Does The Seoul Comfort Women Agreement Exist?

A technical question...but one with implications as to the conduct of foreign policy and the behavior of elites in elective democracies: does the Seoul agreement "finally and irreversibly" ending the comfort women dispute between Japan and the Republic of Korea actually exist?

By "exist" I mean in the way an English speaker would understand an agreement existing, as in "Is there an actual text on paper, parchment, stone tablet or pdf which both sides have signed -- with a pen, a brush, a mouse or a stamp? Is there some object, real or virtual, with the names of representatives of both sides on it?"

And if so, can we see it?

My current thinking is that there is no actual, signed agreement between the two nations containing the details announced at the press conference on December 28. The lack of a signed agreement would explain some of the odder bits of Monday's announcement, including

- why the announcement was not accompanied by a printout (Link)

- why the Japanese government promises in section 1(iii) of the announcement to do what it said it would do in sections 1(i) and 1(ii), with the government of the ROK repeating the assumption ("on the premise that the Government of Japan will steadily implement the measures specified in 1. (1) (ii)above") in 2(i). Under normal circumstances governments making declarations do not immediately double check themselves.

- why a Japanese embassy official in Washington has said the current agreement would not need to be approved by the Cabinet and

- last but not least that stunning adverb "approximately" in the English language version of the agreement, as in "approximately 1 billion yen". In the Japanese version, the numeral is modified not once but twice (omune ni 10 oku en teido - "roughly in the vicinity of 1 billion yen") -- not your everyday binding agreement figure of speech, to put it mildly.

Of course, that the Japanese press describes Monday's announcement as introducing to the world a go'i ( 合意 - "our meanings are in sync") rather than a kyotei (協定 - "formal agreement") should be probably be seen as prima facie evidence there is no document underpinning this supposed final and irreversible settlement.

If no actual document exists perhaps one will be produced later, possibly as a requirement of legalization of the transfer of "approximately one billion yen" from the government of Japan to a special account created by the government of the ROK.

I hope I am wrong in all this: I hope there is an actual signed agreement. I very much like signed agreements when the goal is to end a bitter, longstanding dispute.

However, if there is not one and the two countries end their animosity on the issue with proper restitution and respect being paid to the women, I am not going to niggle about a technicality.

Not today at least.

Looking at the So-Called Comfort Women Agreement

First, read the announcement of the agreement on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. (Link)

Second, read what Tatsumi Yuki of the Stimson Center has dashed out (she is a wonderworker). She nails down the implications of the main points of the agreement like no one else can. (Link)

A few additional thoughts:

- Over the weekend the Japanese news media reported a blizzard of leaked details about the agreement. Many of these reported details turned out to have been wrong.

a) the reported size of the fund was 100 million yen. The actual fund will be TEN TIMES that amount

(Hey, it is Japanese taxpayer money, so who cares, right? It is not as if those who poured oil on the fire of the comfort women issue all these years had to personally pony up.)

b) South Korea is not contributing to the fund. Instead, all it is doing is opening the account in its name.

c) The comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul is not being removed or moved. The South Korean government has merely agreed to talk to the private interests who built it, keeping in mind Japanese government concerns about the statue.

A forensic look at the reporting over the weekend would determine which news organization reported which false assertion when. However, in general, by Monday morning, all the major news outlets, ideological cant notwithstanding, had at least a couple details about the agreement wrong. As a result, on Monday morning, the agreement being described in the news media was unbelievable.

Now just how it was that so many false leads were planted, and by whom for what purpose, is largely an academic exercise. However, a cavalier treatment of reporters, burning them with fake leaks, may have more serious consequences down the road for the perpetrators. The reporters will simply not trust their sources anymore, making the news media less likely to play along with whatever mischief or agenda shaping the leaker may wish to perpetrate in the future.

- Now we have a very good reason for why Inada Tomomi was passed over for a Cabinet post in the October Cabinet reshuffle. A Cabinet Decision (kakugi kettei) by the full Cabinet is necessary for the agreement to become official government policy. In light of Inada's longtime, vehement assertions that the South Korean position on the comfort women is "all too many lies" (Link - J) her vote on the Seoul agreement would have been uncertain. Most likely than not, she would have had to resign rather than vote in favor of what was announced yesterday, damaging both her career and any image of sincere Japanese government remorse.

So Abe kept her out of the Cabinet, avoiding a certain clash. Smart.

- Aside from the limp ROK promise to talk to private parties on the statue issue, most of the wording of the announcement favors the Japanese side.

Take the first line of yesterday's agreement, with the seemingly missing "its" after the conjunction:

(i) The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective.

The Japanese military gets off the hook here, with the procurement of women for its officers and enlisted men downgraded to "an involvement" in the trafficking. The Japanese text is actually a bit more forceful, saying that activities took place "under the umbrella of" (kanyo no shita ni) of the Imperial Army. However, the Japanese is also more legalistic, quarantining the military as being not the Imperial Army but "the army of that time" (toji no gun).

As for what might be called "the missing 'its" as in "the Government of Japan is painfully aware of its responsibilities" it is also missing in the Japanese text. When I was reading the first reports of the agreement in Japanese, I wondered whether the lack of a clear recognition of the government's being responsible was the result of a stylistic or an intentional vagueness. The awkward English translation seems to confirm an intentional fudging, again very much to the benefit of the GOJ, of just whose responsibilities are being discussed.

- Is it just me, or does the announcement seem a lot like an agreement struck between children? Both sides agree to fulfill their part of the bargain as long as the other side fulfills theirs first. Adults do not demand these kind of chronologically impossible guarantees, do they?

- Trying to make sense of what was being reported in the news, I came to an incorrect conclusion in my post of yesterday. However, I wrote to a friend:

"I find Abe's diplomacy refreshingly amoral -- never seeking to do what is right, only that which incrementally increases leverage, knocks opponents off balance and fulfills the minimum requirement."

A few days back I also tweeted:

@Giappugliese Abe foreign policy specializes in mediocre results. It forces diplomatic partners to be complicit in their own dissatisfaction

— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) December 25, 2015

I believe yesterday's announcement not inconsistent with these statements.

As a result of yesterday Abe Shinzo is being hailed as "Japan's Nixon," cutting the deal only he can cut as in "only Nixon can go China."

Uhmmm...please tell me something I did not already know...a year ago.

After careers as arsonists on the comfort women issue, Prime Minister Abe and President Park had their surrogates show up on the scene with fire extinguishers. We will see if the current geopolitical environment allows the pair of hereditary rulers of their respective countries to simply waltz away from their suddenly unfriended extremists.

The So-Called So-Called Comfort Women Issue Resolution Proposal

There is nuts. Then there is full blown, hair-askew, pants-on-backwards insane.

From news reports, the proposal on resolution of the comfort women issue Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio will be offering to his South Korean counterpart in a few hours's time is the latter.

According to news reports, Kishida is going to ask the ROK side to accept:

1) a fund of 100 million yen (currently about USD $825,000) for the medical, welfare and income needs of the surviving Korean comfort women

2) a request that the ROK government also contribute to the fund

3) letters from Prime Minister Abe Shinzo to all the survivors expressing his remorse at their pain, deprivation and humiliation

4) the ROK government's declaring that the government of Japan bears no legal responsibility for acts done to the comfort women, i.e. that the repudiation of ROK legal claims in the 1965 normalization treaty apply also to the comfort women's claims

5) that the ROK government will agree to remove or move the statue of the seated young girl installed by private interests in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul

6) that the two governments sign a binding agreement declaring the comfort women issue resolved.

I am not making any of the above up. (Link - J video)

I know very little about contemporary South Korean politics (it is hard enough to keep track of the politics of Japan, thank you very much) but my cursory knowledge still tells me there is virtually nothing in the above that the Park Geun-hye government can accept, given its level of popularity with the voters.

With unacceptability as the assumption, two alternative explanations have been bandied about:

A) That the above is actually not the proposal, and that the news media of Japan have been quoting sources who are voicing their virulent opposition to whatever the Abe administration is actually proposing, or

B) The above is really what the Abe Administration is offering, fully cognizant that the ROK will reject it, allowing Abe and Company to shrug their shoulders and say, "Look, we made an offer and they turned us down flat. Next."

Of course, there is always:

C) the ROK through gritted teeth accepts the above.

The reason for (C) even being remotely plausible is pressure from the United States, ally of both of these headstrong governments. According to the Asahi Shimbun " numerous persons in the loop of Japan-ROK relations" have confirmed that if an accord is reached the U.S. government will immediately issue a statement of congratulating its allies for resolving this difficult bilateral issue. (Link - J)

A statement of congratulations...oh whoop-de-doo.

As persons following my tweets on Twitter know I am firmly in the (B) camp. My reading is that key members of the Abe government are certain the current ROK government and a large chunk of the South Korean public have no intention of ever letting Japan and the Japanese off the hook for the colonial era -- and why should they, as resolution of historical/territorial issues would open the door for closer Japan-US-ROK military cooperation, upsetting China?

As a consequence, any realistic Japanese attempt at a rapprochement would be pointless, leaving Japan looking like a rejected beggar.

Japan's main interest in these talks seems to be the pleasing of U.S.A. policy makers, putting on a show of seeking resolution so that the Japan Hands can check off the "a more concerted effort toward resolving the comfort women issue" box on the U.S. list of "Things the Abe Government Needs to Do."

In a few hours' time we will know better.

A True Friend Of Japan

For over a decade and a half Mindy Kotler has been fighting a largely lonely battle, stepping on a lot of toes, arguing, sometimes inadroitly, points that were once derided as sensationalist and disruptive but now are seen as conventional wisdom: that if Japan wishes to regain the status of a normal nation in East Asia then the Government of Japan has to stop pretending

1) that the comfort women system is not an issue, and

2) that the issue can be handled by non-government forces handing out money and deceptively worded unofficial apologies.

Ms. Kotler has just published a crackling op-ed, "The Comfort Women and Japan's War on Truth," in The New York Times. Please take a moment read it. (Link)

The Japan establishment has focused on the messenger (Link -J) and ignored the message. In so doing it has failed the most basic tests of human life: the ability to tell friend from foe.

A friend, a true friend, does not tell you what you want to hear. A true friend tells you what you do not want to hear: that what you are doing is stupid and that you need to deal with reality, not keep pretending that you can live in a reality of your own.

Irony Bites - The Yomiuri Shimbun Edition

Everyone makes mistakes oh yes they do
Your sister and your brother
And your dad and mother too
Big people, small people
Matter of fact all people
Everyone makes mistakes so why can't you?

- Sesame Street, "Everyone Makes Mistakes"

Last month Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest circulation daily newspaper and a staunch ally, nay, the house organ of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's administration, severely criticized its main rival The Asahi Shimbun following the Asahi's admission last month that a number of its articles on the comfort women published in the 1990s contained unprovable and likely false information:

After a review of its reports on the so-called comfort women issue, which has become a huge thorn in the side of Japan-South Korea ties, The Asahi Shimbun has admitted its mistakes in the reports—albeit partially—and retracted some of the contents.

The retractions allude to reports on remarks by Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have forcibly taken away local women from Jeju Island, South Korea, to make them serve as comfort women. During World War II, Yoshida was said to be the former head of the mobilization department of the Shimonoseki Branch of Romu Hokoku-kai, an organization in charge of recruiting laborers.

In September 1982, the newspaper reported—without verification—the remarks of Yoshida, who claimed to have "hunted up 200 young Korean women in Jeju Island."

Misperceptions about Japan

The report added fuel to anti-Japan sentiment in South Korea, and also became a basis of misperception of Japan spreading through the world. In its Tuesday morning edition, the Asahi concluded—for the first time—that Yoshida's remarks were baseless, and finally retracted the newspaper's reports regarding the remarks.

We cannot help but point out the correction should have been made at a much earlier stage. Doubts about Yoshida’s remarks have been raised as early as 1992. The newspaper’s negligence in allowing the issue to linger for more than 20 years is deplorable.

(Link)

The Yomiuri's criticism, sharp and unforgiving, is still restrained as compared to the enervated glee of the Fuji Sankei Group's Sankei Shimbun and the legions of Japan Keyboard Defense Korps members like economics blogger Ikeda Nobuo and National Fundamental head honcho Sakurai Yoshiko -- who have simply gone overboard in their demands for retribution against the Asahi for its errors.

The Yomiuri's restraint in its mirth over the Asahi's too credulous reporting demonstrates an inadvertent wisdom in the editorial office -- because this week, it was the Yomiuri that swallowed a fish tale, hook, line and sinker.

In a pair of exclusive reports, the Yomiuri reported that prime minister Abe Shinzo was going to appoint Takaichi Sanae as minister of economics, trade and industry -- which prompted me to tweet:

Yomiuri report suggests Takaichi Sanae will be METI minister. Hmm...is there a revisionist view of industrial policy? http://t.co/6Q4iHdB3Vj
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) September 1, 2014

and that Obuchi Yuko would be the new secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, which prompted me to rant:

The last time I looked, and that was today, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party is a serious, serious job. It requires an intense understanding of policy, party financial and personnel matters. It is a lightning rod, having to deal with intra-party resentment, political feuds, local versus national politics and demands for funds. It is also a very public post, with the secretary-general frequently having to interact with the news media as the party's top representative.

A nightmare, in other words.

Into this spot Abe purportedly wants to slot a five-term (5 terms is the usual minimum number of elections for consideration for a first cabinet posting) House of Representatives member, a legacy member with but a single stint in a minor, invented cabinet post, as not just the first woman but the youngest person ever to serve as secretary-general of the only party in Japan which really matters.

Right.

(Link)


Well...it turns out that both of these exclusives did not only sounded bogus, they were bogus -- which prompted the Yomiuri to print an extraordinary postscript to its Friday story on Obuchi's becoming secretary-general having been a longtime and thwarted dream of the prime minister:

The Yomiuri Shimbun's Political News Department has operated a dedicated team over the past month or so to cover matters related to Wednesday’s Cabinet reshuffle and shakeup of top LDP executives. Our coverage has been based on the work of as many as 30 reporters who gathered information on developments by contacting members of the LDP and the Prime Minister’s Office, among other sources, and thoroughly and comprehensively scrutinizing the information available.

Yomiuri articles that reported Abe as considering appointing Obuchi to the LDP secretary general post and Sanae Takaichi as likely to become economy, trade and industry minister may have misled our readers.

When covering political circumstances that change constantly, we will make further efforts to offer fast and accurate reports based on diversified information-gathering and careful news judgment.

(Link)

"May have misled our readers"?

Is this not the point where one is supposed to say, "We blew it!"?

Or do the editors at the Yomiuri need a little more time?

A New Comfort Women Statement? Uh-oh

This is PARC chair Takaichi Sanae at her happiest. Really.

In the realm of bad ideas, the latest one to erupt out of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (PARC) is a doozy: a request to Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide that he provide a revision of the Kono Statement in light of the recent retractions of some articles on the comfort women by The Asahi Shimbun and in time for the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. (Link - J)

Press reports of the meeting of the Council yesterday read like a festival of provocation and point scoring. "We must summon those connected to The Asahi to testify in the Diet" and "We must disseminate with determination the results of the government's investigation into the composition of the Kono Statement" were among the demands from the floor. (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140821/k10013977241000.htmlLink J - video)

It is unsurprising that the moderately crazies in the LDP, particularly the hardliners in the freshmen classes of 2012 and 2013, would be clamoring for a party response to the Asahi admissions of error. The extreme revisionists contention has been that the comfort women are a fiction concocted by The Asahi Shimbun and anti-Japan non-government organizations in South Korea. The Asahi's long overdue retractions would, in their eyes, require a government response, as a remorseful Statement like Kono's may indeed no longer be necessary.

What is somewhat surprising is how quickly and avidly PARC Chair Takaichi Sanae has taken up the banner of a demand for a new Statement.

Takaichi is considered a shoo-in for a significant Cabinet post in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle (Link). She has a long record of being a loyal retainer to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (she was the most junior minister of his first Cabinet in 2006-7; she sat next to him during the LDP party meeting where Abe was elected party president in 2012), is a True Conservative (she is always in front and center of the phalanxes of Diet members of the "Let's Visit Yasukuni Together" league on their shrine visits - see above) and a prominent female member of the LDP at a time the PM wants to make a show of appointing women to the Cabinet (Link). Securing a Cabinet post at this point would seemingly require her to sit tight, make no trouble and have the prize drop in her lap.

So why embrace a movement demanding a change in a fundamental building block of Japan's relationship with South Korea at a time when the prime minister and his advisors are trying to bridge the gap between the two countries? One that furthermore puts an onus on Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga to craft a new Statement when he has way too much on his plate already?

If one wanted to mess up a potential Cabinet appointment, making Suga Yoshihide's life difficult would seem a great way to do it.

One explanation for Takaichi's enthusiasm, and the reason I use the "somewhat" above, is that she is probably tone deaf when it comes to what she believes are matters of Japan's dignity. She has her own small group of lawmakers -- the Association of Creativity and Tradition -- that brings together lawmakers who style themselves innovative iconoclasts with a fantabulist, knee-jerk defensiveness about pre-1945 Japan. The cognitive dissonance of the ideals -- believing at once in the value of disruption and the beauty of traditional order, as is reflected in the group's name -- indicates that in matters pertaining to the constructed concept "Japan" Takaichi-san may not be prone to deep thought.

Another possibility for Takaichi's unshaded embrace may come from a gnawing sense of her having achieved very little in her present position. Despite Takaichi being one of the longest-serving PARC chairs, even close watchers of politics would be hard pressed to think of a single, significant initiative she led during her tenure. Policy making under Abe 2.0 has been almost entirely in the hands of the bewildering forest of commissions, councils and private advisors reporting directly to the prime minister. Movement of legislation through the PARC has been largely a pro forma affair. When political observers think of Takaichi at all, it is for her skirmishes with General Council chair Noda Seiko, diminishing the power and value of both of the institutions they have headed.

In forwarding the PARC's request for a new Chief Cabinet Secretary's Statement to Suga, Takaichi can claim at least one signatory achievement during her tenure, one endearing her to radical, unthinking revisionists -- her only constituency within the party.

Assuming that the PARC's request is forwarded to Suga early next week as scheduled, what happens? As a direct request from the party, Suga cannot reject the request as unhelpful, no matter that it is. He could shelve the request for a while but not indefinitely. The request is for a new Statement in time for the August 15, 2015 anniversary -- which means at some point Suga will have to come out with a clear position on the question of whether he will provide a new Statement or not. The most likely scenario is Suga turning down the request on the grounds that it would detract from the prime minister's new, "forward-looking" Statement on the end of the World War II which the PM hopes will replace the Murayama Statement as the definitive Japanese government view of the war.

Until Suga moves decisively against the PARC's request, his inaction will be read or portrayed by South Koreans as a prelude to a revision of the Kono Statement and thus one more reason to delay the reestablishment of more normal relations between the governments of Japan and the ROK.

Way to go, Takaichi-san.

Very Kind Of Them #24

On line radio program Asia Now had me on for a conversation about The Asahi Shimbun's retraction of some of its reporting on the comfort women (jugun ianfu) and role of the issue in the Japan-South Korean relationship.

http://asianewsweekly.net/2014/08/18/comfort-women/

One correction: at one point I say that Yoshida Seiji began telling his tale of rounding up women in Cheju-do in the "late 1980s." Yoshida published his memoir in 1983.


Later - If you have a comment, please submit it to the Asia Now website.

How The Comfort Women Came Into Being: A Sketch Of A Racial/Legal Entity

Yes, they really called it that.

Imperialism and racial fears and sex and commerce and legalism mix badly, it turns out.

International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic (4 May 1910)

Article 1

Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has procured, enticed, or led away, even with her consent, a woman or girl under age, for immoral purposes, shall be punished, notwithstanding that the various acts constituting the offence may have been committed in different countries.

Article 2

Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has, by fraud, or by means of violence, threats, abuse of authority, or any other method of compulsion, procured, enticed, or led away a woman or girl over age, for immoral purposes, shall also be punished, notwithstanding that the various acts constituting the offence may have been committed in different countries.

(...)

(Link)

---------------

International Convention for the Suppression of the Trafficking of Women and Children (30 September 1921)

Article 1.

The High Contracting Parties agree that, in the event of their not being already Parties to the Agreement of May 18, 1904, and the Convention of May 4, 1910, mentioned above, they will transmit, with the least possible delay, their ratifications of, or adhesions to, those instruments in the manner laid down therein.

Article 2.

The High Contracting Parties agree to take all measures to discover and prosecute persons who are engaged in the traffic in children of both sexes and who commit offences within the meaning of Article i of the Convention of May 4, 1910.

Article 3.

The High Contracting Parties agree to take the necessary steps to secure the punishment of attempts to commit, and, within legal limits, of acts preparatory to the commission of, the offences specified in Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention of May 4, 1910.

[Snip]

Article 14.

Any Member or State signing the present Convention may declare that the signature does not include any or all of its colonies, overseas possessions, protectorates or territories under its sovereignty or authority, and may subsequently adhere separately on behalf of any such colony, overseas possession, protectorate or territory so excluded in its declaration.

[Snip]

Japan: The undersigned delegate of Japan ... declares that his signature does not include Chosen, Taiwan and the leased territory of Kwantung.

HAYASHI

(Link)

-------------------

The government of Japan eventually acceded to the 1921 Convention in 1925. It expanded the original list of exempt territories to include Japan's South Pacific trust territories and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. (Link)

So, according to treaty, someone tricking a Japanese woman or woman residing in Japan into transport abroad to serve as a prostitute, or using force to do same, was illegal.

Tricking a Taiwanese or Korean woman or child, or even having a Taiwanese or Korean child go voluntarily, was not illegal.

If you were in the procurement business, let us say for a large institutional client who also was in charge of regulating said business, where and how would go about your business?

--------------------

The comfort women system was not sui generis, a product of diseased national mindset. It was in many ways an unintended consequence of international conventions put forth by Europeans attempting to prevent women of European extraction ending up in the brothels of brown-skinned peoples -- and Europeans not being confident they had the resources or legal precedent to extend the writ of those conventions to the many peoples and cultures residing in their colonies. Europeans, because they were racists, unthinkingly opened a huge hole in the first international trafficking agreements -- which Japanese and the Japanese military, because they were not racists, proceeded to exploit.

Imperialism and colonialism were the roots of the problem though. It was these fundamental insults to human dignity and human life that made the best intentions and noble sentiments go wildly astray.

After The Asahi Shimbun Retractions

"It's an old habit....I spent my whole life trying not to be careless....Women and children can afford to be careless but not men."

Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972)

Now replace "men" with "liberals" and "women and children" with "conservatives and libertarians" and you have a pretty accurate picture of the world we live in.

After decades of resistance, The Asahi Shimbun three days ago began the painful process of retracting a series of articles it had published over the years containing the undocumentable and likely false statements of a former civilian labor recruiter. The late Yoshida Seiji had claimed he had organized a forcible round up of 200 women on the island of Cheju-do for service as prostitutes in "comfort stations" for the Imperial Japanese Army. Unfortunately for the Asahi and news organizations quoting the Asahi on the story, investigations into the accuracy of Yoshida's claims found no evidence of their being true.

Conservative publications and commentators have been going to town on The Asahi Shibun's about face (Link). The humiliation of the right's "Class A War Criminal" as regards the comfort women and the Kono Statement has stimulated some...oh let us say "opportunistic" leaders of certain parties...to demand Diet investigation of the Asahi's reversal. (Link and Link J video)

The overdue repudiation of Yoshida's claims has of course hurt the cause of those urging an East Asian entente on the comfort women issue. Yoshida's claims and their debunking have focused attention in Japan on the issue of whether the comfort women were recruited "forcibly in the narrow sense" --, i.e. kidnapped by government employees or their direct agents -- leaving underexamined the larger issue of the impossible-to-defend trafficking of women from colonized or occupied areas to provide sexual services to soldiers, sailors and officers at or near Imperial Army and Imperial Navy installations. It is an absurd assertion of Japanese revisionist circles that the only reason the comfort women issue has existed as an element of international relations has been The Asahi Shimbun's printing of articles on the subject. The idiotic domestic debate on "coercion in the narrow sense" has, of course, made the Japanese government and people look like a creepy bunch of sniveling, moon-eyed automatons obsessed with the avoidance of blame or the appearance of remorse.

When latest matsuri sawagi of hooting, hollering and "I told you so" dies down, of course, Japanese of all stripes will find that the Asahi's retractions matter not one jot in the way the world perceives the issue (Link). The world outside Japan's borders focuses, unsurprisingly, on coercion in the broader sense, which is:

Recruitment of non-national women or boys to provide sexual services for an occupying or colonial government's employees, whether through cash inducements, deceit or abduction, whether by government personnel or agents, in colonized or occupied territories, is a coerced act, no matter the legal status of prostitution in the occupying country.

That brutal reality, one of the many brutal, horrifying realities of the way the Japanese Imperial forces operated, has not changed in the aftermath of the Asahi's publication of retractions of some of its stories.

Later - Did not see this until now but it seems the good folks at JapanRealTime clicked in with a report yesterday. (Link)

Three Cartoons By Sato Masaaki On The Abe-Park Meeting

Tokyo Shimbun editorial cartoonist Sato Massaki is a national treasure. With the U.S.-Japan-South Korean trilateral meeting on the fringes of the nuclear security summit at The Hague, the first face-to-face meeting of any substance between the leaders of Japan and South Korea since Abe Shinzo became prime minister, only hours away, here are a trio of recent Sato cartoons on the fraught Abe-Park relationship.

[N.B. The sequence of cells within a cartoon is supposed to be read from the top right to the bottom left.]

"A Collection of Contemporary Disappeared Items"
Published: 18 March 2014


Click on Image To Enlarge

Relevant URLs:

"Japan's Beethoven Admits He Is A Fraud"
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26039226

"Reliability of STAP cells 'breakthrough' questioned"
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Reliability-of-stem-cell-breakthrough-questioned.aspx

"For Abenomics, 'Third Arrow 'Is Hardest -- And Most Needed"
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/02/25/for-abenomics-third-arrow-is-the-hardest/


"Ending? Beginning?"
Published: 22 March 2014


Click on Image To Enlarge

Two hooks here. The seemingly eternal run of noontime variety show Waratte ii to mo ("It's OK to Laugh") comes to a close on April 1. Abe, in tribute to the show's longtime appeal and in order to counter his reputation of being a stiff, made the first and what will be last appearance by a sitting prime minister on the show on Friday. (Link)

The recurring bit in the show is to have the guest call up a "friend" on the telephone and invite that friend to appear on the show. The friend, after some banter, is supposed to agree with a cheery "that sounds good."

In reality, Prime Minister Abe called up superstar actor and musical performer Kimura Takuya, who did his part by replying cheerily in the affirmative. In Sato's cartoon world, Abe calls up President Park of South Korea. Her response to his invitation to appear is a grudging, scowling, shrugging resignation.


"We Want This To Be A Match Without An Audience”
Published 25 March 2014


Click on Image to Enlarge

The title reference is to the Urawa Reds - Shimizu S-Pulse match played to a stadium of empty seats in a league punishment for a fan group's display of a xenophobic banner. (Link)

However, the audience behind Madame Park that Mr. Abe and for the most part U.S. President Barack Obama want gone is composed of North Koren leader Kim Jong-un, a South Korean flag-waving President Xi Jinping of China and the comfort woman statue installed both in front of the Japan Embassy in Seoul and in a park in the California city of Glendale.

We Don't Report The News, We Just Guess What It Might Be

Yamada Hiroshi asking his questions on the comfort women in House of Representatives Budget Committee session on 20 February 2014. Screen capture courtesy Shuugiin TV.

For those of us who are formalists - who tend to believe that Abe Shinzo, Suga Yoshihide and the rest of the Abe Cabinet should be judged on what they say and do, not what we think what their words and actions mean -- last week was a pretty good week. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo Abe and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide successfully deflected the demands of Japan Restoration Party member Yamada Hiroshi for an immediate investigation and moves toward repudiation of the Kono Statement -- this after Yamada's distasteful badgering of 87 year-old retired Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Ishihara Nobuo over how the Kono Statement came to be.

Suga, when pressed by Yamada for some kind of action on the Kono Statement, promised that the government would study whether or not it was appropriate to continue protecting of the identities of the 16 Korean women interviewed as a part of the drafting process of the Kono Statement -- this since the use of these anonymous and thus uncheckable interviews is proof, in revisionist circles, that the Kono Statement is not based in fact.

Later, when Yamada could not get the credit for pushing the government where it did not want to go, Suga also thought out loud about whether or not the government should study an investigation of the interview process.

Considering the pressures Abe and Suga are under from their own rank and file to put some meat on the program of "casting off the postwar regime" (Link) these vague promises seemed to indicate a general Cabinet consensus that hate it though they might there is no alternative to the Kono Statement -- not if Government of Japan wants to have a relationship of any kind with the Government of the Republic of Korea.

Then on Monday, after the end of the day's session in the Budget Committee, Abe Shinzo may have thrown everything into doubt.

Having caught wind of a Fuji Sankei Group public opinion poll showing 59%% of voters desiring a revision of the Kono Statement and 66% wanting at least an investigation of the process that produced it, Abe approached Yamada and said, well...something to Yamada seemingly indicating that he, Abe, personally shared Yamada's desire to get on with the work of dismantling the Kono Statement. (Link)

Unfortunately for anyone wishing to say "Aha! I told you so!" no one seems to know what it was that Abe said to Yamada.

If you ask the newspapers, literally each and every one of them has a different answer.

According to the august Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the PM said to Yamada:

「（一部報道機関の）世論調査で河野談話の（検証への）賛成が６割を超えている。先生の質問のおかげだ」

"From the public opinion polls (of one part of the news media), those in favour (of an investigation) of the Kono Statement exceeded 60%. It is all thanks your questions, Sensei."

To which Yamada replied:

「政府と国会で役割を分担しましょう」

"In the government and the Diet, let us divide up the workload according to our roles."

The Mainichi Shimbun quotes the PM as telling Yamada.

「（一部報道機関の）世論調査で高い支持率を得ているのは、山田さんが質問してくれたおかげだ」

"High levels of public support for this in the public opinion polls (of one part of the news media) are achieved thanks to the questions you, Yamada-san, asked us."

The Mainichi's version of the cooperation pledge is also different:

「政府だけではできないこともあるので協力していきましょう」

"Let us cooperate because there are some things the government cannot do alone."

Akahata ("Red Flag"), the Japan Communist Party's House organ, has Abe saying:

「世論調査で河野談話（見直し）賛成が約６割だった。山田さんのおかげだ」。

"In the public opinion poll, those in favour (of revision) are around 60%. Thanks to you, Yamada-san."

In The Asahi Shimbun the prime minister says:

「（一部メディアの）世論調査で、河野談話の検証に対する賛成が60%を超えた。山田さんのおかげだ」

“In public opinion polls (of one part of the media) agreement has topped 60% regarding the investigation of the Kono Statement. Thanks to you, Yamada-san."

(My underlining in the above - MTC)

As for the Sankei Shimbun, the paper whose public opinion poll (I have seen one journalist refer to the poll as a poll of Sankei Shimbun readers. This is incorrect. The poll was conducted via telephone calls placed to voters through RDD - random digit dialing) started this whole business, its version of the encounter does not have any of the above. Instead, according to Sankei, Abe told Yamada:

「時機を逸せずに、議論を真剣にやる必要がある]

"It is necessary for seriously discuss of this matter, without any dilly-dallying."

Now as far as I have been led to understand, the kisha clubs are a cabal where the news organizations get together and decide as a group what the news is, leaving the framing to the editors of each organization.

If so, why does each outlet report the Abe-Yamada conversation differently?

One answer is, of course, is that the source of the story is Yamada himself, at least according the Sankei Shimbun. This would set the bar of veracity at very low level. Yamada could very likely have given a different version of the conversation to each media company.

I do not know.

What I do know is that on the same day as the Abe-Yamada tête–à–tête, Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio told the Secial Committee on Okinawa and the Northern Territories Issues:

「私としても、政府としても、談話の見直しを一度も申し上げたことはない」

"For myself or for this government, I have never ever said anything about a revision of the Kono Statement."

(Link)

As long as the members of the Cabinet keep denying that a revision is what is being discussed, I will hold my breath -- in hope.

At least until Abe Shinzo personally tells me otherwise.


Later - The main message is, whatever you read, don't panic. Whoever it was who said, "You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts," clearly was not a reader of Japanese newspapers.

Osaka City Shuffle

In May of last year I published a somewhat weak piece on Hashimoto Toru  at The New York Times's Latitude blog. I was trying to fathom what, other than narcissistic blindness, could have prompted Hashimoto to start talking about sex and war. My conclusion, such as it was, was that Hashimoto could not accept being outside the spotlight, the political appeal of his party and his political insurgency fading. So he just ran off at the mouth until nobody could ignore him anymore.

It seems that this aspect of his character, the need to have folks talking about him, has prompted his latest, expensive, pointless act:

Firebrand Osaka Mayor Calls It Quits, to Seek Re-election
JapanRealTime

His days as Japan's rising political star may be over, but you can still count on Toru Hashimoto to cause a stir...and do a lot of talking.

Osaka's firebrand mayor officially announced his resignation Monday to seek reelection in a perplexing move he described was necessary to break the political logjam hindering one of his key policy goals.

(Link)

As for "and to do a lot of talking" he certainly did do that -- as the Martin post notes, the Hashimoto press conference lasted longer than the supposedly eternal Chris Christie press GW bridge conference. Hashimoto also managed to churn out a blizzard of over 60 Twitter tweets -- after having said nada via his favorite social media platform since January 18.

He loves to explain himself...or at least feels he has a lot of explaining to do.

Hashimoto seems on the fast train back to television, following in the footsteps of his fellow talent-turned politician and until recently fellow party member Higashikokubaru Hideo.

Perhaps the pair will hook up to form a manzai comedy duo.

Two politicians of the last quarter have bucked the system, relying on public theater as an alternative pathways to political office and power: Koizumi Jun'ichiro and Hashimoto Toru. Unlike Koizumi, Hashimoto seems determined to leave office never having actually done anything.


Later - Back on Twitter this morning Hashimoto is revisiting the controversy of last May over his remarks regarding the comfort womens/sexual slaves of the Japan Imperial Forces. According to the recently resigned mayor, the world's treatment of him and Japan is unfair (anfea).

Clearly he has no friend able to take his shoulder, look him in the face and say, "Hashimoto-san. For your own good, put the phone down."

Shrine, Temple and Mr. Abe's First Year

The past three weeks have seen the publication of reams of interpretation, analysis and discussion of Abe Shinzo's visit to Yasukuni. The East Asian Forum alone has published six different essays on the subject by authors like Aurelia George Mulgan and Tessa Morris-Suzuki, whom I admire, and Hugh White, whom I do not. (Link)

Of the hundreds of op-eds and blog postings now out there, the ones that get closest to the answer to the question of "What was Abe Shinzo thinking?" are The Economist Tokyo Bureau Chief Tamzin Booth's allusively titled Banyan post "See you at Yasukuni" (Link) and the always provocative Stephen Harner's post on the Forbes website "After Yasukuni, China Closes The Door On Abe: Why Is He Smiling?" (Link)

One would have to be a veteran of the Comfort Women resolution wars in the U.S. House of Representatives and a reader of the twisted stuff published in revisionist monthlies such as WiLL, Seiron and the now blessedly demised Shokun! -- and the blogs of folks like Sakurai Yoshiko -- to know at least one of the things Abe Shinzo was thinking when he went to Yasukuni on December 26:

"Turkey"

If that makes not the least bit of sense to you, please come by the second floor of Temple University Japan's Azabu campus tomorrow evening. I will be speaking on Abe's first year in office and the political outlook for 2014 (Link). The doors open at 19:00 with the session staring at 19:30.

The speech is open to the public but seating is limited. Though registration is not mandatory, the host of the event, the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS) asks that appreciates it when persons wishing to attend to send a registration email to icas@tuj.temple.edu

Later - ICAS has written to say that there is plenty of space available for tomorrow night's event. That's good to know. However, if you are not on the ICAS mailing list, a registration email to this event will put you on its list, giving you first notice of all future events.

Threatening Nonsense

You may recall Suzuki Nobuyuki, the radical right winger who managed to capture 74,000 votes in the Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 21 (introduced here, with the look at how he might have been a sponsored spoiler candidate here).

The frighteningly well-spoken Suzuki holds forth in a new video report from Michael Penn: "Japan Grapples With The Rise Of Hate Groups."

If you have 12 minutes, it is worth a watch.

I would take exception to the statement in the report that the noisy, threatening ultra-right is a new phenomenon. All kinds of things were yelled out at political events in the 1960's (the audio to the video of the assassination of Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma demonstrates how out of control the audience was - Link). However, it is true that threats of death and other violence have been beyond the pale for the past 40 years.

I also worry about misinterpretation of the statement that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo shares many of the ideological beliefs of the radical fringe. Rather than sharing ideology, it is probably better to say that Abe-san and his friends in business, academia, and the media have same the data points and talking points in their arsenals as one finds in the speeches and online drivel produced by the fringe groups and politicians like Suzuki.

The claims of radical parties like Suzuki's Restoration New Wind and organizations like former air self defense forces general Tamogami Toshio's Ganbare Nippon are outlandish in their paranoia. They would not have any attraction, though, if they did not in some way provide a template for understanding actual events. The intrusion of Chinese coast guard ships into the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands (Link) or the erection of monuments to the comfort women -- the women (and some boys) trafficked by the brothel network established to serve the troops and officers of the Imperial Army -- on public land in the United States (Link) provide Japanese hate groups all the evidence they need of a vast global anti-Japanese conspiracy encircling and strangling the nation. These groups do on their own then layer on farcical claims, perhaps out of theatricality, perhaps as ornamentation in order to disguise the poverty of their intellectual wares.

That the relationship between Chinese and South Korean patriots and right wing fringe groups in Japan is symbiotic, each side providing the other with the justification for festering hatred and provocation (possibly providing a comfortable living for some of the participants) rarely makes the news anywhere.

Forget About Weimar

Today is the big day. The peculiar menagerie of humankind known as the International Olympic Committee will gather in a single room in Buenos Aires to select, in what is a frankly bizarre and fraught election, the winner of the title of the most convincingly mad town on Earth: the city to be shackled with the hosting of the 2020 Olympics.

How we or anyone else should care about this contest or the Olympics themselves, considering the history of the IOC's looking away or actively courting strongmen governments, how much the Olympics usually costs the citizens of the host city, how juiced up and strung out the athletes are and how little the Olympics deters us poor East African Plains Apes from killing each other -- which was the point of the whole shebang -- I do not know.

There is a special twist in today's pitting of Team Japan against Team Turkey, however. Unlikely as it may seem, the country that Japanese revisionists and arch-conservatives look to for answers, where they turn to when they need hints, is not, as Finance Minister Aso Taro indicated, Weimar Germany. The country Japan's most patriotic patriots really love is Turkey.

Yes, Turkey: a country with its own culture, with a strong military and a strong sense of historical mission. A problematic U.S. ally that says no to the U.S. at crucial times -- most prominently the refusal to allow an invasion force to pass through Turkey in the Iraq War. A country so tightly wound up it is engaged in a bitter territorial dispute with a treaty ally, clinging to Northern Cyprus of when all logic argues for a settlement, ignoring pressures from both the U.S. and the EU in the process. A country that despite being a royal pain can still twist the U.S. Congress around its finger -- successfully squelching successive congressional resolutions condemning the Armenian genocide -- a sharp contrast to the government of Japan, which despite spending tens of thousands of dollars per month in fees to Washington insiders and lobbyists, failed to squelch the comfort women resolution.

That the prime minister who has to lead the final charge against the Turks today is Abe Shinzo, a revisionist of the first rank and the prime minister at the time of the passage of the comfort women resolution, is for me the highest irony. If Tokyo were not in competition, Abe and his friends would all be Fools for Istanbul.

That being said, I do hope Tokyo wins today's election. For only one reason, too: if there is a single municipality on the planet capable of absorbing the cost of an Olympics, it is the Tokyo Metropolitan District.

We shall see if the IOC members agree.

Worthwhile Reads #2 - On Abe And The Revisionists

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it 'Riding the Gravy Train' - yeah...

Pink Floyd, "Have a Cigar" (1975)

Two good essays from yesterday on Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the potential limitations on his freedom of action on the issues purportedly dear to him and his Friends:

Brad Glosserman, PacNet

Abe's dilemmas

Karl Gufstasson, East Asia Forum

Japanese Prime Minister Abe's U-turn on the Murayama Statement

Both essays hint at what appears to be a change in the way Abe Shinzo and his Cabinet operate. Both Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party squeaked into power in the LDP presidential and December House of Representatives elections, meaning that both faced pressures to produce results in the immediate term. However, for various reasons (the most convincing one I have heard: "the Japanese people are just tired of being in a bent over in a defensive crouch"), the man and the party have a mad surplus of political capital in the bank (Cabinet support, Party support). The July 21 (?) House of Councillors election will be a coronation.

Relieved of worries about July, Abe & Company can be insincere in every direction. They do not have to pander to a core constituency; they do not have to assemble a coalition of disparate forces. Instead they can play upon the neediness of particular interest groups by making what are head fakes toward their hot button issues, feigning commitment to a position, stirring up a fire storm of protest in response, then beating a hasty retreat. Tobias Harris has highlighted this stimulus-response-retreat pattern for the specific case of constitutional reform. However, the this-has-to-be-done/wow-why-are-folks-so-angry/oh-I-guess-it-can-wait model seems applicable to almost any policy initiative and constituency.

In terms of the red meat revisionist issues of Yasukuni visits, revising Article 9, war responsibility, the sanctioned brothel system and garrisoning the Senkakus, Abe and his Cabinet have the luxury of limiting themselves to gestures, signs and code words, signaling to their revisionist followers of their purported true beliefs, while going through desultory pantomimes of being held back by Japan's internal and external foes.

Of course, by making intermittent, sulphurous and maudlin shows of addressing an issue -- such as, let us say, securing the transfers of the remains of the deceased abductees and freedom of travel for the surviving relatives still in North Korea -- but never actually achieving the stated goals (or by constantly moving the goal posts further, which is effectively the same thing) -- the politician's gravy train rolls on.

The Hashist In The Lion's Den

What should be the hottest ticket in the TMD, if it is not already? Osaka City mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai co-leader Hashimoto Toru's appearance at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday. (Link)

Hashimoto intends to confront or put up a huge show of confronting foreign prejudice. He will try to deflect outward his comments earlier this month excusing the Japanese Imperial Army's sanctioned brothel system (the ianfu seido, a.k.a., the "comfort women system") and decrying the lack of U.S. military personnel patronage at Okinawa's sexual services establishments. He will try to paint everyone as black, then ask why Japanese citizens -- and by extension Hashimoto Toru -- have been singled out for criticism.

It is likely that Hashimoto will see a measure of success in his quixotic quest. He is a lawyer, which means his capacity for spewing reasonable-sounding nonsense is near infinite. He also a veteran of the pressure cooker world of "wide-show" infotainment programs, as well as of years standing before the microphones in hot pursuit of public office. He has honed a supercilious, in-your-face, bullying style that crushes most questioners, even the experienced journalists.

If I were present at Monday's session, and was given the grace of a moment at the microphone, what would I ask him?

I guess I would question the assumption that war makes men beasts in heat:

"Hashimoto-sensei, let me read to you what you said on the 13th of this month:

'Amidst a storm of flying of bullets, when you are trying arrange rest and relaxation for groups whose members are all wound up psychologically, the sanctioned brothel system is a necessity. Anyone can understand this.'

Are you not making the situation sound a lot more out-of-control and sexier than reality? Were not the patrons of comfort stations mostly assigned to boring garrison duty? Was not the 'Recreation and Amusement Association' created after Japan's surrender in order to procure women not for troops psychologically wound up by a storm of bullets but instead Occupation forces doing desk work and guard duty in a pacified and flying-bullet-free Japan? How did you come to accept occupying forces taking advantage of country's military and economic domination by using its women as sex toys to be instead a kind of sexual psychotherapy treating potential sociopaths? And what is the basis for your belief, seeing as how you have no personal experience of military life?"

Too long. Too complex. I know.

Still I would love to hear his response.

Original image courtesy: Sankei Shimbun

The Kim Jong Il Statement

There is a reason why I call The Yomiuri Shimbun "Pravda-by-the-Palace."

I know that I should not because the Yomiuri organization employs the husband of a dear friend. The YS has also made, through its Japan News, a concerted effort to force The Japan Times to figure out the mechanics and purpose of an English-language newspaper.

However, my prejudices, suspicions and disdain for the editors of the Yomiuri all get bolstered by the publication of pieces like this:

Kono remark twisted 'comfort women' issue

The Yomiuri ShimbunA statement in 1993 by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono that suggested the government admitted forced recruitment of so-called comfort women aggravated what had already become a diplomatic problem between Japan and South Korea.

The Asahi Shimbun in 1992 published an article on the issue of comfort women that included some misinterpretations. The story reported that the Imperial Japanese Army had controlled and supervised the establishment of comfort stations, as well as the recruitment of women.

It also said the military mainly recruited Korean women under the name of Teishin Tai (volunteer labor force) in a forcible manner. It misleadingly labeled the “Jyoshi Teishin Tai” (women’s volunteer corps) under the wartime labor mobilization system as “comfort women hunting.”

The major focus of the problem was thus whether the comfort women were forcibly recruited.

The Cabinet of then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa announced in July that year results of an investigation into the issue, in which it said there was no evidence that women were recruited against their will by the military.

Since then, however, criticism against Japan in South Korea has not let up. In an effort to politically settle the issue, Kono made the statement in August 1993, saying the government admitted the military was directly or indirectly involved in establishing and managing comfort stations and transferring comfort women. It also apologized and expressed remorse to former comfort women.

However, as the misunderstanding that the government admitted the defunct Imperial army forcefully recruited comfort women has spread, the first Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a written answer to Diet questions on the matter at a cabinet meeting in March 2007.

In it, the government said there were no descriptions in any documents the government found that directly pointed to forced recruitment of women by the military or government authorities.

(Link)

The Japanese version of the above can be found here.

There are false narratives whose origins can be traced back errors in one newspaper story printed long ago. However, it is the height of absurdity to trace the negative view of Japan's Imperial Age system of military brothels to a vocabulary mistake, if there even was one, by the cross-town rival The Asahi Shimbun.

As for the lack-of-documentation argument, I wish someone would stand up to it with a simple parallel:

"You know, Kim Jong-il's verbal apology of 17 September 2002 was only him talking. There exist no official government documents actually proving that Japan's so-called abductees were taken against their wills. Sure they say they were abducted -- but where is the documentary evidence for this?"

And before turning away, thinking "MTC, you are just being vulgar" consider how much of the abductee movement's pull depends the stories of Soga Hitomi and Yokota Megumi -- who, being minors just going about their daily lives at the time of their disappearance, clearly fit the definition of abduction.  Less is said about the disappearances of adults like Arimoto Keiko, who as a student studying English in Europe made the unfortunate mistake of befriending members of the Red Army Faction Japan Red Army terrorist organization...

[For the record it is Arimoto's story that is the most compelling, with her, her husband and infant being murdered after their betrayal by Japan's Socialist Party.]

...where the non-issue over use or non-use of physical force in abduction, where there is illusion of choice, whether to be lured or not be lured, has its clearest parallel.

As for the applause line in the above for the Abe Cabinet's 2007 revision of the Kono Statement, what can one say? Sycophancy is unbecoming to anyone, but least of all to a purported news organization.


Later - My thanks to the readers who pointed out the incorrect terrorist group name.

How Fear Of Death And Maiming Makes Sanctioned Brothels OK, Osaka Style

Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Takaichi Sanae should send Osaka City mayor and Japan Restoration Party co-leader Hashimoto Toru a nice present. A case of fruit juices from Mitsukoshi, perhaps.

Takaichi tossed out a sheaf of revisionist talking points during her appearance on NHK's flagship Nichiyo Toron talk show on Sunday, seemingly guaranteeing that she would spend the week as the self-delineated enemy of all peace and humanity in East Asian politics. (Link)

However, Takaichi's reign as loosed cannon lasted only a day. Hashimoto has blown past her.

The choice quotes of The Hashist from today? Dumping the euphemistic "comfort women system" direct translation of ianfu seido in favor of "sanctioned brothel system" we get:

- "Amidst the hail of flying of bullets, when you are trying arrange respites for groups whose members are all wound up psychologically, the sanctioned brothel system is necessary. Anyone can understand this."

- "It was not just the Japanese Army, many armies have put up sanctioned brothel systems. South Korea and others have made made all kinds of declarations and this has had an effect. That (Japan) has come to be seen as a rape country is the problem."

- "That 'invasion' has not been defined academically--Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is correct in saying this."

- "We have to accept the interpretation that what it was was 'an invasion' as a result of our country having lost the war."

Oh, no. He did not say all this...

Oh, yes he did. (Link - J)

Ah the scene tomorrow morning in front of the Embassy of Japan in Seoul...


Later - The Asahi Shimbun's English language page checks in with its version of the story, (Link)

Question: when did the translation of shinryaku shift from the precise "invasion" to the diffuse "aggression"?

Later still - Fuller transcripts of Hashimoto's astonishing comments have become available, making the above, redacted newspaper quotations moot.

Here, for example, is The Asahi Shimbun's lightly edited version of Hashimoto's remarks, where we learn of his jaw dropping attempt to encourage the commander of Marines Corps Air Station Futenma to support the maintenance of sexual services establishments for the forces under his command. (Link - J)

He Says All The Right Things

Martin Fackler has delivered:

Japan Says It Will Abide by Apologies Over Actions in World War II
The New York Times

TOKYO — Japan's conservative government will abide by official apologies that the country's leaders made two decades ago to the victims of World War II in Asia, top officials said Tuesday, backing away from earlier suggestions that the government might try to revise or even repudiate the apologies.

Japan formally apologized in 1993 to the women who were forced into wartime brothels for Japanese soldiers, and in 1995 to nations that suffered from Japanese aggression during the war. Both apologies rankled Japanese ultranationalists, and there were concerns that the hawkish current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, would try to appeal to them by whitewashing Japan's wartime atrocities, a step that would probably infuriate Japan’s neighbors.

The United States shared those concerns, and it urged the Abe government to show restraint on historical issues so that Japan would not further isolate itself diplomatically in the region.

The concerns intensified last month when members of Mr. Abe's cabinet visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japanese war dead, including some who were executed for war crimes, drawing angry reactions from China and South Korea. Those nations also responded strongly a few days later when Mr. Abe seemed to question in Parliament whether Japan was actually the aggressor during the war, saying that the definition of "invasion" was relative and suggesting that his cabinet might not stand by the 1995 apology in its entirety.

On Tuesday, the Japanese foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, apparently sought to dispel those concerns, telling reporters that Mr. Abe shared the views expressed in the 1995 apology, which was made by a Socialist prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama. At a separate news conference, the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said the Abe government would not revise the 1993 apology, which formally recognized the military's responsibility in forcing women into sexual slavery...

(Link)

Hmmm...maybe.

Maybe "the Abe government would not revise the 1993 apology, which formally recognized the military’s responsibility in forcing women into sexual slavery" is what Suga wanted to say.

Unfortunately, what actually came out of his mouth, according to the NHK video report (Link - J video) was:

"[The Abe Government] has not said that it is studying the Kono Statement, including the possibility of revision. For the Abe Government, the basic line of thought is that t[he sex slave issue] is not one we must make into a political or foreign policy issue."

Suga's syntax and word choice open possibilities for coy "How were we to know?" excuses later, on the order of "How were we to know that foreign governments were going to make political or foreign policy issues of our revising of the Kono Statement?" There is also that peculiar use of the phrase "must make into" (ni saseru beki)– as if there were some outside force pressing upon the poor, defenseless Abe Government, pushing it to make revisions to the Kono Statement it does not want to make.

Then there is the matter of the seemingly superfluous "the basic line of thought is that" (to iu no ga kihonteki na kangaekata da). It is true that there are no word police to cut short this kind of verbal spinning of wheels. As a consequence such verbosity is rampant, particularly in political speech.

This does not mean that Suga was not being very careful in piling up a wall of subordination at the end of his sentence. He has left open the door for a "Well, it was not our basic idea to revise the Kono Statement...but we were thinking about revision in a sort of oblique way...and then the political situation changed and we decided to go through with it."

As for trusting what members of the Abe Government say, there is that problem too. When a snake tells you "I'm not hungry" (Or, more specifically, "My basic thought is that I'm not hungry") -- is what matters is the fact that the snake said, "I'm not hungry" or that he is a snake?

So, yes -- I do prefer Toko Sekiguchi's more cautious take on the same story (Link) -- but even she puts in a "never" where it does not likely belong.


Later - The online English-language edition of Pravda-by-the-Palace checks in with its own restrained version of the story (Link). The kicker phrase in the English language version is "effectively modifying Abe's position on history." In an abbreviated Japanese version of the story, the operative phrase is shusho no hatsugen o jijitsujo kido shusei suru koto -- which translates more literally as "what is for all intents and purposes a rectification of the trajectory of the prime minister's statements." (Link - J)


Image courtesy: NHK