Rejecting Japan's Remorse, Nationalists Feed Asia Strife

By YUKA HAYASHI

Reuters

Kim Bok-dong, 87, who says she was abducted to serve as a 'comfort woman' for wartime Japanese soldiers, attended an anti-Japanese protest in Seoul this month.

TOKYO—One factor behind Japan's mounting tensions with China and South Korea is an increasingly vocal movement arguing that Tokyo has for too long apologized for World War II and needs to move past the events of seven decades ago.

Some Japanese politicians and opinion leaders are asserting that the nation's long-standing efforts to use economic cooperation and what they derisively refer to as "peace-at-any-price diplomacy" have only made Japan look weak. The results, they say, are increasing territorial frictions that have flared up in the past several weeks, and more demands for more apologies and compensation for wartime sins.

Their assertiveness itself also has added to animosities, and highlighted the gap in sentiment between Japan and its neighbors.

The dispute that has raged over the past week over a chain of uninhabited East China Sea islands was fueled by Tokyo's nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, who pushed to buy the islands after criticizing leaders for failing to stand up to China.

"Japanese people buying islands to protect Japanese territory, no matter how much other countries complain. Does anyone have a problem with that?" he asked, when launching his campaign this year to take control of the territory from private owners.

In August, two cabinet members visited a controversial shrine that commemorates war criminals, the first time such high-level leaders have done so since 2009. And now, nearly two decades after Tokyo apologized for the forced prostitution of South Korean women during World War II, some politicians are pushing for the withdrawal of the official contrition.

Shinzo Abe, a hawkish former prime minister vying for a comeback as head of the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has called for reconsideration of apologies Japanese leaders issued in the 1990s to soften lingering wartime tensions. He told the Sankei newspaper in an interview published Aug. 28: "Being excessively considerate to neighboring nations...has not brought us real friendship."

The push for a review of a 1993 apology—known as the Kono statement after Yohei Kono, a moderate politician who unveiled it as chief cabinet secretary at the time— reflects the broader rise of nationalism. "Many politicians are now thinking that taking hawkish positions toward China and South Korea will earn them votes," said Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of history at Chuo University and an expert on comfort-women issues. "I am very concerned."

The campaign to nullify the contrition comes during heightened tensions between Japan and South Korea over Seoul's insistence that Tokyo take further steps to make amends to the female victims, including more apologies and compensation, and over a long-standing territorial dispute.

The government of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has rebuffed South Korea's demands. Several opposition politicians—and one member of Mr. Noda's own cabinet—have gone further, saying Japan has done too much already, erring with the 1993 cabinet statement declaring that Japan's military was involved in the coercive recruitment of women from South Korea and other nations, such as China and the Philippines, and offering a formal apology to the victims.

"It's baseless and most egregious," Toru Hashimoto, the popular Osaka mayor, said in August. "There is no proof the Japanese military used violence and threats to gather up the comfort women. If South Korea insists as such, they should show us the proof."

At an Aug. 24 news conference, Mr. Ishihara, the popular four-term governor, said the destitute women "helplessly, but not unwillingly, chose the occupation" as prostitutes catering to Japanese soldiers. He then criticized the 1993 Kono declaration, calling Mr. Kono a "fool."

Mr. Kono, now retired, declined a request for an interview through an aide. "My understanding is Mr. Kono's position on the statement remains the same," said the aide, who asked not to be identified

The comfort-women debate highlights how unresolved differences over Japan's wartime aggression continue to strain relations seven decades later, threatening to undermine efforts to deepen economic ties and regional cooperation.

In Japan, a recent editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, a liberal-leaning major daily, criticized the lawmakers opposing the 1993 statement, saying Japan's politics "can't confront its own past mistakes." "It is an undeniable fact that many women had their mental and physical freedom taken away and endured damage to their honor and dignity," it stated.

Nationalist movements in Japanese politics have come in waves over the past few decades, intertwined with periods of overtures for more contrition and peacemaking.

Starting in the 1960s, Japan repeatedly offered apologies to South Korea and China for the nation's wartime actions, delivered by generations of emperors and prime ministers.

In 2005, thousands in China protested in the streets against what they saw as Japan's failure to address its wartime sins, including school textbooks that they said glossed over its cruelties. Also spurring China's wrath, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi repeatedly visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. In 2008, the chief of Japan's air force was removed from his post after writing an essay for a national magazine saying Japan wasn't an aggressor in World War II. Seoul has twice asked Tokyo to hold consultations on the comfort-women issue, but was turned down.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak cited the lack of progress on the issue as a reason for the recent flare-up in their territorial rivalry over a group of tiny islets. South Korea controls these islets, known as Liancourt Rocks in the U.S. and other countries not party to the dispute. South Korea calls them the Dokdo Islands; Japan calls them the Takeshima Islands.

Many in Japan blame Mr. Lee for using the two disputes to buttress his popularity before his term ends in February. "Both parties are very angry, emotional and frustrated," said Cheol Hee Park, professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University. "We have to wait for this politically turbulent period to end, then look for new momentum to solve the issue."

Mr. Park said 60 comfort women survive of a total 50,000 to 200,000, estimated 2007 U.S. congressional research. They are seeking three things: an official apology from the Japanese prime minister, symbolic action such as visits by Japanese ambassador to individual victims, and, especially, direct government compensation.

Tokyo's stance on that largely hinges on the outcome of coming general elections, likely to take place by early next year. Mr. Noda's ruling party has affirmed its commitment to the 1993 statement, in which Tokyo offered "sincere apologies and remorse," but polls suggest Mr. Noda's ruling party could suffer a defeat.

The comfort women issue first surfaced on the bilateral diplomatic agenda in the early 1990s, as some victims began pressing for compensation. Until then, most of the women remained silent. Japan has maintained that all the wartime claims were settled in a 1965 bilateral agreement.

Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared September 20, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Rejecting Japan's Remorse, Nationalists Feed Asia Strife.