This photo released on Nov. 17, 2015, shows the exterior of what will be South Korea’s first museum that chronicles Japan’s mobilization of forced labor. Built in the southeastern port city of Busan, the six-storied museum, set to open on World Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, exhibits documents and other material related to Koreans who were coerced to work for Japan who colonized Korea from 1910-45. Busan was where most of these Koreans were gathered before being shipped abroad. (Yonhap)
I wonder if the Chinese Communist Party will take credit for the fighting that the Nationalists primarily carried out fighting Japan during World War II?:
Seoul’s presidential office has officially announced that President Park Geun-hye will visit China from September 2 to 4 to attend Victory Day events marking the end of World War II.
Along with the main commemoration ceremony on Thursday next week, the South Korean president will also attend a military parade in Tiananmen Square, featuring 12-thousand troops and conventional and nuclear missiles.
Presidential Spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters Wednesday that Park decided to attend the event in consideration of South Korea’s friendly and cooperative ties with China, and its hope for the country’s role in the unification of the two Koreas.
A day ahead of the Victory Day celebration, President Park and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a summit. On the last day of her visit, Park will be in Shanghai to attend the reopening ceremony of the historic building where the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was located during Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula. [KBS World Radio]
It seems every time some reporter wants to make some point about Japanese historical revisionism they drag out this guy:
A monument to comfort women was erected outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 2011
Seventy years after the end of World War Two, the voices of revisionism in Japan are growing stronger and moving into the mainstream, particularly on the issue of comfort women, who were women forced to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the war.
One of the most eloquent voices of revisionism is Toshio Tamogami.
Mr Tamogami is well-educated, knowledgeable and, when I meet him, exquisitely polite. The former chief of staff of Japan’s air force believes in a version of Japanese history that is deeply at odds with much of the rest of the world.
But it is increasingly popular among young Japanese, tired of being told they must keep apologising to China and Korea.
Last year Mr Tamogami ran for governor of Tokyo. He came fourth, with 600,000 votes. Most strikingly, among young voters aged 20 to 30 he got nearly a quarter of the votes cast.
“As a defeated nation we only teach the history forced on us by the victors,” he says. “To be an independent nation again we must move away from the history imposed on us. We should take back our true history that we can be proud of.”
In this “true” history of the 20th Century that Mr Tamogami talks of, Japan was not the aggressor, but the liberator. Japanese soldiers fought valiantly to expel the hated white imperialists who had subjugated Asian peoples for 200 years.
It is a proud history, where Japan, alone in Asia, was capable of taking on and defeating the European oppressors. It is also a version of history that has no room for the Japanese committing atrocities against fellow Asians.
Mr Tamogami believes that Japan did not invade the Korean Peninsula, but rather “invested in Korea and also in Taiwan and Manchuria”.
I ask him about the invasion of China in 1937 and the massacre of civilians in the capital Nanjing. Surely that was naked aggression?
“I can declare that there was no Nanjing Massacre,” he says, claiming there were “no eyewitnesses” of Japanese soldiers slaughtering Chinese civilians.
It is when I ask him about the issue of Korean comfort women that Mr Tamogami’s denials are most indignant.
He declares it “another fabrication”, saying: “If this is true, how many soldiers had to be mobilised to forcibly drag those women away? And those Korean men were just watching their women taken away by force? Were Korean men all cowards?” [BBC via Reddit Korea]
You can read the rest at the link.
First of all in regards to the question of whether Japanese men are cowards, scholars who have looked at the comfort women issue would tell you that most of the women put into the comfort women system were sold by Korean brokers. So Korean men weren’t cowards they were salesmen. Actually kidnapping of Korean women by Japanese soldiers would be a very rare occurrence when the broker system made so many of these women readily available. Women that were kidnapped were likely by Korean brokers. This does not absolve the Imperial Japanese from responsibility since they ran the comfort woman system, but it provides context of what was going on at the time. Likewise this same system was in place to service the US military where women were being sold, often by their families, to become camptown prostitutes.
Secondly I am well aware of Japanese historical revisionism since I have been to the Yushukan Museum which promotes the Asian liberation narrative of people like Tamogami. However, instead of bringing this guy up as a source to confirm pre-conceived narrative, I would like to see a journalist conduct a national poll and see how many Japanese actually believe this narrative? I am willing to bet that a strong majority of the Japanese public believes that what happened during World War II was not liberation and Imperial Japan was in the wrong. At the same time many of them probably believe that the World War II history issue is being exaggerated for political reasons which is what allows voices like Tamogami to have the following that he does have.
Below is an account from a former Japanese pilot during World War II who discusses his love for Korean “comfort woman” while stationed in New Guinea. What I find interesting about the account is that this account sounds just like the love many US soldiers had with juicy girls in modern times:
Lt. Tsunoda (1918–2013) was a fighter pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. On Aug. 14, 1945 he was ordered to sortie in a Kamikaze suicide squad. When he was about to take off the next day the suicide squad was told to wait on the ground. When they were informed Japan had surrendered, the warriors shed tears on the tarmac not knowing if they were for joy of survival or mortification.
He wrote his memoir, “The Wings in Pandemonium” in which the old soldier reflected on his blooming love for a Korean girl, a member of the “Women’s Volunteer Corps,” at Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. This love story blossomed in the pandemonium of the battle field.
“After having suffered from the pains of gunshot wounds at the base hospital, I was finally able to stand up when two of my fellow pilots rushed into the room; “You’ve got to come with us! Wakamaru (her Korean name was Kim) refuses to accept other soldiers. She believes you were killed in action and refuses to eat.” The guys carried me to the comfort station. “Hey, Tsunoda is alive!” the boys shouted in the corridor and several girls peeped out of their rooms and clapped their hands. The boys dumped me in Wakamaru’s room. Her face was soiled by tears and uncombed hair. She bumped into me, cried out, “You are alive!” Her cheek and breasts were soft and a tinge of sweet woman’s scent hit me. She was beautiful. [Korea Times]
Here is an article in the Christian Science Monitor that discusses how South Korean President Park Geun-hye could leave a legacy if she was able to work out a reconciliation with Japan over its World War II past:
Yet the South itself is sharply riven on partisan lines, between right and left. Disagreements are profound on how to interpret most of the past, including the autocratic rule of Park’s father, who served as an officer in the Japanese Army. Not until 2012, for example, could political agreement be gained to open the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, which sits prominently at the Gwanghwamun Square rotary next to the American embassy. But inside, one subject does garner agreement: Korea’s unhappy occupation by Japan, a time when Koreans were forbidden to learn or speak their language.
“In 1905 Imperial Japan forced the Korean government to sign a treaty depriving it of sovereignty,” reads an opening script. Partway through is a photo display of the so-called “comfort women,” stating: “Women and girls were even victimized as forced laborers at the various places or as the military sexual slaves at the Japanese military camps.”
In fact, comfort women are just the tip of the iceberg for Korea’s outcry. It is Abe’s entire revision of the basic meaning of World War II that bothers Japan’s neighbors, many of whom see the prime minister as also trying to restore the honor of his own family. Abe’s maternal grandfather was Nobusuke Kishi, a minister in Japan’s wartime cabinet who was arrested on war crimes charges and then released.
Indeed, many ideas that purport to restore Japan’s honor and dignity hearken to Meiji era propaganda, which helped form the basis for Japan’s colonial expansion and the war. For example: that Japan in the 1930s was only taking territory to keep it from Americans and other European colonials. That Japan was acting as friend to the nations it invaded. That Japan’s cause was just, and the atom bomb attacks made Japan the war’s victim.
“The problem for us is that Japan’s denial and revisionism is their actual position,” says Choi Jin-wook, president of the Korean Institute for National Unification. “For them it is truth. They have drifted into believing that they were victims of World War II. For Japan, nothing is remembered. For us, nothing is forgotten.”
Prof. Choi points to another factor: Mounting strains between Japan and China mean that Abe cannot be seen as showing any weakness in northeast Asia.
Today, most historians and a UN investigation argue that some 200,000 women in Asia were forced into sexual slavery during the war. Yet Abe has questioned this, despite previous Japanese official apologies and the payment of compensation starting in 1992. Last November, Abe enabled a commission to “consider concrete measures to restore Japan’s honor with regard to the comfort women.”
The new Japanese position has emerged gradually. But its main points are this: Korean women were not rounded up and forced to service Japanese soldiers, as most history texts outside Japan suggest. Rather, the women were volunteers, willing participants – not coerced by Japan but offered up under Korean management. [Christian Science Monitor]
In regards to the revisionism the Japanese use to justify the war, the Koreans are absolutely correct. All one has to do is go to the Yushukan Museum next to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The Yasukuni Shrine gets all the attention because it honors all Japanese war dead to include those convicted of war crimes. Having been there, Yasukuni is nothing compared to the Yushukan Musuem where World War II is called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere War. Those who put the museum together believe that the Imperial Japanese were liberating Asian nations that were being colonized by Europeans and Americans. Much of the history depicted at the museum is laughable.
As far as the colonial occupation of Korea I always recommend that people read Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945
which dispels much of the myths about the occupation, like the one repeated in the article about not being allowed to speak Korean. Koreans could speak their native language during the colonial period just not in schools or to hold government positions. People who have spent time in Korea know how much Koreans value education. The Imperial Japanese understood this too and this was how they hoped to assimilate the Koreans into their culture over time.
As far the comfort women issue I always recommend that people read The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) which provides a lot of facts instead of emotional arguments on this issue. The facts show that very few Korean women were forcibly conscripted by the Japanese Army to be comfort women. The vast majority came from Korean brokers who either bought girls from poor families, tricked them, or sometimes kidnapped them to be comfort women. The fact that after World War II this same system was in place to provide women to be camptown prostitutes for the US military further validates this. The critics in Japan on the comfort women issue want people to believe they were just prostitutes that the Japanese military did not force into prostitution. With that said the Imperial Japanese would have known that these women were being bought, coerced, or kidnapped making them just as liable for the crime as the Korean brokers.
Considering how repugnant the historical revisionism is in Japan I do not see any way that President Park Geun-hye can reach out to Prime Minister Abe without him first making significant concessions. First of all he should advocate for removing the war criminals names from Yasukuni and come out against the historical revisionism in the Yushukan Musuem. He cannot force change because they are both private entities, but he can advocate for change which would be positive first step to reconciliation. If he doesn’t make a significant first step I don’t see how politically President Park can move forward on this issue.
Here we go again with arguing over remorse and apologies by Japan in the Korean media:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed Japan’s “deep remorse” over World War II, but did not issue a fresh apology to the people of Asia.
Abe delivered a speech on Wednesday on the first day of the two-day Asian-African summit in Indonesia marking the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference.
Referring to the principles of peace laid down at the original conference, Abe said in his speech that “With feelings of deep remorse over the past war, Japan made a pledge to remain a nation always adhering to those very principles.”
However, Abe did not offer an apology to the people of Asian countries who suffered under Japan’s colonial rule and aggression. [KBS World]
Well at least KBS didn’t make a claim about Japanese never apologizing for their past World War II actions. Instead they are upset their wasn’t a fresh apology. This is actually progress. I think Abe is just playing to the sentiment of the Japanese public now that is probably hit apology fatigue with all the demands for more apologies after their government has already made a number of apologies. Really the only thing that would make the critics in Korea happy is if a wrecking ball took out the Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese textbooks were burned (even if the information is accurate), and Abe commits seppuku on top of Namsan. Since that isn’t going to happen we will be hearing about this for years to come.
The file photo shows Japanese Emperor Hirohito (R) reading an address for a dinner party in Tokyo on Sept. 6, 1984, held in honor of a state visit to Japan by then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan. The address contained wordings to express regret over Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Diplomatic documents released by the South Korean foreign ministry on March 30, 2015, show that Japan believed in 1984 that it was “inevitable” for its emperor to make comments that express regret over its wartime wrongdoing. (Yonhap)
Washington said on Monday that there has been no change in U.S. policy, part of an attempt to rectify controversial remarks made by an American diplomat that seemed to position the United States with Japan on historical issues with its neighboring Asian countries.
On Monday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf expressed surprise over how Seoul had interpreted comments made by Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs.
“We were, frankly, a little surprised to see that some interpreted her remarks as being directed at any particular leader in the region,” she said.
On Friday, Sherman stated in an address at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington that, “It’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy,” words that seemed to be directed at South Korean President Park Geun-hye or Chinese President Xi Jinping, though the Asian leaders were not specifically identified.
Sherman’s remarks, which appeared to trivialize sensitive historical issues, were met with strong backlash in Seoul over the weekend, namely her claim that Seoul and Beijing “have quarreled with Tokyo over so-called comfort women from World War II.”
“There are disagreements about the content of history books and even the names given to various bodies of water,” she continued, likely referring to the dispute over the name of the body of water between Korea and Japan, designated as the East Sea in Seoul and the Sea of Japan in Tokyo. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but publicly calling out leaders like this is sure to backfire and entrench their positions. Something as sensitive as the comfort women issue I think requires more quiet back room diplomacy. The Chinese government is never going to stop using historical issues to drum up anti-Japanese sentiment to turn attention away from major domestic issues when needed. The South Korean government does this as well, the best example is when former President Lee Myung-bak was plagued by scandals so he took a trip to Dokdo to bash the Japanese and his poll numbers rose. However, if the Japanese right wing would stop making provocative statements in regards to this issue more traction in regards to reconciliation between Korea and Japan could happen.
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