History will not be Forgotten – Japan must Apologize For the Comfort Women Scandal

Comfort Women: an issue carried over from WWⅡ 

“Comfort women” were a group of women who were coerced by the Japanese army into working as sex slaves during WWⅡ.Of these, Chinese women made up half of the total number of 400,000. They were forced into comfort women centers and allocated to Japanese army as military supplies.

According to one document, 109 women abducted as comfort women from Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province in China were allocated to 15,000 Japanese soldiers. The brutal atrocities these women suffered left them with appalling trauma, both mental and physical. As some comfort women who are still alive recall, some of them had dozens of abortions following the sexual abuse they experienced; some of them had their arms broken to punish them for resisting; some of them were forced to give birth to Japanese children and have had to bear this misfortune and disgrace for the rest of their lives.

The United Nations published a report on the issue of Japanese army comfort women in 1996, defining the comfort women as sex slaves. On December 6, 2012, at the launch of The Nanking Massacre: A Complete History, Chinese historians proposed that we should change the description of women from countries including China and Korea who were abducted by the Japanese army from “Comfort Women” to “Sex Slaves”.

Japan’s Attitude according to the UN: Unapologetic and Insincere

On November 14 The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held a new working group meeting, 5 years after the previous one, to review the human rights situation in Japan. The Japanese attitude towards the comfort women issue, which has received constant criticism in the past, once more became the key point of the review. The working group listened to opinions from different countries, including the Japanese government, and issued its findings on November 16.

The rating given by UNHRC to Japan over its attitude towards the comfort women issue has been falling steadily. According to the regulations, UNHRC will rate the implementation performance of countries under review against a standard of five grades – A, B, C, D and E，which means respectively full implementation, partial implementation, fails to meet the standard, no response, and have done the opposite.

UNHRC released a report on the review of Japan’s performance on human rights affairs back in July 2014. It recommended that the Japanese government should issue an open apology on the comfort women issue, punish those responsible, and protect the reputation of victims. Subsequently, at a second conference, UNHRC lowered Japan’s rating.

In March 2016 at the 116^th conference of the UNHRC, Japan issued a response, and the council rated Japan’s follow-up measures as B2 – partially executed. This was a rather low grade, requiring that further measures should be taken. It should be noted that even this low rating was influenced by “positive factors”, including an indemnity agreement on comfort women reached by Japan and South Korea in December 2015.

In June and December last year Japan issued additional replies on the issue, specifically about the indemnity agreement with South Korea, the punishment of those involved, opening up evidence to the public, and issuing a governmental apology. However, at the 120^th UNHRC conference in July this year, the council rated these additional replies as B and C, meaning that Japan had not met the criteria in any of these areas.

The council stated that it had not received any new information from Japan about progress in executing the requirements. It had not received satisfactory information about Japan’s plans to punish offenders, which could be interpreted as meaning that the Japanese government had not considered punishing perpetrators – a regrettable situation. The council required the Japanese government to provide it with information including the punishment of perpetrators, and plans to provide education on the relevant history.

However, it appears that Japan did not accept the findings and was dissatisfied with the constant criticism. In December last year, Japan claimed in its reply to UNHRC that the indemnity issue had essentially been settled, which could be interpreted to mean “I have already done what I intend to, so do not bother me any longer.” It is therefore quite possible that Japan will refuse to act on any instructions even if UNHRC raise the proposal again this time.

The International Community is Highly Concerned: Document the History by Filming It

The UNHRC assessment makes it clear victim countries including China and South Korea have now been joined by the international community in taking the view that Japan is insincere in dealing with the issue. As victims pass away one by one, Japan’s indifference to the international community is likely to grow day by day. Therefore, hard-hitting films that document the wretched story have been made in China, Taiwan and South Korea in recent years, such as Twenty Two, Song of the Reed and Spirits’ Homecoming.

The Website bunshun.co.jp (bungei shunjuu) published an article titled Films about Comfort Women that are Popular with the Younger Generation on September 29. In recent years films and memorials to comfort women are increasingly targeting younger educated audiences in mainland China and Taiwan, especially films like Twenty Two which uses techniques from commercial cinema to document history.

The article said that the Taipei office in the United States invited U.S. senators to attend the release of Song of the Reed in Washington D.C. in March last year. Twenty Two, made in mainland China was also released in the US on September 8 this year.

The comfort women issue has remained unresolved for more than 70 years. South Korea was the first country to use all means to attract people’s attention to the issue, and now China is employing 21^st century methods by using its soft power as a weapon. It is becoming a headache to the Japanese government.

South Korea has always been proactive on the issue. Although both Japan and South Korea are allies of the US, and often reach agreement on other issues through the mediation of the US, South Korea gives no ground on comfort women. Park Geun-hye’s government signed a settlement agreement with Japan, but Moon Jae-in’s government is less inclined to play along. At the same time, non-governmental organizations in South Korea are setting up bronze statues of Korean comfort women around the world, trying their best to ensure that the international community does not forget the atrocities of the Japanese army.

More Efforts Needed from China to Make Japan Face the Truth

Even though China has spared no effort in publicizing the issue to the international community in recent years, more can still be done. A Japanese academic once described the subtle differences between China and South Korea towards the comfort women issue. At heart, he said, South Korea and China are the same – they both detest the atrocities Japan committed. However, when it comes to the methods they employ in their responses, they are quite different. This may be related to cultural differences between the two countries. Historically, South Korea has long been weak and has struggled to survive. Hence it takes the comfort women issue as a slight and condemns Japan to the international community for the suffering it caused.

In contrast, China has boasted of “the Celestial Empire” for thousands of years, giving it a greater level of self-esteem. Hence it will subconsciously deem issues like comfort women as a humiliating loss of face, and its attitude towards this kind of stigma will usually be to swallow the pain in silence, preferring not to reveal its pain to others. But this is exactly what Japan is counting on.

However, the Japanese academic view is incorrect. The Chinese government has repeatedly voiced strong position demanding Japanese full recognition and repentance of the history. More efforts should be done to publicize it to other countries by employing the full range of its international influence. If the world better understands the atrocities Japan committed, more pressure can be imposed on Japan to force it to confess and apologize.

（Jiang Feng, Chief Editor of Japan New Overseas Chinese News）

 Editor: Dong Lingyi