One emotionally charged issue rooted in history continues to weigh heavily upon the relationship between Japan and South Korea.
It is the issue of so-called comfort women who were forced to provide sex services to officers and men during wartime. The women’s human rights and dignity were violated.
A third-party panel that examined The Asahi Shimbun’s coverage of the comfort women issue harshly criticized the newspaper for failing for many years to respond to errors in articles based on fabricated testimony by the late Seiji Yoshida.
The committee, chaired by lawyer Hideki Nakagome, said the Asahi had been far too slow to retract these inaccurate articles, which were based on Yoshida’s testimony that he forcibly took away women on Jeju Island, South Korea, during the war.
The Asahi Shimbun’s editorial board, which is responsible for writing editorials, has taken seriously the committee’s conclusion that this newspaper “betrayed the trust of readers” by neglecting to correct errors in these articles.
We will take to heart the most basic principle of newspaper journalism--accurate news reporting based solidly on facts.
Many mysteries remain about the comfort women. Who were they actually? How were they recruited? What kind of lives were they forced to live?
Learning lessons from the critiques made by the committee, the Asahi intends to make continuous efforts to find answers to these questions to understand the truth about these women by investigating the issue from various viewpoints. The editorial board, for its part, will try to offer opinions about the issue that look squarely at history in a cool-headed manner.
TRUTH REMAINS UNCLEAR
In the early 1990s, shafts of light began to penetrate the dark chapter of history.
After the end of the long era of restricted freedom of speech under the military dictatorship in South Korea, former comfort women of the country started talking about their life stories one by one.
More than two decades since then, the issue remains unsettled today and continues to be a historical sore point in the relationship between Japan and South Korea.
The “memories” concerning the issue that are currently emphasized respectively in the two countries are more biased than in the past.
The trend is reflected in such claims as: “Many of the comfort women volunteered for service” or “Most of them were girls who were taken by force.”
No material has been found to support the argument that the Japanese military or other organs of the Japanese government at that time took away women like kidnappers in organized operations in the Korean Peninsula.
But there are women in South Korea who say they were forcibly taken away by the Japanese military.
A lapse of seven decades since the end of World War II has made it difficult to discover various truths about the comfort women. But there is a clear obligation to continue making efforts to reveal the facts.
LONG LIST OF CHALLENGES
Since they established formal diplomatic relations half a century ago, Japan and South Korea have been getting along while sometimes supporting each other and sometimes competing against each other. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of their relationship.
History issues, of course, are not the only challenges the two countries need to tackle.
There is a broad array of issues they should deal with together, including a proposal to create a regional free trade zone and security cooperation based on their respective alliances with the United States.
In particular, how to respond to the security threat posed by North Korea is a common challenge. On Dec. 29, Japan, the United States and South Korea signed their first joint intelligence-sharing pact to better cope with North Korea's increasing nuclear and missile threats.
A long list of challenges demand cooperation between the two neighbors, which have much in common in geographical and economic aspects. Japanese and South Korean political leaders have a duty to take steps to make sure that the two countries can overcome their disagreements in each area and work together more closely.
The issue of comfort women is a human rights issue. It is obvious that efforts to settle the issue should be focused on how to provide relief to victims. This should not be the theme for a contest in which the two countries fight to defend national prestige.
What needs to be done to make it possible for Tokyo and Seoul to narrow their differences over the issue next year?
Japan should keep in mind the importance of the prime minister’s statement that the Abe administration is expected to issue to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
This statement could be a good opportunity to overcome history-related diplomatic issues. But the document could also produce negative effects, depending on its content.
South Korea is eager to see the Abe administration maintain the views included in the statement on comfort women issued in 1993 by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, which expressed Japan’s “apologies and remorse” to these women.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to support the statement’s position on the issue during this year’s Diet session.
We urge the government to develop a new statement designed to bring about a true reconciliation between the two countries and make fresh efforts to reach an agreement with South Korea over new measures for former comfort women. The previous governments of the two countries came close to striking such an agreement.
The Japanese government has kept insisting that the issue of compensation was settled by the bilateral agreement on problems concerning property and claims, which was signed in 1965 along with the treaty that established formal diplomatic ties between the two countries.
But there are many things Tokyo can do within the framework of the treaty, such as the Japanese government’s direct dialogue with victims.
PUBLIC SENTIMENT WORSENS
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has been in office for nearly two years, should also take serious actions to improve the relationship between the two countries.
Even if Japan caused suffering to comfort women, Park can’t hope to see a settlement of the issue if she just keeps waiting for Japan’s proposal.
The South Korean government needs to have meaningful talks with citizen groups that are supporting former comfort women and criticizing Japan to build a consensus.
Seoul is now working on a white paper on the comfort women issue. The report should be written with a level-headed approach that takes into account the results of past research into the problem.
While Tokyo and Seoul have remained politically estranged, public sentiment in the two countries toward each other has seriously deteriorated.
Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was deeply involved in the process of building normal relations between the two countries. Park’s father, former President Park Chung-hee, decided on the normalization of bilateral diplomatic relations in the face of opposition at home.
If the current situation is allowed to continue, people in the two countries could even start questioning the wisdom of the former leaders’ decisions.
Japan and South Korea need to have constructive talks and narrow their differences over key issues.
We strongly hope that next year will see the two leaders provide effective leadership to mend the strained relations between their countries.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 30
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