hankyoreh

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

The Japanese government has been lobbying a number of American politicians about historical disagreements between Japan and South Korea, including the comfort women (sexual slaves used by the Japanese imperial army), Dokdo, and the inclusion of “East Sea” alongside “Sea of Japan” in textbooks. In fact, documents show that the Japanese have directly contacted leading politicians including the speaker of the House of Representatives and the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

According to Justice Department documents related to the FARA, or Foreign Agents Registration Act, the Japanese government, working through its embassy in the US, contracted major Washington law firms Hogan Lovells and Hecht Spencer and Associates to lobby members of congress, officials in the executive branch, and experts from think tanks from the latter half of 2013 until the beginning of 2014.

The contract stipulates lobbying on issues including the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco between US and Japan, incidents in World War II associated with the comfort women, and the law passed by Virginia requiring that “East Sea” be written in textbooks along with “Sea of Japan.”

From Sept. 2013 until Feb. 2014, the law firms approached a number of important figures, either meeting them in person or contacting them via email. Hecht Spencer got in touch with House Speaker John Boehner and Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, while Hogan Lovells contacted Eliot Engel, ranking minority member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Michael Green, researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and former staffer at the National Security Council (NSC).

Hecht Spencer had a face-to-face meeting with Boehner on one occasion in Nov. 2013, and the firm made contact with Ed Royce a total of five times between Dec. 2013 and Feb. 2014. The Japanese government’s contracts with Hecht Spence and Hogan Novells were for a period of six months, worth US$75,000 and US$21,000, respectively.

In related news, Kim Kwang-ja, president of the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues (WCCW), held a press conference on May 27 at which she announced that work was complete on the installation of a memorial to the comfort women at a government facility in Fairfax County, Virginia. The unveiling ceremony will be held on May 30, Kim said.

“Bearing in mind Japanese opposition, we did not make public news about the project and carried out the work in secret,” said Kim. This is the seventh such memorial to be erected in the US, but it is the first time one has been installed at a state government building.

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