College students and police officers celebrate the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule with a performance at a plaza in front of Cheongnyangni Station in Seoul on Aug. 1, 2015. (Yonhap)
A group of university students protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on July 29, 2015, demanding that Japan make a sincere apology for its wartime crimes during its 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea. The pickets say “Japan, a war criminal state, should apologize before history.” (Yonhap)
I wonder if these same protesters will go protest in front of the Chinese embassy as well and demand an apology for war crimes committed against Korea by the government responsible for it still in power to this day?
It will be interesting to see what terms the Japanese government agrees to, but I would love to see South Korea makes the same demands of the Chinese government to apologize for their aggression during the Korean War and continued division of the peninsula:
Beijing has reportedly demanded the government and ruling party of Japan include the words “colonialism,” “aggression” and apology” in the so-called “Abe statement,” set to be released next month.
The Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun reported on Tuesday that Chinese foreign ministry officials are trying to persuade Japanese officials regarding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s planned statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The newspaper said that Chinese officials are also demanding Tokyo inherit the apologetic Murayama statement that included the words “colonial rule,” “aggression,” “apology” and “remorse.” [KBS World Radio]
A member of the Solidarity for the Peace and Reunification of Korea, a progressive civic group, speaks during a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on July 16, 2015, to voice her objection to Japan exercising the right to collective self-defense. Japan’s ruling coalition pushed controversial security bills through the lower house that would allow it to exercise that right the same day. (Yonhap)
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.
http://img.yonhapnews.co.kr/etc/inner/EN/2015/07/13/AEN20150713007200320_01_i.jpg
This NK News article makes a really good argument that the Chinese government has no creditability to complain about Japanese World War II historical revisionism when they themselves have made laughable historical revisionist claims about their involvement in the Korean War. Here is an excerpt, but I recommend reading the whole thing:
Finally, there is a museum titled the “Commemorative Museum of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid North Korea.” It has exhibits on how South Korea, in collusion with the United States, started the war, how the U.S. made use of germ warfare, and how American POWs held by the Chinese and North Koreans were treated humanely according to the Geneva Convention – including photos of a “Santa Claus” handing out care packages to POWs from the Red Cross. (This contrasts sharply to the reports of POWs repatriated after the war concerning their brutal and inhumane treatment, as documented in U.S. Senate Report No. 848, 83rd Congress, Second Session – Korean War Atrocities.)
Xi Jinping, in his 2010 speech, repeated the dubious claim presented at the museum of the use of germ warfare by U.S forces when he said: “Thereafter, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army constructed an impregnable defense bastion and crushed the enemy’s multiple attacks and their germ warfare.”
In conclusion, the assertion by Xi Jinping in his 2010 remarks that Harry Truman started the Korean War is directly contradicted by the Yeltsin documents. It is thus as controversial as the claim of non-coercion of Comfort Women made in the past by Japanese Prime Minister Abe. Yet, while Abe’s intemperate remarks have caused criticism throughout South Korean society, there is almost no public outcry over Xi’s condemnation of the American president. Yet Truman was one of the leaders of the UN coalition which laid the groundwork for a viable and independent South Korean state. [NK News]
Read the rest at the link.
.@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
South Korean President Park Geun-hye smiles as she applauds with former Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, left, during a reception to mark the 50th anniversary of normalizing relations between South Korea and Japan in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 22, 2015.
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.
