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Bush Accepts Apology for Japanese Sex Slavery
April 29, 2007
Sex Slave Dispute Follows Abe Even as He Bonds With Bush
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TOKYO, April 28 — In his first visit to the United States as Japan’s leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly got on a first-name basis with President Bush and secured an invitation to the ranch in Crawford, Tex., for the next time.
If Mr. Abe succeeded in forging a bond with Mr. Bush, another major goal of his trip — heading off a resolution on Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in the House of Representatives — yielded mixed results. In both his meeting with House leaders and in his news conference with the president, Mr. Abe offered an apology but used pointedly vague language to sidestep the issue of Japan’s responsibility toward the sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women.
Standing next to Mr. Bush, Mr. Abe said that he had “deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as comfort women were placed in extreme hardships” and expressed his “apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance.”
Mr. Bush called Japan’s wartime sex slavery a “regrettable chapter in the history of the world,” adding, “I accept the prime minister’s apology.”
Mike M. Mochizuki, a Japanese politics specialist at George Washington University, said that Mr. Abe’s comments reflected both the vagueness of the Japanese language and a carefully worded script.
“If he wanted to be clear in his response, he could have phrased it differently,” Mr. Mochizuki said. “What Abe said does not acknowledge the issue of coercion, so those insisting on a clear admission of responsibility won’t be satisfied with that. I don’t think he’s changed anyone’s mind with his remarks.”
On Friday, in two landmark rulings, Japan’s Supreme Court rejected compensation claims filed by former sex slaves and forced laborers from China, but acknowledged that they had been coerced by the Japanese military or industry. The judgment was handed down as Mr. Abe wrapped up his tour of the United States and headed to Saudi Arabia, the first stop in a tour of the Middle East.
Last month, Mr. Abe caused a furor in Asia and the United States when he said there was no evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women into sex slavery in World War II, in keeping with longstanding assertions by Japanese nationalists that the women were volunteers or were coerced by third-party private brokers. On March 16, Mr. Abe’s comments were endorsed by his cabinet as the official government position.
More recently, Mr. Abe’s remarks have softened, though they have yet to extinguish the initial anger.
“He’s not taking any responsibility for the military putting us there — he makes it seem as if we just happened to be there,” said Jan Ruff O’Herne, 84, a Dutchwoman who was forced to serve as a sex slave in Indonesia and testified about her experiences at a House panel recently.
“He hasn’t changed his tune at all,” she said of Mr. Abe’s Friday remarks in a phone interview from her home in Adelaide, Australia. “He used his words very carefully. He’s getting away with it, he thinks.”
Kent Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins, said Mr. Abe was “finessing his response to try to head off the resolution” in the House while not alienating his nationalist base in Japan.
“He could be caught in a real cross-fire,” Mr. Calder said.
The House resolution calls on Japan to unequivocally acknowledge its wartime sex slavery and officially apologize for it.
Representative Mike Honda, the California Democrat who is spearheading the legislation, said he hoped that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs would vote on the resolution next month.
“We would like the Japanese government to offer the victims of sex slavery an official apology endorsed by the cabinet and passed by Parliament,” Mr. Honda said in a telephone interview. “Why should the president of the United States accept the prime minister’s apology? He wasn’t a victim of sex slavery.”
The attention on sex slavery has raised some concerns in the United States about linking American policy in Asia to Japan’s current leadership, which is dominated by nationalists who have long argued that historical facts like wartime sex slavery or the Rape of Nanjing were exaggerations or fabrications.
In recent years, the United States and Japan have asserted that their alliance in Asia is based on “common values, especially our commitment to freedom and democracy,” as Mr. Bush said Friday. The countries are strengthening their military alliance even as Japan’s revisionist views on history have deepened distrust in the rest of Asia.
“The notion of Japan as a robust democracy and a beacon of human rights in East Asia is something that Prime Minister Abe has been pushing,” Mr. Mochizuki of George Washington University said. “But the more he pushes on that, while leaving the comfort women hanging, it raises questions among American intellectuals about how truly democratic Japan is and how truly committed it is to human rights.”
Mr. Mochizuki pointed out that Mr. Abe had assigned a new investigation into Japan’s wartime sex slavery to a group of nationalist lawmakers from the right wing of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, who have long argued that the women were volunteers.
“If Prime Minister Abe was serious about getting at the historical truth,” he added, “rather than relegating this investigation to a group of like-minded revisionists inside the L.D.P., he could have called for a cross-party study in the Diet and made available all sorts of government documents for a thorough government investigation.”
Sex Slave Dispute Follows Abe Even as He Bonds With Bush
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TOKYO, April 28 — In his first visit to the United States as Japan’s leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly got on a first-name basis with President Bush and secured an invitation to the ranch in Crawford, Tex., for the next time.
If Mr. Abe succeeded in forging a bond with Mr. Bush, another major goal of his trip — heading off a resolution on Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in the House of Representatives — yielded mixed results. In both his meeting with House leaders and in his news conference with the president, Mr. Abe offered an apology but used pointedly vague language to sidestep the issue of Japan’s responsibility toward the sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women.
Standing next to Mr. Bush, Mr. Abe said that he had “deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as comfort women were placed in extreme hardships” and expressed his “apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance.”
Mr. Bush called Japan’s wartime sex slavery a “regrettable chapter in the history of the world,” adding, “I accept the prime minister’s apology.”
Mike M. Mochizuki, a Japanese politics specialist at George Washington University, said that Mr. Abe’s comments reflected both the vagueness of the Japanese language and a carefully worded script.
“If he wanted to be clear in his response, he could have phrased it differently,” Mr. Mochizuki said. “What Abe said does not acknowledge the issue of coercion, so those insisting on a clear admission of responsibility won’t be satisfied with that. I don’t think he’s changed anyone’s mind with his remarks.”
On Friday, in two landmark rulings, Japan’s Supreme Court rejected compensation claims filed by former sex slaves and forced laborers from China, but acknowledged that they had been coerced by the Japanese military or industry. The judgment was handed down as Mr. Abe wrapped up his tour of the United States and headed to Saudi Arabia, the first stop in a tour of the Middle East.
Last month, Mr. Abe caused a furor in Asia and the United States when he said there was no evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women into sex slavery in World War II, in keeping with longstanding assertions by Japanese nationalists that the women were volunteers or were coerced by third-party private brokers. On March 16, Mr. Abe’s comments were endorsed by his cabinet as the official government position.
More recently, Mr. Abe’s remarks have softened, though they have yet to extinguish the initial anger.
“He’s not taking any responsibility for the military putting us there — he makes it seem as if we just happened to be there,” said Jan Ruff O’Herne, 84, a Dutchwoman who was forced to serve as a sex slave in Indonesia and testified about her experiences at a House panel recently.
“He hasn’t changed his tune at all,” she said of Mr. Abe’s Friday remarks in a phone interview from her home in Adelaide, Australia. “He used his words very carefully. He’s getting away with it, he thinks.”
Kent Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins, said Mr. Abe was “finessing his response to try to head off the resolution” in the House while not alienating his nationalist base in Japan.
“He could be caught in a real cross-fire,” Mr. Calder said.
The House resolution calls on Japan to unequivocally acknowledge its wartime sex slavery and officially apologize for it.
Representative Mike Honda, the California Democrat who is spearheading the legislation, said he hoped that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs would vote on the resolution next month.
“We would like the Japanese government to offer the victims of sex slavery an official apology endorsed by the cabinet and passed by Parliament,” Mr. Honda said in a telephone interview. “Why should the president of the United States accept the prime minister’s apology? He wasn’t a victim of sex slavery.”
The attention on sex slavery has raised some concerns in the United States about linking American policy in Asia to Japan’s current leadership, which is dominated by nationalists who have long argued that historical facts like wartime sex slavery or the Rape of Nanjing were exaggerations or fabrications.
In recent years, the United States and Japan have asserted that their alliance in Asia is based on “common values, especially our commitment to freedom and democracy,” as Mr. Bush said Friday. The countries are strengthening their military alliance even as Japan’s revisionist views on history have deepened distrust in the rest of Asia.
“The notion of Japan as a robust democracy and a beacon of human rights in East Asia is something that Prime Minister Abe has been pushing,” Mr. Mochizuki of George Washington University said. “But the more he pushes on that, while leaving the comfort women hanging, it raises questions among American intellectuals about how truly democratic Japan is and how truly committed it is to human rights.”
Mr. Mochizuki pointed out that Mr. Abe had assigned a new investigation into Japan’s wartime sex slavery to a group of nationalist lawmakers from the right wing of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, who have long argued that the women were volunteers.
“If Prime Minister Abe was serious about getting at the historical truth,” he added, “rather than relegating this investigation to a group of like-minded revisionists inside the L.D.P., he could have called for a cross-party study in the Diet and made available all sorts of government documents for a thorough government investigation.”
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