Category: Japan

This is just common sense that the Japanese Self Defense Force wouldn’t just land in South Korea without governmental permission, but due to the massive misinformation in Korea, this fact has to actually be socialized publicly in the media:

Japan reaffirmed Wednesday it would not send its troops to the Korean Peninsula without a request or prior consent from South Korea even though the country is expanding the role of its self-defense forces, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said.

Earlier, Japan stressed that Tokyo would never send troops to the Peninsula even for a contingency without permission from the Seoul government.

“Japan’s defense minister is explaining to its assembly on its position that (Japanese self-defense forces) will not enter the territory of South Korea if there’s no consent from the country,” a defense ministry official quoted a group of Japanese officials as saying during a working-level defense policy meeting.

“The Japanese side has reasserted this is the Japanese government’s basic stance.”

Earlier in the day, the neighbors held the 21st round of the working-level defense policy meetings in Seoul, resuming the director-level defense dialogue channel after over two years.

Since the last round held in Tokyo in March 2013, the annual meeting was suspended last year due to worsening diplomatic ties over unresolved history-related feuds.

The South Korean side was headed by Yoon Soon-ku, the ministry’s director general on international policy, while the Japanese delegation was led by his counterpart, Atsuo Suzuki.

The Japanese side has also suggested the signing of two military agreements — the General Security of Military Information Agreement and the Cross-Servicing Agreement — during the session, but the Korean side was cautious, the defense official said on condition of anonymity.

“Forging these agreements requires the understanding and support from the public,” he said, referring to public anxieties over military intelligence with the former colonial ruler. “It should be reviewed carefully.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Park’s sister is quite the headache for her, but I would be in more agreement with her if she criticized her sister for not doing more for the modern day Korean comfort women in China:

Just as President Park Geun-hye struggles to improve the country’s relations with Japan, an unlikely figure has catapulted herself to the center of controversy by criticizing Seoul for dragging out the sex slavery rows: her younger sister, Geun-ryeong.

In an interview with Japan’s video-sharing website Niconico, the 61-year-old Park Geun-ryeong said she was sorry that in most news reports South Korea blames Japan for the ongoing toil of the so-called comfort women “without itself taking greater care” of them.

Citing previous statements including the regret expressed by Emperor Hirohito to then-President Chun Doo-hwan in 1984, she said it is “inappropriate” to demand an apology every time a new premier takes office.

Park also defended the Japanese prime minister’s globally criticized visit to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in December 2013, calling Seoul’s opposition an “interference” in another country’s internal affairs.

“I believe if anyone thinks that the prime minister would worship at the Yasukuni with an ambition for another war in mind, he or she is an abnormal person,” Park said. “How would blood-related descendants not pay respect to their ancestors?”

Her remarks are likely to have little impact on the bilateral diplomatic relations or the ongoing talks aimed at resolving the sex slavery dispute, but they instantly sparked public uproar given her position in the presidential family.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

It seems every time some reporter wants to make some point about Japanese historical revisionism they drag out this guy:

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.

It is good to see that this former sailor was able to be reunited with daughter:

The words that Navy veteran James Walker had longed to hear for almost 46 years appeared on his Facebook page Saturday.

“Your search is over .. I am found .. i love you Dad,” said the message from a woman claiming to be the daughter he left behind in Japan when he went off to fight in the Vietnam War.

Walker contacted the person who made the post, Emi McGowan of Sarasota, Fla., and then questioned her mother, Tomie Miller of Mesa, Ariz.

“I called her mother, and she told me things that only her mother would know,” he said, noting that he’s been contacted by numerous scam artists claiming to be his daughter since Stars and Stripes ran a story about his search in March.

“You never know if somebody is trying to pull something over on you,” he said.

Now, he’s convinced that his search is over.

Shortly after his daughter’s birth in 1968, Walker got orders to return to the U.S. from Japan. At the time, he was a petty officer third class at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, near Tokyo.

Walker wrote to the girl many times and made other unsuccessful efforts to track her down, including a trip back to their old neighborhood near Atsugi. He credited the Stars and Stripes article, which was translated into Japanese and widely shared on Facebook, with helping him make the breakthrough.

McGowan, who said she has been searching for her father since she was 18, reported that a friend saw the story and sent her the accompanying photo.

“I looked at the baby in the picture and I was looking at myself in the mirror. My face has really not changed,” she said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but Walker’s daughter hasn’t had an easy life because she currently has three kids and is homeless.

.@theAsianist explains: The Real Importance of Japan’s New Strategy for the Mekong http://t.co/FBduRVq65O pic.twitter.com/WeJ2645KBx

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) July 6, 2015

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]

You can read the rest at the link.

I wonder how USFK would treat a similar case of theft by a civilian in a situation like this?:

On March 6, a large sum of cash was stolen from a slot machine room at the Navy’s largest base in Asia.

This wasn’t the first time money had gone missing from a Navy entertainment facility in Japan. In 2010, $67,000 went missing from a Naval Air Facility Atsugi club. Only a few civilians had access to the cash, but no one was ever arrested.

Navy officials in Japan say that while they can make it hard to steal and even harder to go unidentified, a determined thief is going to have opportunities at entertainment facilities, which are primarily operated by civilians who, unlike servicemembers, do not fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

When crime prevention among civilians fails, the question then becomes whether federal officials will prosecute them. Unless the crime is violent or particularly noteworthy, the answer is probably not.

When criminal suspects fall under the UCMJ, custody and prosecution become straightforward legal matters. If the suspect is a civilian, custody may become subject to international accords and possibly extradition agreements, which can take months or years to find their way through the courts.

Sources familiar with the March theft at Yokosuka told Stars and Stripes that a suspect is a third-country national admitted to Japan. If the suspect is still in Japan and off-base, the U.S. has no jurisdiction to make the arrest and would need assistance from Japanese authorities.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but if the military lacks legal jurisdiction than why was this person allowed on base in the first place?

Anyway speaking of slot machine scams, does anyone remember this case of the Korean woman who made $1.2 million signing people on to post to gamble on Yongsan Garrison?  As far as I can tell nothing happened to her either other than losing pass privileges.

The Japanese Defense Reform No One Is Talking About http://t.co/exLP9jm37D pic.twitter.com/OnFXCavn0u

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) May 19, 2015

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.  I am willing to bet there won’t be much coming out of this publicly, but behind the scenes a few issues will probably be worked out:

South Korean and Japanese defense chiefs are expected to hold bilateral talks later this month for the first time in four years despite soured ties over historical rows, government sources here said Tuesday.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo plans to meet with his Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani around the end of this month in Singapore on the sidelines of the regional security forum, the Shangri-La Dialogue, according to a source. The upcoming annual security forum is slated for May 29-31.

If held, it will be the first bilateral talks between the top defense officials in four years, as they have shunned such meetings due to deteriorated bilateral relations over history-related issues, including Japan’s refusal to apologize for its wartime atrocities.

Icy Seoul-Tokyo relations have taken a turn for the worse in recent months after the Abe administration renewed claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, and attempted to deny its wrongdoing during World War II, such as the forced sexual enslavement of Asian women, mostly Korean, for its soldiers. Korea was under harsh colonial rule by Japan from 1910 to 1945.

“On the table would be issues of mutual interest including how to work closely to deter and counter North Korea’s nuclear and missiles threats and the implementation of the revised U.S.-Japan defense guidelines,” another source said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

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.