I agree with Tobias's general assertion that building good relationship with South Korea is important for Japan's security. However, I do not agree with his idea that the resolving remorse or resentment on the Korean side is the basis of such relationship. Let me explain why.
First, Japanese past relationships with Korea and China are totally different. Japan was fighting war not against Korea, but against China. Korea was mostly under peaceful annexation, but in China, hot war was raging with massive number of people being killed.
Second, even though Tamogami's attitude looks diplomatically unwise, many points he raised are factually correct. Or I would say they are much more close to the reality than the Korean version of the narrative. Yes, the population doubled. Yes, public health was improved. Yes, cities were modernized. Yes, Japan built Seoul University. Yes, Japan built railways. Yes, Japan planted trees on bald mountains. Yes, Japan promoted Hangul (actually the first Hangul dictionary was created by Japan), except during the last several years of the crazy war.
Third, there are many points factually wrong about popular Korean myths. Japan did not conscript 200,000 sex-slaves from Korea. By the way, Japan did not change the name of Sea of Japan. The sea was named by Europeans. Japan did not force draft on Koreans until the last year of the war (Sept 1944). Before the draft, joining the IJA was voluntary, and there were massive applicants to the chosen few spots. Actually, the late president Park was educated in military academy in Manchuria. The numbers of applicants to IJA are as follows. Considering that the population of 25 million in the Peninsula (1944), 0.3 million young male applicants to IJA is not a small number. Half of the population is women, and if one assumes a quarter of population is in appropriate age, then this means one in ten of the eligible people applied. Korean applicants to Imperial Japanese Army (year/applicants/accepted) 1938 2,946 406 1939 12,348 613 1940 84,443 3,060 1941 144,743 3,208 1942 254,273 4,077 1943 303,394 6,000
I noticed one thing after I post the first post. Another strange thing one notices regarding the book, "a public betrayed" is that in the five case studies, only Shukan Shincho and Bunshun are criticized. Check it out for yourself.
Isn't it strange? From the first place, magazines like these are outside of Kisha Club, the very thing the book is criticizing. Secondly, two of the other four cases, Nanjing incident and comfort women are most heavily criticized by Shokun, Sapio, Seiron or these days by Will. Why did the authors pick only Shukan Shincho and Bunshun?
Takasaki Ryuji, a critique and sympathizer of Soka, is quoted in a book as follows.
These days the main "(Soka) Gakkai-bashing" magazine comes from Shincho, but in old days, it was those from Bungei Shunju. This is one of the reason why I fought and pursued "war responsibility" of Bunshun** in my research career; I wanted to "defend (Soka) Gakkai by fighting a war with Bunshun." **Bunshun is abbreviation of Bungei Shunju
The whole picture is clear: these guys are using Nanjing and comfort women for the promotion of their religious master: Ikeda Daisaku, and not the other way around as they make it appear to be. In other words, now that Komei Party is a part of the Japanese government, it is this type of propaganda that we have to pay attention to: the book itself is a living proof of one of the sickest part of the Japanese media.
This is a response to Leslie in AMPONTAN blog. I could not post the article, so I post it here.
Leslie:
I can understand that your have minimal capability of understanding the Japanese media. Most likely you are serious and sincere, I assume, unless you are a member of Soka gakkai. At least I can safely say that you had better check the background of what they say.
If you read the web site of the book, you will find that one part is very strange to a no-Soka Gakkai person like me. Why did they include the rape trial of Ikeda Daisaku in the five case studies that are suppose to represent the Japanese media? As to an outsiders of Soka Gakkai, Ikeda Daisaku is nobody. He looks fat and disgusting, he might have raped many women, but reports of those do not represent the way the Japanese media behaves. And I know how Soka Gakkai can be really sickening because the restaurant I used to visit was run by a Gakkai believer, and the newspapers (Seikyo Shinbun, sacred religion news paper) are full of nauseating slanders against their brother buddhist monk, Nikken. If you do not know Nikken, you should not be involved in Soka Gakkai.
Briefly, Adam Gamble (Arthur Gamble according to Financial Times) is a writer related to Soka Gakkai publisher in Boston. The FT article and the book are published by the same people, I guess, unless Arther Gamble and Adam Gamble are two different persons.
Watanabe Takesato is a professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, and a sympathiser or perhaps could be a member of Soka Gakkai. At least he is actively involved in their propaganda as in this or that. The FT article is also posted on his web.
One of the co-author, Watanabe Takesato is a professor majoring in mass media at Doshisha University, and at the same time, he is constantly contributing to magazines related to Soka Gakkai. His criticism of mass media is, in essence, badmouthing of magazines, including Shukan Shincho, which report the rape comitted by Ikeda Daisaku.
The victims of Soka Gakkai have their say: http://www.toride.org/81/rape.htm#eimi053707
The critics of Soka Gakkai criticize the court was unjustly influenced by the cult, and discuss the international propaganda of Soka Gakki: http://www.forum21.jp/2006/07/post_26.htm http://www.forum21.jp/contents/contents2-2.html
After you read all these, who do you believe? I feel Watanaben Takesato's behavior is highly suspicious. This is most likely religio-political propaganda by the Buddhist cult. And you are the one swallowing all of them without a doubt.
This is the second post regarding BBC4 program published here and its audiohere. The audio contains the voice of Jan Ruff O’Herne, the Dutch-Australian woman, probably a victim of Semarang incident.
O'Herne is not a typical comfort woman because her story can be backed up by records of Semarang Incident and BC class Dutch war tribunal in Batavia, Java. A war crime of Japanese military men is recorded in Java, Indonesia: they forced some female Dutch internees into prostitution. In November 1943, Japan completed the internment of Dutch colonialists in Indonesia that had been ruled by the Dutch for three hundred years. The Indonesian and the Eurasian (mixed Dutch-Indonesians) were not subject to this internment. The 16th military division that supervised Java permitted the establishment of military brothels on the condition that women should not be coerced and they should sign a consent form. Which probably were not obeyed by some military officials. In February 1944, Dutch women were rounded up and put into brothels, which were closed two months later (three months according to O'Herne and Ploeg) by the order of the headquarter of 16th military division. (Hata ibid pp216-221) In 1947 Dutch military tribunal sentenced Major Okada Yoshiharu to death, 6 military officers to 2 to 15 years in prison, and 4 civilians who operated the brothels to 7 to 20 years. One civilian governor Mitsuhashi Hiroshi was acquitted. Colonel Ikeda Shozo, who was sentenced to 15 years, became insane, and Colonel Okubo killed himself (Hata ibid p219). This Batavia tribunal ruling states that 25 out of 35 were forced prostitutes. 1994 Dutch report describes at least 65 out of 200~300 were victims of forced prostitution (Hata ibid p218). If O'Herne's story is correct, she is most likely a victim of Semarang incident. There are two women publicly known to be such victims from the former Dutch colony: one is O'Herne, the other is Elly Corry van der Ploeg, both of whom were participants of VAWW-net organized Women's Tribunal 2000 , a kangaroo trial that convicted already deceased Emperor Hirohito. O'Herne made her experience public in 1992 (Hata ibid, p217). Since the stories of both corroborate well with the record of Batavia tribunal, and manuscripts of Major Okada who claimed that the women in "officer's club" were now lying and testifying against him (Hata ibid, p220), it is safe to say their stories are based on real facts.
BBC4 published a comfort woman story in their woman's hour. You can listen to the audio. The audio contains the voice of Jan Ruff O’Herne, the Dutch-Australian woman, probably a victim of Semarang incident. The program has four parts:
Jan Ruff O'Herne's real voice. She is demanding that if you break a window, you pay for it.
Matsui Hideko, an anthoropologist, a Japanese female commentator.
Jeff Kingson, Director of Asian Studies, at the Temple University in Tokyo
Taniguchi Tomohiko, Deputy Press Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Japan
I really do not know this Matsui Hideko. Anybody care to tell me who she is?
Jeff Kingston is a typical "corpse-maximizer," as you can see in this or that. It is amazing that this much of knowledge can guarantee a position in Asian studies. I might write about him someday.
Taniguchi Tomohiko is keeping the official line and accepting 1993 Kono statement. In my opinion, he is doing a good job here at BBC, but he fails to mention that Germany has no bilateral treaties with any country to settle the war. On the contrary Japan settled all war-related claims. Otherwise, listeners can not understand why Japan does not pay reparations to the already settled war.
My problem here is why Jan Ruff O'Herne had to be included here. Yes, her story sounds vivid, real and tragic, of course, but is that the only reason? A typical summary of "sex slaves" goes like this as in this BBC program.
Comfort Women - Sexual Slavery in WWII?
28 March 2007
Japan's ongoing row with its neighbours over its wartime use of sex slaves deepened earlier this month. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 women, mainly from China and South Korea, were made to work in about 2,000 "comfort stations" - a euphemism for brothels - across Asia from the early 1930s until Japan's defeat in 1945. Less than three weeks ago the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, appeared to distance his government from Japan’s 1993 unofficial apology to these women.
A typical explanation of comfort women is that they are euphemism of "sex slaves,""as many as 200,000 women," mainly from "Korea," who were abducted and forced to work in wartime brothels for Imperial Japanese Army (this article adds Chinese, which is a interesting development to me). But there is a problem here: O'Herne is not Korean. Why she was included here when she is not a typical figure of "sex slaves"?
This is the fourth post regarding this article (via AMPONTAN).
The article says:
Did other military forces have a similar system?
According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.
Hata lists similar comfort stations used in other cases (Hata ibid, pp145-173)
Allied forces used Axis comfort stations in Sicily (Italy), Burma, Singapore, Hanzhou (China), Okinawa.
Germany maintained 500 comfort stations during the war time. Germany had also comfort stations in concentration camps.
Soviet Russians used rape instead of comfort stations in Germany and Manchuria at the end of the war. Similar thing happened in Bangladesh war (1971) and Cambodia-Vietnam war (1970).
US used RAA, comfort stations set up in Japan during the occupation era.
French used moving brothels (Bordel Mobile de Campagne) made up of North African women during the first Indochina war.
US maintained "recreation center" during Vietnam war (circa1966).
US uses comfort stations around US bases in Japan and in South Korea.
Hata says:
The most famous one is Dongducheon Base close to 38 parallel, which boasted 6,500 prostitutes at its peak. The numbers declined since, but 60 something whorehouses with 1,500 prostitutes are servicing US soldiers still these days. They have compulsory venereal disease check, and women are required to carry safety cards. This is indistinguishable from what happened in Japanese army comfort stations. (Hata ibid, p173)
It is very ironic that there is no outcry for the women working in the sex industry now.
The Washingtonpost article on March 23, distributed by AP, shows the regular ignorance of Tokyo news reporters who cannot back up what they say, and it also shows inability of Washington post to check what they are fed. Are they swallowing anything they are told? This reminds me of Steven Colbert, who told the journalists that their only job is "type what we say and publish and go home," (or words to that effect; you can check it by yourself on the video).
For one thing, I am not a fan of Nakasone Yasuhiro, even though I think most of his policies were okay. But he is a politician, and politicians' job is to sell words and make things look better than they are, or in other words, lie.
Of course if he has written in 1978 that he set up a comfort station in Borneo, then he set up a comfort station in Borneo. It could contain other family-oriented "go" activity center, but the main attraction should have the nature of adult industry. His book is known for years, and before 1991 when Kim Hak Sun (金学順) the first protesting prostitute came forward, comfort stations had no shadow of sins. Other Japanese narratives had similar flavors: they are parts of the real world and real war, they had lived such a life and accepted their lives. I will comment on this aspect, later.
"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women."
"I only knew about it from what I read in the newspaper," he said, adding that such enslavement was "deplorable" and that he supported the Japanese government's 1993 apology to victims.
When Nakasone Yasuhiro says like this, probably he meant it. Because the story in newspapers are totally different from what he himself experienced in setting up comfort stations in Borneo, he only "knew about it from what I (Nakasone Yasuhiro) read in the newspaper." He has first-hand knowledge of how the prostitutes lived in the comfort stations, but he did not want to indulge in war of words because Nakasone would like to support Abe Shinzo for the greater good. That's it, and its is very simple.
My take on this article is not Nakasone Yasuhiro as a naval officer (海軍主計将校), but as a target of another hate speech Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社). WP writes:
The former prime minister is known in Japan for his nationalist stance. In 1985, he was the first Japanese prime minister to visit a Tokyo war shrine after it began honoring executed war criminals. Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders incense its neighbors, such as China.
This is a blatant lie. Yasukuni enshrined "A class war criminal convicts" in 1978, and the fact became public in 1979. "BC class war criminal convicts" had already been being enshrined since 1959, by the way. PM Ohira Yoshimasa, PM Suzuki Zenko had already paid their tributes to Yasukuni after 1979. Nakasone Yasuhiro is the third PM who did the same thing after the A class enshrinement became publicly known. This is why critics of China claim that the "de-shrinement" of enshrined people does not help the diplomatic relationship between China and Japan: China's behavior does not correlate to events in history. Their behavior is not motivated by history and facts, but by Chinese internal/international political game. Perhaps everybody has to come to the conclusion that in China, everything is politics, even human rights or history.
Above is the reason why I seriously doubt the linguistic ability of JOSEPH COLEMAN, the writer: 5 minutes background check in Japanese literature would have saved him from becoming an illiterate or a liar.
Ex-Japanese PM Denies Setting Up Brothel
By JOSEPH COLEMAN The Associated Press Friday, March 23, 2007; 3:51 AM
TOKYO -- A former Japanese prime minister and elder statesman on Friday denied setting up a military brothel staffed by sex slaves during World War II, despite writing a memoir that critics say shows he did so while in the navy.
Yasuhiro Nakasone, who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987 and was known for his friendship with then-President Reagan, described the facility he set up as a place for civilian engineers to relax and play Japanese chess.
"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women."
"I only knew about it from what I read in the newspaper," he said, adding that such enslavement was "deplorable" and that he supported the Japanese government's 1993 apology to victims.
Historians say as many as 200,000 women _ most from Korea and China _ worked in the frontline brothels. Victims say they were forced into the brothels by the Japanese military and were held against their will.
The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a resolution that calls on Japan to make a full apology for the brothels, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stirred criticism earlier this month when he denied there was evidence the women were forced into service.
A Nakasone memoir published in 1978 said that when he was a sub-lieutenant in the navy, members of his 3,000-man navy unit in wartime Philippines and Borneo "began attacking women, while others took to gambling."
"At one point, I went to great pains to set up a comfort station" to keep them under control, he wrote. The essay was in an anthology of war accounts, "The Eternal Navy _ Stories to Hand Down to the Younger Generation."
In the 1990s, former Philippine sex slaves cited the memoir as further proof Nakasone was involved with enslavement, bolstering their demands that Tokyo compensate the victims. The Japanese government in 1995 set up a private fund for the women, but never offered direct government compensation.
A Nakasone spokesman in 1997 told The Associated Press that the brothel was operated by local business people and that the prostitutes worked there voluntarily and had not been forced into sexual slavery.
But on Friday, Nakasone was vague about the activities at the facility, skirting a question about whether prostitutes were active there.
"The engineers ... wanted to have a facility to relax and play `go,' so we simply established a place so they could have that," Nakasone said, explaining that the men _ civilian engineers _ needed someplace for rest and entertainment.
Nakasone's government, as all Japanese governments until the 1990s, denied any official involvement with the wartime brothels.
The former prime minister is known in Japan for his nationalist stance. In 1985, he was the first Japanese prime minister to visit a Tokyo war shrine after it began honoring executed war criminals. Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders incense its neighbors, such as China.
This post is the third one on this article regarding comfort women (via AMPONTAN).
My comments are in bold.
The article says:
Where did the women come from?
They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.
Hata, however, figures about 40 percent of the women may have been Japanese while 20 percent were Koreans and the remainder included Chinese and Filipinos.
This is also the difference of their guess work, because invariably the evidence is circumstantial and partial. Yoshimi used in his 1994 testimony the number of 1940 medical statistics of venereal diseases. The women who gave Japanese soldiers their VD were constituted of 52 % Korean, 36% Chinese and 12 %. He guessed that these women should be "comfort women," then he further guessed these number must be proportional to the total number of them. This is why he concluded there were 10 % Japanese prostitutes.
Of course, there are problems in his assumptions. Does the VD statistics represent the entire VD of whole military? Do the women who gave VD to the soldiers are "comfort women" ? Do the different ethnic groups of women equally carry VD? It is safe to say that his claim is based on a circumstantial evidence at best.
Yoshimi Yoshiaki says in above quoted testimony:
Probably not all (of the women) are "comfort women," but the ratio suggests the women are "comfort women." Therefore, Koreans and Chinese are majority among them.
He is trying to prove
(A) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of comfort women
by
(B) Koreans and Chinese were the major source of VD disease in one study
because
(C) He thinks VD sources are likely to be comfort women
because
(D) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of VD sources
This sounds like a circular logic to me.
Then what did Hata Ikuhiko do? He acknowledges that the information is sketchy. He points out that there are lists of registered Japanese residents in Manchuria and parts of China. At that time, Koreans and Taiwanese had Japanese citizenship, so they were also registered. He assumes that Japanese residents who worked in "service industry" are roughly proportional to one sector of the industry -- sex workers. Then, the number goes like this (Hata ibid, p399)
1940 Northern-Middle-Southern China Japanese: Women 16,004 (including 14,378 between ages 15-39), Men 5,472 (including 2,420 business owners) Korean: Women 7,141 (including 7,019 between ages 15-39), Men 2,423 (including 1,164 business owners) Taiwanese: Women 299
1938 Manchuria Japanese: Women 14,743 Korean: Women 3,870 Taiwanese: no record
Of course not all of them are "comfort women," since these includes the male workers and business owners and those who worked in "restaurants." However, if one assumes that female number represents (or proportional to) the ratio (or number) of sex workers, then the Japanese-Korean ratio is always 2:1 or 3:1 throughout Manchuria or China. This is not surprising because the Japanese population has been always roughly 3 times of that of Korean peninsula. With other sketchy records of Japanese occupied territories during the war, Hata estimates comfort women were consisted of 40% Japanese, 30% natives of the area, 20% Korean and 10% other.
Their estimates are largely different, but they share one thing in common: Presence of Japanese comfort women. Not a single Japanese women proclaimed themselves as "sex slaves," so far. There were stories of Japanese comfort women before 1991. Most probable answer to that contradiction seems to me that the Japanese comfort women did not think themselves as "sex slaves."
March 23, 2007 Norimitsu Onishi tries to tarnish Aso Taro, the minster of foreign affairs of Japan.
Norimitsu Onishi wrote:
Foreign Minister Taro Aso said “yellow-faced” Japanese could play a more constructive role in Middle East diplomacy than Americans. Japan is doing what Americans can’t do,” he said, according to the newspaper Nikkei. “Japanese are trusted. If you have blue eyes and blond hair, it’s probably no good.” Mr. Aso is often mentioned as a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
His point is that Aso Taro is racist. Onish started the long long term negative campaign against Aso because Aso is likely to be a next prime minister.
I could not find the original in Nikkei. Perhaps it went through Jiji,
Aso Taro stressed "It is fortunate that we have yellow face. There (in the middle east), we have not a single incidence of exploitation (of the middle eastern people), fighting wars, or machine-gunning." His point is not how he perceives races, but how people of middle east perceive races. Based on that reality, he claims Japan can play a different role than what America does.
This post is the second one on this article regarding comfort women (via AMPONTAN).
The article says:
How many women served soldiers at the brothels?
No official figures have been provided, as there are few documents discovered. Historians have calculated the numbers by tallying how many soldiers were in the field and consulting documents on the ratio of women to soldiers. They also made assumptions about the "replacement rates" of women at the brothels.
Hata has estimated there were up to 20,000 "comfort women," while Yoshimi says the figure was between 50,000 and over 200,000.
The number circulated in the media 200,000 is the upper limit that Yoshimi supplied, and it could be lower. However, that is not the point.
Surprisingly, there is no documents underlying the "indisputable number: 200,000," or any other numbers. They are all, well, guesses. Since the prostitutes were not the official member of the military, there were no name lists of prostitutes serving the military. Besides, they often used "stage names," which makes name lists meaningless any way.
There are five ways to do this guess work (Hata ibid, pp397-406),
guessing from total numbers of soldiers and guessing "appropriate ratio"
extrapolating from the information of a small area
guessing from the numbers of comfort stations
guessing from economic standpoint
guessing from number of condoms distributed
Above numbers of Yoshimi and Hata are using the first method. The difference lies in how you imagine the "average rate of appropriate prostitutes per given number of soldiers."
In Yoshimi Yoshiaki's case:
3.0 million soldiers/sailors (1944: 2.8 million Army, 0.2 million Navy) divided by 30 (one prostitutes per 30 soldiers) multiplied by 2 (2 prostitutes took turns) equals 200,000 = indisputable number in the media
Hata's estimate:
2.5 million soldiers/sailors (0.5 million were thrown into battlefields) divided by 150 (one prostitutes per 150 soldiers) multiplied by 1.5~1 (1.5~1 prostitutes took turns) equals 16,000 or maybe more.
Furthermore, these estimates are number of "prostitutes," not the number of "abducted women forced into sex slavery." If one has to imagine "the appropriate ratio" for "sex slaves", nobody has any evidence with which to calculate the number.
