hankyoreh

Former comfort women Gil Won-ok (left) and Lee Yong-soo cry while listening to attendees’ remarks at this year’s last weekly demonstration in support of the comfort women in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul’s Jongno district

The proximate cause of the unraveling comfort women agreement between South Korea and Japan is the insistence last year by American sociologist-turned-diplomat Wendy Sherman that former enemies just “kiss and make up.” She, of all people, by virtue of her studies, ought to know better. The urgency, of course, was solely to help the United States in its efforts to contain China. But the full history behind this goes further back in time, all the way to the end of World War II, which will be briefly discussed below.

For the moment, however, Japanese conservatives complain that once more they have had to apologize for something that they see as having been settled by the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea. On the other hand, many Koreans feel that they have been victimized yet again by Japan’s refusal to satisfactorily accept responsibility for its brutal behavior on the Korean peninsula during the first half of the twentieth century. In stark contrast, the United States is pleased that an agreement to settle the comfort women issue has been reached and that the three allies can now work in concert to deal with China - as well as North Korea. The three countries need to adjust their thinking at least to some degree.

Japan is right that they ought not have to apologize forever, for the great majority of the current Japanese population were not even born when Japan committed its atrocities in Asia. Even so, the nationalistic thinkers in that country need to confront and acknowledge the wartime behavior of their country, for their refusal to do so is what keeps the dying embers of animosity from burning out. Further, once a statement of remorse or regret has been made, there should be no equivocating afterwards as to what was meant - or not meant - by the words used. However, the present government of Japan - with verbal slips and slides into solipsism - routinely indicates a lack of sincerity that undermines previous expressions of regret.

As for Korea, it likely obtained the best deal it could, and given the current political winds in Japan, it should accept the agreement. The Koreans need to have an agreement before the few remaining comfort women pass into extinction. Japan has indeed made a tacit admission of legal responsibility by offering funding and a letter of apology. The Japanese government itself is putting up the reparation money, just as the Koreans have long demanded. For Koreans to parse the statements for overly nuanced meaning serves no useful purpose. Doing so - by either side - merely prevents closure.

All that having been said, the foundation of this issue lies directly with the US. From the very beginning, the Western victors in World War II did not hold Japan accountable to the same degree they did Germany. At the time, it was thought that only Japan could serve as a bulwark against the rising tide of communism and Soviet expansionism in Asia. Perhaps it is possible to at least partially understand the rationale behind bringing Japan rapidly into the Western Alliance back then, even though it was short-term thinking.

But that brings up the question of why the defense was not established in Korea - Freedom’s Frontier - to rebuild the very nation that had suffered so much under the brutal occupation of the Japanese. After all, Korea is the stepping-off point to mainland Asia, and having a foothold on the continent itself makes strategic as well as tactical sense. It would seem that, just as the Korean War is often referred to as the forgotten war, Korea was then the forgotten country.

Korea was excluded from the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco treaty that formally ended the war with Japan. And either by design or through oversight, the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea made no specific mention of comfort women even though the treaty covered compensation to surviving victims or the kin of deceased Koreans that had been forced into other forms of slave labor. Further, Japan made a number of soft loans and grants to Korea as part of that compensation, but the Korean government used the money for economic development, rather than for disbursement to the victims or their surviving kin. Deplorably, many documents relevant to the years-long negotiations leading up to this treaty remain secreted away, unavailable for examination.

Now, the US has pressed for closure on the issue over the last several months - at the expense of redress for comfort women - all to benefit the US in dealing with an increasingly aggressive China. This has culminated in an agreement that satisfies only the exigencies of the current US government. For many in Korea, the comfort women agreement with Japan is seen as a rushed and inadequate settlement. Japan is not done with this issue yet, however, now that Taiwan and the Philippines are clamoring for their own resolution with Japan over the comfort women issue, and it is quite unlikely that those two countries will let Japan off as easily.

Because of the festering nature of this issue, there have been at least seven comfort women statues established in the United States alone - and more are likely in the offing. Ironically, perhaps the only lasting justice for comfort women will be similar icons all over the world to memorialize their sacrifice. They would serve as enduring testimony to the brutality of Japan during World War II and its subsequent failure to face its own history forthrightly as Germany did. Does Japan want a proliferation of comfort women statues?

Regardless of the disparate motivations of the countries involved, all of us must remember that the core concern ought to be for the women who have endured an almost unthinkable crime that was perpetrated upon them over and over again. Since governing bodies seem unable to do the right thing, the surviving comfort women must hold their heads high and loudly proclaim that neither the self-absorbed United States nor the unrepentant current Japanese administration can diminish their dignity. Those women came forward to speak when no one wanted to listen, and despite that, they have forced an egregious and long hidden wrong to the forefront of international politics. Bully for them!

By Robert E. McCoy

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]