary source showing is 60,000 from report of Beitz, Germany (I don’t know the correct spelling of his name). Moreover, I saw news about discovery of a document showing that during WWII Chinese stated the victims in Nanking were 20,000 including soldiers (I haven’t seen the real document of this news though). Smallest number of civilian victims reported was 49 people, from Nanking International Committee.
In addition, China said the deaths of Japan-China war were 1,800,000 during the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, but changed to 6,000,000 in 1950’s and changed to 18,000,000 in the beginning of 1980’s.
In 1991, the number became 21,000,000 and now the number is 30,000,000 (maybe, they have significant discoveries many times!)
Talking about Korea, they say that Koreans were kidnapped by Japanese government as slaves. It is true that Japan conscripted or enlisted Koreans, but it was duty of citizens. People misunderstand that Japan colonized Korea. It is not; Japan annexed Korea. It means Koreans had same rights and duties as Japanese. As a fact, Koreans had right to vote in Japan and there were two Korean representatives in Japan that time. Actually, for Taiwanese and Japanese, the order of enlistment and conscription came earlier (1939) than Koreans (1944).
In Korea, those who question about the exaggerations are considered ally of Japan, against Korean nationality. For example, Kim Wansop published books criticizing Korean textbook and historical view but Korean government made the books available only for adults even though it was not dirty book! Also, he was sued by offspring of Korean queen, general and others and paid around$90,000. Professor Han Sunju was fired from Koryo university because he wrote in a report that at least Japan developed Korea so Japanese colonization was better then Russian colonization which would have happened without Japan. Moreover, Gerry Bevers, American Professor having taught English in Gachon Medical University, and Shunpei Mizuno, Japanese professor having taught in Chon-nan University, lost their jobs since they support Japanese historical view (at least they say so). Furthermore, Korean government forced to close several web pages due to statements supporting Japanese historical view.
Those are examples of exaggerations of Korea and China; some people just don’t believe history has been exaggerated, so I generally have to show some examples.
And the issue, comfort women:
First of all, I haven’t found any evidence on internet which showing Japanese government and army kidnapped or forced women to be comfort women, even in Naver where Korean and Japanese can discuss about many kinds of problems with translation system.
Second, Seoul University professor Byonsik An interviewed 29 comfort women and found out that 4 were forced to be comfort women, 2 were forced (sold, I guess) by their parents, and two were forced by army to work in Pusan and Toyama. However, he researched further and discovered there was no comfort center in Pusan and Toyama.
Third, I have seen documents showing that brokers recruiting comfort women, but I haven’t seen documents showing government was directly involved with recruitment.
So I think this one is another exaggeration and probably Prime Minister Abe is not lying about the matter.
(Just for your information, this one is report from American army about comfort women in 1944.
http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html
It may give you clearer vision about comfort women.)
You know what, Japan has been apologizing over and over, and Korea and China are exaggerating and making up propagandas over and over. If Japan points out the exaggerations and propagandas, they say Japan is not sincere or denying their wrong-doing.
I am not saying I don’t feel sorry about victims of WWII and don’t accept wrong-doing of Japan; indeed, I apologized several times to my Korean friends, but when people say something based on the exaggeration or propaganda, I argued about matters because if I don’t, it means I admit that the exaggerations and propagandas are true, and I feel that it is the biggest insult for victims that they are exaggerated and used for political reasons.
I think apology has to be based on truth and Japanese government’s stance is to apologize for what really happened, but not for exaggerations. Maybe China, Korea, or you feel the attitude is not sincere, but I feel this attitude is more sincere and serious to the issues than just to apologize and keep quiet.
Nao — What do you think about the removal of any mention of comfort women from Japanese textbooks? (And thank you for your long and thoughtful post. It must have taken quite some time to compile and I’m going to read it through a few more times before commenting or asking any other questions).
Seeing as my blog post has been cited above, I’d just like to point out that the fact that the German apologies are much less far-reaching than commonly believed AND, as far as I know, no other former imperial power has apologized to its victims DOES NOT mean the Japan shouldn’t apologize. It should, even if it’s unlikely that certain segments of the Korean and Chinese populations would ever accept it.
All in all, however, the apology in and of itself is not very important. Japan has made many “apologies,” after all. Willy Brandt’s apology was significant in that it demonstrated that Germany had come to grips with what it had done—or at least as far as the Holocaust is concerned. The problem with the Japanese case—or at least as it’s seen by many on this side of the East Sea–is not that Japan hasn’t apologized, but rather that the apologies haven’t come with a similar acceptance by Japan of what it did in East Asia—the comfort women being a case in point.
Maybe the Japanese Diet should pass a resolution of their own asking Congress to apologize for use of the atomic bombs. It’s not as if the US has much of a clean record of its own to boast of. A recent BBC poll ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6421597.stm ) found the majority of the world holding a favorable opinion of Japan, with the US and Israel both lagging at the bottom of the list.
haafu: 1) 28,000 people are not ‘the majority of the world’… they’re 28,000 people in 27 countries. I’m just sayin’… .
The article doesn’t say who they actually polled; people in the streets of 27 countries? University students? A demographic cross section of people per country or a survey of BBC World Service listeners? People from only first-world countries? Who, who, who?
2) um… what does Israel have to do with your point? Why not mention that Iran didn’t get high marks, either - in fact, it’s in the middle of the two countries you mentioned.
3) my personal opinion of this type of ‘trust-us, you don’t need to know the details’ kind of polling is that *a lot* of those 28,000 people polled haven’t the faintest clue what Japan or Canada do or support when it comes to global issues… but the countries are both so benign and blah and non-news-worthy that if someone’s gotta be #1 or #2 or #3, it might as well be the more innocuous countries.
Japan hasn’t had a war in more than 60 years, hasn’t dominated football (soccer), cricket, basketball or (North American) football and Canada has Mounties, hockey, Celine Dion and Tim Horton coffee shops. So we win the World Popularity Poll!! WoOoOoO wOoOoOo
From the link Nao provided to us: Not sure how that shows that comfort women weren’t “tricked” in some way, or that they weren’t forced. The italics are mine and demonstrate a key point; the women were misled. How does this help bolster the idea that comfort women weren’t misled?
Early in May of 1942 Japanese agents arrived in Korea for the purpose of enlisting Korean girls for “comfort service” in newly conquered Japanese territories in Southeast Asia. The nature of this “service” was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. 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.
The majority of the girls were ignorant and uneducated, although a few had been connected with “oldest profession on earth” before. The contract they signed bound them to Army regulations and to war for the “house master ” for a period of from six months to a year depending on the family debt for which they were advanced …
Approximately 800 of these girls were recruited in this manner and they landed with their Japanese “house master ” at Rangoon around August 20th, 1942. They came in groups of from eight to twenty-two. From here they were distributed to various parts of Burma, usually to fair sized towns near Japanese Army camps.
Eventually four of these units reached the Myitkyina. They were, Kyoei, Kinsui, Bakushinro, and Momoya. The Kyoei house was called the “Maruyama Club”, but was changed when the girls reached Myitkyina as Col.Maruyama, commander of the garrison at Myitkyina, objected to the similarity to his name.
PERSONALITY;
The interrogations show the average Korean “comfort girl” to be about twenty-five years old, uneducated, childish, and selfish. She is not pretty either by Japanese of Caucasian standards. She is inclined to be egotistical and likes to talk about herself. Her attitude in front of strangers is quiet and demure, but she “knows the wiles of a woman.” She claims to dislike her “profession” and would rather not talk either about it or her family. Because of the kind treatment she received as a prisoner from American soldiers at Myitkyina and Ledo, she feels that they are more emotional than Japanese soldiers. She is afraid of Chinese and Indian troops.
Marie - thanks for the post. There also hasn’t been any mention here of women like Jan O’Herne, a Dutch teen who, along with other women from Allied countries, was interred by the Japanese army. When army trucks came to the internment camp, some of the women were told only to gather their things together, then were put on trucks to be taken to stations where the sole reason for them being there was to be used as sex slaves.
Of course, I guess the women could have tried to make a run for it and been shot in the back and O’Herne, who has never disassociated herself from other politically-active ‘comfort women’, could be a mindless puppet of nefarious powers… .
Jesus… and I typed that I wouldn’t involve myself in this topic again
“Nao — What do you think about the removal of any mention of comfort women from Japanese textbooks?”
Some right-wingers insist that comfort women are not important as a historical event, but in my opinion, there is no need to remove information of comfort women as long as the explanation is correct. The information might help students feel reality of war; a war is not only between soldiers, but other civilians will be involved in a war. It is not waste of time to study those who were involved in WWII.
“Not sure how that shows that comfort women weren’t “tricked” in some way, or that they weren’t forced. The italics are mine and demonstrate a key point; the women were misled. How does this help bolster the idea that comfort women weren’t misled?”
by Marie Mockett
Year, I agree that women were misled. That is almost without doubt. But my point is that they were not misled by polices or soldiers. I mean this point
“Early in May of 1942 Japanese agents arrived in Korea for the purpose of enlisting Korean girls for “comfort service” in newly conquered Japanese territories in Southeast Asia.”
I understand that the Japanese agents were unofficial brokers (am I wrong? My English is not so good that I might misunderstand the word)
I just wanted to show the women were NOT forced to be comfort women by ARMY.
It is the point of Prime Minister Abe; I just wanted to prove he is not lying.
If you want to say there were responsibilities for Japanese government to regulate comfort women recruitments, then it is another argument.
Yet Japan army at least tries to control the matter. On March 4 of 1938, Michirou Umezu, subordinate officer of Japanese army, gave order “there are agents who use Japanese army name and trick civilians and in some case they try to kidnapped and get arrested or investigated. Therefore, regulate recruitments, choose agents properly, and get support from police in the area”
Sorry my translation is not really good, but I think you can understand what that order is for.
Also another evidence; this one is advertisements of comfort women in Korea.
http://bbs.enjoykorea.jp/tbbs/read.php?board_id=thistory&nid=1833583&st=title&sw=%E9%9F%93%E5%9B%BD%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9C
These advertisements are evidence that recruitments were held by agents, and right ad is from Korean agency. It is proof that there were Korean agents, not only Japanese.
Actually, these ads were from Korean web page, but a while ago it was erased entirely. I don’t know why.
Furthermore, these ads showing the salary of comfort women (over 300yen a month and 3000yen can be borrowed), and you can also see salary in the web page I posted before.
And actually, there is one comfort women who earned 26,145yen(726yen a month) by working for three years (salary of newcomer police was around 45yen and that of Japanese army general was 550yen a month; sadly that of normal soldier was 13yen). It doesn’t mean that they were ok to be tricked to go to comfort center and raped due to the huge amount of money. But at least, you can see it was not like slave existed long time ago, (working for no money in my image).
By the way, thank you reading m long response. It was too long for people to read.
This one is also long one. Please skip if you feel tired.
“There also hasn’t been any mention here of women like Jan O’Herne, a Dutch teen who, along with other women from Allied countries, was interred by the Japanese army.”
by Betty Woo
Good point, you are talking about the incident in Indonesia, right? I think that one is called Hakuba incident in Japan.
No. 16 troop, which guarded Dutch people in Indonesia, gave order not to force women to be comfort women and if they wanted to be, get sign from them that they agreed to be comfort women. However, some of officer candidates forced women to be comfort women. Three months later, the troop found out the incident and closed the comfort center as a punishment. But, here is a mystery, the officer candidates sent to army court yet not punished. I don’t know why; actually, this document is not fully available for normal people. I heard this document will be opened in 2025; I have to wait long time.
If you want to suspect Japanese government, it is your choice.
In my opinion, the incident was private crime rather than official crime. And the supervisor of officer candidates were sentenced to death, one died in prison before sentenced, and other nine people, including owner of comfort center, were sentenced imprisonments by Dutch government after war.
This incident is not related to force from Army and story was finished with punishments.
Also, Keiji Okada, the person punished death, wrote a daily in prison, “I treated comfort women very nicely, but now they accuse me; they even use lies……….but I think the time changed and if people come to know they were supporting Japanese army, it will be disadvantage for them. Somehow they say I am the person who planed the incident. I understand my dog bit my arm (betrayed by someone who got good care from him.) I have no word to say; I will just stand in front of enemy’s gun and show how Japanese soldier dies!”
These are what I knows about Hakuba incident.
There is an interesting essay which explains the background and the nationalism involved among Japanese and Korean. It is written by Chunghee Sarah Soh, an anthropologist at San Francisco State University.
“There is, moreover, the problem of how one defines being “forced,” which is one of the major areas of contention in the compensation issue, even after the Japanese government’s admission that some comfort women were recruited against their will. For anti-apology conservatives in Japan, there exists no believable evidence of the forced recruitment of women by the state agents, save for the exceptional case of Dutch women taken from civilian internment camps, for which Japanese military officers and comfort station operators were tried and punished at the end of the war by a Dutch military court held in Batavia (today’s Jakarta). (19) At the other end of the spectrum, some feminist scholars and human rights activists argue that not only were the military comfort women in the colonies and occupied territories victims of sexual slavery, but so were the women sex workers in Japan’s licensed prostitution system. (20) If one accepts the latter view, an interesting question arises as to the meaning behind the total absence of Japanese former comfort women in the redress movement. Ethnic nationalisms, steeped in a strong antipathy toward Japan, have played a pivotal role in launching and sustaining the comfort women movement for over a decade now. ”
A long but a fair account in my opinion.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Japan’s+National%2FAsian+Women’s+Fund+for+%22comfort+women%22-a0110023383
So might we infer from the rest of your comment that a “correct explanation” might go something like this:
“During WWII, there operated near Japanese military units privately-run brothels staffed by comfort women, prostitutes who made tons of money while the brave fighting men at the front made next to nothing. Some of these prostitutes may have initially been tricked into the profession—despite the best efforts of the Imperial Japanese Army and the authorities in Tokyo—by unscrupulous agents from Korea…which, BTW, was NOT a colony of Imperial Japan, as is often claimed by the poor deluded souls who populate that peninsula, but rather a [voluntarily?] annexed province that enjoyed the same rights and privileges as Japanese at the time.”
BTW, has anyone been able to find a full version of “Kunming-REG-OP-3,” a U.S. Army document unearthed at NARA that certainly seems to suggest that at least some of the comfort girls were compelled. I haven’t found the whole document yet, but it does include this line:
If Japan Inc would hire a good PR consultant, with intl views, they would advise the J govt to do everything the other countries want them to do vis a vis the apology thing, get down on their knees, whatever, whatever it takes, get the apology thing DONE WITH, and then it’s over, pay reparations as well, as Germany did, and then MOVE ON…..
Why on Earth the J-Gov does not do this is beyond understanding. But c’est la vie….and it aint never gonna happen…and this DEEBATE will go on for another 100 years and more…..SAD
SIGH
For some reason, certain aspects of this debate remind me of the OJ Simpson trial. But maybe that’s just me.
there are comfort women in all wars. Paris had em, Tokyo had em for the GIs after the war, US had them in Vietnam, it’s just that this IANFU story with Japan won’t go away. I just say apologize PROfusEly and move on. But above had it right, Germany is not Japan, Japan is not Germany. Can’t compare them. Apples and oranges.
This too shall (never) pass.
Just like OJ, right,.
“So might we infer from the rest of your comment that a “correct explanation” might go something like this:
“During WWII, there operated near Japanese military units privately-run brothels staffed by comfort women, prostitutes who made tons of money while the brave fighting men at the front made next to nothing. Some of these prostitutes may have initially been tricked into the profession—despite the best efforts of the Imperial Japanese Army and the authorities in Tokyo—by unscrupulous agents from Korea…which, BTW, was NOT a colony of Imperial Japan, as is often claimed by the poor deluded souls who populate that peninsula, but rather a [voluntarily?] annexed province that enjoyed the same rights and privileges as Japanese at the time.”
Probably much shorter, like that of Korean textbook; two or three sentences. (what I have is textbook of 1998, so I don’t know what it looks like now though)
By the way, your English is quite good. But please write me easy English, my English is not so good.
“BTW, has anyone been able to find a full version of “Kunming-REG-OP-3,” a U.S. Army document unearthed at NARA that certainly seems to suggest that at least some of the comfort girls were compelled. I haven’t found the whole document yet, but it does include this line:
With the exception of Mrs.Hwang Nam-suk, all of the 23 women became “comfortgirls”, apparently under compulsion and misrepresentation. The fifteen who left Korea in July, 1943, for example, were recruited through advertisements in Korean newspapers offering employment for girls in Japanese factories in Singapore. The contingent with which they were sent southward included at least 300 girls who were similarly misled.”
Oh, that one is the document that Korean news said. I also want to see that one.
I have to say that it doesn’t have subject “who tricked them” so far.
And just correction of my spelling mistake at last posting:
“Also, Keiji Okada, the person punished death, wrote a daily in prison,”
It was not daily, but diary.
By the way, Betty Woo, I mostly agree with you about the pull.
Pull is generally suspicious staff for me.
But you know what, the Korean and Chinese views about Japan makes me a little funny.
You can go to more detail by clicking Adobe reader mark in BBC web page posted by haafu.
And this one is last year pull:
http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcpoll06-3.html
Sorry last year pull was not available now.
I checked and put in file just few weeks ago, but now it was gone.
Well the result was almost same as this year.
Euro was first place and Japan was second.
The Germans had to apologise to WW2 because they needed to rebuild ties with their European neighbours. Japan on the other hand, had the luxury of American protection for much of the Cold War and was not obligated to come to terms with its neighbours for actions done in WW2 because they were either A) Communist, B) Backwater countries or C) Enjoyed Japanese rule.
Just because Germany was slow to come to terms in other historical or regional issues does not mean Japan should do the same. Then again, why Germany is able and encouraged to take the lead in European and international affairs while others continue to keep Japan relatively ineffectual in regional and international affairs?
“Then again, why Germany is able and encouraged to take the lead in European and international affairs while others continue to keep Japan relatively ineffectual in regional and international affairs?”
Racism. The long held inferiority complex of Japanese themselves. Of course the opposite side of the coin is the superior complex to other Asian nations.
Germany’s neighbours were either communist or potential allies while Japan’s neighbours at this time are either still communist, economic backwaters, or an ongoing thorn from their imperialist days…
Japan really doesn’t have much to work with compared to Germany and it is one of many reasons why it never really bothered to deceisively end these regional issues
Here’s some opinions of Japanese people on the street about the issue:
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/popvox/716
WAR IS HELL!
MANY things done in wartime seem
atrocious in times of peace.
Americans firebombed Tokyo, Kobe,
Dresden, etc. Hundreds of thousands
of civilians died. Did they apologize?
Japan has apologized MANY times.
They are a proud people who evidently
have a more thorough understanding of
these things than some others.
It’s time for the victims to just
LET IT GO! (The way the Japanese have)