The ‘Comfort Women’ Statue: Let History Speak through the Facts

I have been shown a scene I did not wish to see. It is an image of House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., offering incense, on bended knees, in front of the “comfort women” statue installed by Korean-Americans. It must have been a “political show” held in a park in Glendale, California, to please the local Korean residents.

Royce, who was re-elected in the November 2012 election, represents California’s 39th congressional district near Glendale. There is a large number of Korean residents in the area. Royce has won re-election 11 times consecutively since 1992. If he were to lose, he would likely be too preoccupied to even think of Japan-U.S. relations. His performance in front of the comfort women statue looks like nothing more than a publicity stunt for votes.

Royce had reportedly said to the press that “confronting this issue is the right thing to do. It is important that the Japanese government confronts this dark part of the history of Imperial Japan.”

I would like to offer my compliments to these words in their entirety.

The Japanese government has expressed apologies and remorse for having “injured the honor and dignity” of the comfort women.

Compensations for former comfort women “have been settled completely and finally” with the Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Cooperation, entered into in Showa Emperor Year 40 — 1965. The Asian Women’s Fund was also established to pay out atonement money. It is obvious from documented interviews with former comfort women that the Kono Statement [of 1993] — which recognized the forced taking — is based on sloppy research.

South Korea claims that the Imperial Japanese Army forcibly removed approximately 200,000 women from the Korean Peninsula as sex slaves, but there is no evidence. As a result of his analyses of documents from the Ministry of War, modern historian Ikuhiko Hata has concluded that the total number of comfort women is in the tens of thousands, 20 percent of whom were inhabitants of the peninsula. Obviously, there are no documents indicating forced taking by the military.

If Royce is baselessly pandering to South Korea, this calls into question his competence as chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Royce was also a sponsor of the 2007 House resolution urging Japan to offer an apology and compensation to former comfort women. Japanese-American Mike Honda — who allegedly struggled to be elected in California’s 17th District, home to numerous Korean residents — is another sponsor. Honda sent a letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Feb. 4, asking him to urge the Japanese government to formally apologize for the comfort women issue.

I once met this Mr. Honda by chance in a Japanese-style pub in Washington, D.C. We had a lively conversation about the presidential election over appetizers, but when a friend revealed that I am a Sankei Shimbun reporter, the atmosphere changed completely. Honda was probably well-aware that our paper had been criticizing him. When I said, “There are no such things as military sex slaves,” he stood up and left with a sour look on his face.

The Sea of Japan naming issue in Virginia also had the same setup in that it was a performance for votes. The State House of Representatives approved a bill advocated for by Korean residents to add “East Sea” to the state’s public school textbooks.

However, a Washington Post editorial criticized the senate, saying “the history they teach should be based on the best judgment of historians.”

As one would expect, they criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Yasukuni shrine as a “provocative act,” but it is noteworthy that they criticized the Senate for the Japan-Sea naming issue concerning historical awareness.

Historical perspective is something that is different depending on the country. From Japan’s point of view, South Korea, in particular, appears to distort history and utilize anti-Japanese propaganda. I hope U.S. lawmakers do not forget to maintain an impartial perspective.