minty's corner

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Well, there goes the neighborhood..

What Sex Slaves?





Just when things seem to be calming down between China/Japan/Korea, Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, drops a bombshell by stating that Japan never forced Chinese/Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II. On top of that, Mr. Abe and his fellow 120 LDP lawmakers are pushing to roll back a 1993 apology to sex slaves by a fellow LDP memeber, Yohei Kono.

Mr. Abe's statement regarding sex slaves contradicts Japanese documents which showed military authorities had a direct role in forcing Chinese/Korean women into slavery. These documents are backed up by accounts from soldiers and victims. You can read the rest of this story here.

Personally, I wasn't expecting Mr. Abe to reveal his true color until later this year but this latest statement from him isn't all that surprising considering this sort of rhetoric coming out of prominent Japanese politicians have been a common occurrence lately. And I'm sure these latest charades are part of Abe and his conservative party's attempt at trying to boost his sagging ratings by pandering to his nationalist constituencies.

In 2005, it was dokdo.. Last year it was about visiting yasukuni shrine which tries to justify Japan's wartime atrocities and now it's denial of Japan's involvement in forcing women into sexual slavery..on a Korean national holiday to commemorate 1919 independence movement..
It should be pretty obvious by now why a lot of people in China/Korea feel Japan has never been sincere about their apologies.

So, let's sum up current Japanese policy towards Korea:
Hey, everyone! N.K. agents abducted a handful of Japanese people so we'll do everything in our power to bring this issue up at the expense of possibly derailing the N.K. nuke talks but what we did in Korea?..fuggedabouit!

Japan..I salute you for doing everything in your power to bring constant friction in East Asia.

2 Comments:

  • Accept, move on. How hard is that? Geez. Of course I know that will never happen when the right is so powerful in Japan. Thanks for this article, it just passed me by...

    I am glad you are back. But for how long I wonder???

    By Blogger San Nakji, at 3/04/2007 4:20 PM  

  • Read a similar article and it really made my day. Grrrr!!!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3/05/2007 3:42 AM  

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