島田洋一ブログ (Shimada Yoichi Blog)

　公立図書館や大きな喫茶店などでジャパン・タイムズという英字紙をよく見かける。日本での事象を英語でどう表現するか、私も時々ネット版を中心に参照する。

　ところがこの新聞には、特に歴史問題絡みの記事において、反日偏向著しい決めつけ表現が横行している。

以下は、野田首相の訪韓直前インタビューを取り上げた記事だが、慰安婦について、「帝国日本兵士のため性行為を強制された戦時奴隷」「戦闘中に性的犠牲となった」「日韓の間の性奴隷問題」等々の表現が堂々と並ぶ。

ある国際政治分析の大家が、「ジャパン・タイムズの左翼偏向はひどい。五百旗頭眞が一番まともなコメンテーターと言えるほどだ」と述懐していた。拉致問題でも、日本側の非常識な対応が解決を妨げているとするグレゴリー・クラークの論評などを載せていた。

この新聞のロゴには「日本に関する世界の窓」とあるが、とても外国人に紹介できない歪んだ窓である。

Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011

'Comfort women' issue resolved: Noda

'65 treaty cited on eve of first Seoul trip; TPP, Hague on radar

By MASAMI ITO

Staff writer

The war compensation issues regarding South Korea's "comfort women" have already been "legally resolved," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in an interview Monday on the eve of his trip to Seoul.

The issue of the wartime slaves forced to provide sex for Imperial Japanese soldiers has recently flared up again in South Korea, just before Noda's Wednesday meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. It will be the prime minister's first official trip to Seoul.

"Japan's position is that the issue of the comfort women was legally resolved in 1965, and that has not changed," Noda said, referring to a bilateral treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea. Tokyo has maintained the treaty settled all war compensation issues involving individuals.

"We will not bring this issue up during the upcoming Japan-South Korea summit meeting — it has already been settled," he said during an interview with The Japan Times and several other media outlets.

Before a human rights panel of the United Nations General Assembly last week, South Korea urged the U.N. and its member states to provide "remedies and reparation" to those who were sexually victimized during armed conflicts.

The sex slave issue between Tokyo and Seoul has often sparked emotional outbursts between the peoples of the two countries.