flatbus posted:

I just want to lay out the concern about the textbooks a bit more. I think people are concerned about the suppression of WWII history in Japan. Part of the reason Germany is viewed as non-aggressive is because vestiges of WWII is still heavily present in its laws and culture - banning of hate speech, banning of swastika imagery, explicit recognition of war crimes, banning of Nazi parties, and a cultural shame around its history. From what I've heard about Japan, it seems like that is not present. With textbook whitewashing and visits to war criminals' shrines, there's not an explicit 'never again' that there is in Germany. Being aggressive is a pretty poor move for Japan diplomatically, right now, and the society itself has a pacifist strain, but my point is it's not difficult to imagine a shift to the right and a repeat of history if history itself is kept from the Japanese people. And to head off any tu quoque arguments about Chinese history, yes, this happens in plenty of textbooks all over the world.

Wibbleman posted:

Emphasis mine. What you have heard about Japan is wrong. I used to think the same until I visited there, and spoke with family friends about the war. Most Japanese people know about the crimes japan committed during the wars. But pretty much like most high school students the grand majority don't give a crap about the history they are learning aside from remembering what they need to pass the exams. I challenge you to find any different anywhere else. The textbooks that caused the controversy were for a very small school, and due to the publicity the textbook sold around 750k units. So approx 1% of the Japanese population would have seen the textbook. While textbooks whitewashing history is bad, it is far from endemic as you seem to be claiming. Also textbooks are not really a good reason to think a country is aggressive. And claiming that they could become aggressive is a pretty stupid justification for treating them as such now, that tends to only drive a country towards it.

It has a statement in it's constitution that renounces the use of violence to achieve its political goals. you can't get more 'never again' than that.

Now Yasukuni Shrine is a bit more complicated, but you need to be aware that it is a private religious institution and as such under Japanese law can do whatever the gently caress they want. Back in the late 70's early 80's the son of the main priest took over the running of the shrine, This dude was a total shithead and decided to enshrine 14 class A war criminals. As a reaction the Emperor no longer visits the shrine. That's 14 dudes in the rolls which total around 2.4 million people. So by not wanting any more politicians to visit you are effectively saying that none of them can go and pray to most likely their own ancestors.

Now sure there are some Nationalistic shitheads in Japan. And some of them are even politicians. But the Japanese Diet has 722 members, and due to the way the press works you will only hear about those that say controversial things. Most likely the same way that in the rest of the world we only hear the bad things about China, and not any of the good stuff (that's bound to be happening etc).

hitension posted:

To the other person who asked, there are certainly examples of rich people being cast as the villain in the US: Scrooge(a Christmas Carol is not American but the story is well known to almost every American), Monty Burns from the Simpsons, Cruella DeVil from 101 Dalmations are some I can think of..

flatbus posted:

What about does the average Japanese think about acceding to Korea and China's demands for apologies

flatbus posted:

What about does the average Japanese think about acceding to Korea and China's demands for apologies...

ocrumsprug posted:

Japan has moved beyond WWII, and they would kinda like the rest of you to join them.

Fall Sick and Die posted:

The Japanese have specifically asked, "In what way do you need us to apologize that we're not doing properly" to China and were told that even if they apologized in some magical way that would not necessarily stop China from demanding further apologies in the future, so why should they bother anymore? What good does it do, what purpose does it serve?

Grand Fromage posted:

It was kept secret until quite recently, there's a lawsuit against the Korean government for it but most Korean people aren't aware of any of these and insist Japan has never apologized. The Korean government doesn't mention the truth at all since "gently caress Japan" is always a handy thing to throw out to distract people from internal problems.

flatbus posted:

The idea that the governments need to play this card to keep their people under their control doesn't grant the people a lot of agency.

flatbus posted:

where the Japanese government drops the fake apology crap,

flatbus posted:

acknowledges comfort women,

flatbus posted:

delists the war criminals from Yasukuni,

flatbus posted:

large companies stop pulling poo poo like censoring WWII photos,

flatbus posted:

and ban the IJA flag.

Grand Fromage posted:

What would you consider a valid, real apology? The emperor and major government officials have apologized and they've sent reparations. What else should they do to make it not fake?

flatbus posted:

I don't see why a similar outcome can't be had in the East Asian sphere, where the Japanese government drops the fake apology crap, acknowledges comfort women, delists the war criminals from Yasukuni, large companies stop pulling poo poo like censoring WWII photos, and ban the IJA flag. This doesn't affect the narrative that China and Korea built.

Grand Fromage posted:

What would you consider a valid, real apology? The emperor and major government officials have apologized and they've sent reparations. What else should they do to make it not fake?

Grand Fromage posted:

quote:

acknowledges comfort women

Legitimate problem, though I'm not sure if it's a far right thing or a solid government policy.

quote:

quote:

delists the war criminals from Yasukuni

Japanese law guarantees religious freedom and the government doesn't control the shrine, so I don't know what you expect them to do here. It seems like getting pissed at the US government because of Terry Jones and his band of Koran-burning douchebags.

quote:

quote:

large companies stop pulling poo poo like censoring WWII photos

Agreed, though I don't know that it would be legal for the government to intervene in this. Not sure how that law works.

quote:

quote:

ban the IJA flag

Sure. I don't have the cultural connection to truly care about this but I get it, don't see the problem here.

quote:

To be clear, I don't think Japan is innocent of being assholes. But I get depressed seeing ten year olds taught to hate, having little kids telling me that Japanese people are evil. They can't give me a reason, but they know that Japan is evil and celebrate when there's a tsunami that kills thousands. I can't stand that poo poo.

ocrumsprug posted:

And that is the rub. The Emperor and the PM apologize, but it is dishonest because <someone who doesn't actually speak for Japan> says something stupid. If the PM apologized, and then HE came out and said it they didn't mean it, there would be a case.

Abe posted:

There has been debate over the question of whether there was coercion... But the fact is, there was no evidence to prove there was coercion as initially suggested. That largely changes what constitutes the definition of coercion, and we have to take it from there

quote:

- “In my meeting with congressional representatives, I explained my thoughts - namely that, both personally and as Prime Minister of Japan, my heart goes out in sympathy to all those who suffered extreme hardships as comfort women; and I expressed my apologies for the fact that they were forced to endure such extreme and harsh conditions.
- Human rights were violated in many parts of the world during the 20 th Century; therefore we must work to make the 21st century a wonderful century in which no human rights are violated. And the Government of Japan and I wish to make significant contributions to that end.” ( April 27, 2007 )

flatbus posted:

This doesn't really sound like the case to me. Just this year, there was the comfort women controversy with Nikon in which Nikon explicitly stated that they refused to show the comfort women photos because it was too political. If Japan truly moved past WWII, why would its reminder be too political for a giant corporation?

Thanks for the list of apologies, but could you cite the source where China refused future Japanese apologies as well? That would help your case much more than a list of apologies. As someone mentioned before, these apologies don't exactly sound sincere when, after apologizing, the government turns around and does the opposite by claiming comfort women don't exist. For fairness's sake, I think Abe eventually bowed to pressure and gave a half-assed apology. To make an analogy, that would be like the German government apologizing for WWII, then denying that the Holocaust happened. It's unsettling that in this day and age Japan would have PMs that refuse to acknowledge the existence of comfort women. As long as the Japanese government keeps poking at open sores like this, I'd say it wouldn't be able to convince anyone its apology was genuine.

flatbus posted:

The idea that the governments need to play this card to keep their people under their control doesn't grant the people a lot of agency. The people do get angry at Japan for a reason, notably that most of them are descendants of the still-living generation who suffered during the war. Again, using Germany as an analogy, after Germany apologized for the Holocaust, actually apologized with banning the Swastika and Nazi parties and all that jazz, and normalized relations with Israel, there still is a 'never again' (sorry to abuse the term) nationalist sentiment with regards to the Israeli right and Israeli right lobbies in the US. This is in conjunction with friendly relations with Germany and even the purchase of military equipment from the country that perpetrated genocide against the Jewish people in the past. I don't see why a similar outcome can't be had in the East Asian sphere, where the Japanese government drops the fake apology crap, acknowledges comfort women, delists the war criminals from Yasukuni, large companies stop pulling poo poo like censoring WWII photos, and ban the IJA flag. This doesn't affect the narrative that China and Korea built. I mean, China is able to use the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century to build the national narrative without riots against the British. It can do the same with WWII.

quote:

Dear Madam,

On the occasion that the Asian Women's Fund, in cooperation with the Government and the people of Japan, offers atonement from the Japanese people to the former wartime comfort women, I wish to express my feelings as well.

The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women.

As Prime Minister of Japan, I thus extend anew my most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.

We must not evade the weight of the past, nor should we evade our responsibilities for the future.

I believe that our country, painfully aware of its moral responsibilities, with feelings of apology and remorse, should face up squarely to its past history and accurately convey it to future generations.

Furthermore, Japan also should take an active part in dealing with violence and other forms of injustice to the honor and dignity of women.

Finally, I pray from the bottom of my heart that each of you will find peace for the rest of your lives.

Respectfully yours,

Junichiro Koizumi
Prime Minister of Japan

quote:

I would like to share with you my sentiments on the occasion of the establishment of the "Asian Women's Fund."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the War, an event that caused many people, both in Japan and abroad, great suffering and sorrow. During these past 50 years we have worked hard to cultivate, step by step, friendly relations with our neighbouring Asian countries and others. However, the scars of war still run deep in these countries to this day.

The problem of the so-called wartime comfort women is one such scar, which, with the involvement of the Japanese military forces of the time, seriously stained the honor and dignity of many women. This is entirely inexcusable. I offer my profound apology to all those who, as wartime comfort women, suffered emotional and physical wounds that can never be closed.

Established on this occasion and involving the cooperation of the Government and citizens of Japan, the "Asian Women's Fund" is an expression of atonement on the part of the Japanese people toward these women and supports medical, welfare, and other projects. As articulated in the proponents' Appeal, the Government will do its utmost to ensure that the goals of the Fund are achieved.

Furthermore, to ensure that this situation is never again repeated, the Government of Japan will collate historical documents concerning the former wartime comfort women, to serve as a lesson of history.

Turning from yesterday to today, we still see many women suffering violence and inhuman treatment in many parts of the world. The "Asian Women's Fund," as I understand it, will take steps to address these problems facing women today. The Government of Japan intends to play an active role in this regard.

I am convinced that a sincere effort on the part of Japan to implement these measures will further strengthen the true relationships of trust we share with our neighbours in Asia and other nations around the world.

The Government of Japan intends to cooperate, to the greatest extent possible, with the "Asian Women's Fund," in order that its aims are achieved. I call on each and every Japanese citizen, asking for your understanding and cooperation.

quote:

The Government of Japan has been conducting a study on the issue of wartime "comfort women" since December 1991. I wish to announce the findings as a result of that study.

As a result of the study which indicates that comfort stations were operated in extensive areas for long periods, it is apparent that there existed a great number of comfort women. Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day. The then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women. The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military. The Government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.

As to the origin of those comfort women who were transferred to the war areas, excluding those from Japan, those from the Korean Peninsula accounted for a large part. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese rule in those days, and their recruitment, transfer, control, etc., were conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.

Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women. The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.

It is incumbent upon us, the Government of Japan, to continue to consider seriously, while listening to the views of learned circles, how best we can express this sentiment.

We shall face squarely the historical facts as described above instead of evading them, and take them to heart as lessons of history. We hereby reiterated our firm determination never to repeat the same mistake by forever engraving such issues in our memories through the study and teaching of history.

As actions have been brought to court in Japan and interests have been shown in this issue outside Japan, the Government of Japan shall continue to pay full attention to this matter, including private researched related thereto.

flatbus posted:

Good question. First, I just want to be clear that China and Korea did not receive any Japanese reparations. I believe they refused reparations, even in their war-torn state after the Japanese surrender, in favor of an apology. As for the apologies, it would help if Japan, after giving an apology, stood by those words and didn't renege on the deal afterward. The PM claiming that comfort women don't exist is a really, really large repudiation of Japan's apologies. As for specific items,

It's government policy. The Diet finally gave a half-assed apology in 2007, but the comfort women themselves, not the government of Korea, have rejected it. I would say the actual victims are the only ones with the power to decide whether an apology is sincere enough.

If things like this happened more often, and things like Diet members asking for the removal of a comfort women memorial in New Jersey happened not at all, Japan's apologies would be believed.

flatbus posted:

First, I just want to be clear that China and Korea did not receive any Japanese reparations.

flatbus posted:

Good question. First, I just want to be clear that China and Korea did not receive any Japanese reparations. I believe they refused reparations...

PrezCamachoo posted:

Post some more of the apologies so people can get a bigger picture

Wibbleman posted:

Ok the Comfort Woman is once again a very complicated issue, and it gets very muddy with stupid claims from both sides. There are Korean claims that between 200,000 and 400,000 woman were abducted by the IJA. The Japanese claims are that there were at most 50,000 comfort woman and close to half of those were Japanese. The Japanese records show that the great majority of the comfort woman were obtained through "brokers" who were paid for each woman they found. There are IJA records commenting that some of the recruitment methods used by the brokers were bordering on abduction and it needed to be stopped. What this means is that yes some woman were abducted, how many we will probably never know, but also that some woman were there voluntarily, some women were there due to indentured servitude (ie sold into it via their families or themselves) which wasn't illegal at the time.

Asian Women's Fund posted:

Yoshimi estimated 1 comfort woman for every 100 military personnel. He put the total number of personnel at 3,000,000 men, giving 30,000. Yoshimi then multiplied this number by a replacement rate of 1.5, to give a total of 45,000 comfort women.

Asian Women's Fund posted:

Then taking a different tack, Yoshimi applied common saying used among agents to estimate 1 comfort woman for every 30 military personnel. This gave 100,000, which he multiplied by a replacement rate of 2.0 to give 200,000 comfort women.

Wibbleman posted:

The figures are important because for the 400,000 figure to be correct there would 1 comfort woman for every 13 soldiers in the IJA at its peak manpower figure (which is at 1945 and the majority of those would be in Japan). This is where a lot of the questions coming out of Japan are based on. As for those figures to be correct it would have been a huge industry for the IJA and they would have ceased to be an army and became primarily a prostitution company.

Wibbleman posted:

And there are a lot of terrible things that were done by the Japanese during the war so there is no need to invent poo poo. Even 50,000 with maybe 50% forced is loving terrible.

UN Commission on Human Rights Report posted:

Only about 25 per cent of these women are said to have survived these daily abuses. [Ibid., p. 499 and note 6 (citing a 1975 statement by Seijuro Arahune, Liberal Democratic Party member of the Japanese Diet, that 145,000 Korean sex slaves had died during the Second World War).]

Wibbleman posted:

Except some of the things you want simply can't be done by the Japanese government. They can't de-list the war criminals because the shrine is a private entity and the constitution doesn't allow the government to issue instructions to religions. And the de-listing is also impossible due to the how they beleive the shrine to work (ie all of the listed people become part of a big shrine spirit, so they exist as a big spirit blob "kami" and not as individuals), so its akin to asking someone to remove every molecule of a dead and buried person from the dirt in the graveyard. Or to remove all blood from your hands due to the conflict minerals in cellphones. Yes they could do a in-sincere ceremony and make people who don't understand Shinto think they have removed them, but as they are getting lots of flak for insincerity already it probably wouldn't solve anything.

quote:

They also can't stop people acting in their own personal affairs as they deem ie visiting the shrine or acting like shitheads and making stupid claims. Much the same as how America couldn't stop the idiots putting up the Muhammad videos on YouTube.

Grand Fromage posted:

That article about the memorial in New Jersey is a good example. I totally agree those guys are horrible, but it was four members of the Diet. There are 722 total. I'm sure you could find two people in the House of Representatives that would support something equivalently evil; does that make everyone in the US responsible?

Wibbleman posted:

I am not sure where you are learning most of this as largely false.

Grand Fromage posted:

I don't know about China, but Korea absolutely did.

quote:

The Government of the People's Republic of China declares that in the interest of the friendship between the Chinese and the Japanese peoples, it renounces its demand for war reparation from Japan

flatbus posted:

I've cited Prime Minister Abe repudiating the comfort women twice already. As someone elected to the office of Prime Minister, Abe is not just 'some lawmaker in the Diet' or a 'private citizen' but a veritable voice of the Japanese government. As the current president of the LDP, he is a pretty major government figure.

flatbus posted:

Also, I never mentioned that the entirety of Japan is responsible for the lack of genuine apologies for WWII, just the government itself; I've been very clear to maintain that distinction and when I use Japan, without the modifier of 'people', I intend for that to stand in for the Japanese government.

flatbus posted:

Edit: Grammar, argh. Somehow I ended up implying that Grand Fromage was the prime minister of Japan.

Grand Fromage posted:

Yeah, he is. It's still not necessarily synonymous with official Japanese policy, unless I misunderstand how the Japanese government works--always found Japanese politics incredibly boring and I'm just assuming it's a standard parliamentary system.

Grand Fromage posted:

The Holocaust is a fair analogy for what Japan did, I think. I don't think we actually disagree about the Japanese being dickish, my only point is the Chinese and Koreans take it too far. Japan could and probably should do more, but the Chinese and Koreans act like they've done nothing at all. And so they maintain this boiling hatred of people who had nothing to do with any of it.

Germany's also unusually apologetic. It's a good thing and I think they should be the model for dealing with these kinds of events, but it's not like the Japanese invented pretending that past atrocities never happened. Certainly the Chinese government is equally guilty.

flatbus posted:

I think these issues that require apology are orthogonal. China and Korea certainly did nothing during WWII to provoke or deserve invasion by Japan, so on that issue they can claim to have done nothing. What those governments did in other times to other people is a separate issue; it's certainly possible for Japan to apologize to China and Korea appropriately without waiting on China to apologize for what it's done to other peoples. Otherwise, you'll get a queue of peoples waiting for an apology forming circular references.

flatbus posted:

That's fine, but the insistence of government officials, including the prime minister, on visiting the shrine seems to contradict its apologies. Because the class-A war criminals are part of the shrine's kami, the officials can't even use the excuse that they were visiting someone else for respect; the kami is tainted forever with innocent blood, if I got your explanation correct. It doesn't seem genuine to say you're sorry for the atrocities committed during the war, in general terms, and then intentionally visit a place where the perpetrators of said atrocities are enshrined.

CIGNX posted:

When Grand Fromage says the "Chinese and Koreans act like they've done nothing at all," I think he meant that the "Chinese and Koreans act like Japan has done nothing at all" and not "Chinese and Koreans act like the Chinese and Koreans themselves have done nothing at all."

flatbus posted:

Thanks for that. The bigger picture shows the Japanese government apologizing to comfort women in 2001, and subsequently, as my quotes from PM Abe shows, denying the existence of comfort women (excuse me, saying they existed but saying they voluntarily came to service so they're not really forced prostitutes) in 2007. That's pretty much the definition of disingenuous right there.

quote:

Basically what Prime Minister Abe is saying is that the Kono statement about comfort women in 1993 “was intended to admit that the Japanese government was involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the recruitment of comfort women, express apologies and remorse for that, and promise to study in what way the government should express its apology and remorse.”, but saying that there no proof to support the assertion that “the women were taken out of their houses forcibly” but accepting that in “many cases” the women “wanted to choose to not go but they were in an environment that compelled them to go in the end”.

flatbus posted:

This is pretty much wrong. Most of Japan's records were destroyed before the surrender, so as to avoid war crimes implications. Here is how the estimates you mentioned were made (sourced from Asian Women's Fund, which as you mentioned is a Japanese government-initiated NGO, so no pro-China/Korea bias there):

flatbus posted:

I'd like to source the original work, but I don't have access to that, only secondary explanatory material published by the Asian Women's Fund. Now, about this lower bound - this is a very strange estimate. First of all, 1 woman for every 100 men seems a bit low. And a replacement rate of 1.5 for the entirety of the conflict - that's a superhuman feat, being able to service 100 men at all times for 6 years. Are these women extremely hardy? And then the 3,000,000 figure for the IJA - that's also an underestimate, seeing as how the peak was 6,000,000; in fact, it only counts soldiers from 1939.

Here is the upper bound estimate, by the same scholar:

So that's how the bounds are calculated. You'll notice how these estimates are made from simple napkin arithmetic, because the lack of official data, or at least officially released data, makes estimates difficult. Some Japanese lawmakers (see quote from the report two quotes below) have revealed more detailed info which made its way into the UN Commission on Human Rights, which in turn is the official figure that most western agencies cite as a lower bound. That figure starts with 200,000 as a lower bound. For a non-biased source, here's the UN Commission on Human Rights report, which cites over 200,000 women as victims. I'm surprised I even have to argue this number.

flatbus posted:

Not necessarily. You mentioned that the army contracted out all the prostitution; the army itself wouldn't have to reduce combat effectiveness, if your claims are true. However, keep in mind Japan's Three Alls Policy of kill all, loot all, and burn all - this includes raping the civilian population at will, and a large number of 'comfort women' weren't standardized in the bureaucratic comfort women process and instead simply taken from the conquered territories. As to whether those count toward the comfort women total, that's a technicality.

I agree, there is no need to invent poo poo, least of all artificially depressed estimates. From the same UN report I sourced above:

flatbus posted:

A 75% mortality rate from sex is pretty high, and to imply that women were signing up for this in droves (200,000 is no small number - even 50,000 is no small number) is a bit ridiculous. I don't even know where to fit the claim that half of all comfort women were Japanese into this. I've never heard that claim, and the idea is patently ridiculous that Japanese women would be exported from Japan to be brutally raped by Japanese soldiers.

quote:

These numbers are based on "a 1975 [sic.] statement by Seijuro Arafune, Liberal Democratic Party member of the Japanese Diet, that 145,000 Korean sex slaves died during the Second World War."

"During the war, Koreans were told that they were now Japanese. This was to persuade them to place money in deposit accounts. They deposited 110 billion yen, and the money was all lost at the end of the war. Now they are demanding that the money be returned. They say, "Give us back Korea's wealth, the wealth Japanese bureaucrats held on to during 36 years of rule." They say Koreans were drafted by Japan during the war and taken from Korea to work, and those who worked well were used as soldiers, and 576,000 of those soldiers are now dead. There are claims that 142,000 Korean comfort women are dead, killed by the Japanese military's sexual abuses. Now they are demanding pensions for a total of 900,000 victims. At first, 5 billion dollars was claimed as compensation, but the sum has been whittled down and now they say they are willing to settle for 300 million dollars."

During the Korea-Japan Treaty negotiations (up to 1965), representatives of the Republic of Korea stated that 1,032,684 Koreans had been recruited to serve as laborers, soldiers, and personnel attached to the Japanese military, and that 102,603 of these had been injured or had died. At the time, no mention was made of comfort women.

None of Arafune figures have any basis whatsoever. It is most unfortunate that Special Rapporteur McDougal, who held a responsible position working for a United Nations organization, relied on such an untrustworthy source.

flatbus posted:

That's fine, but the insistence of government officials, including the prime minister, on visiting the shrine seems to contradict its apologies. Because the class-A war criminals are part of the shrine's kami, the officials can't even use the excuse that they were visiting someone else for respect; the kami is tainted forever with innocent blood, if I got your explanation correct. It doesn't seem genuine to say you're sorry for the atrocities committed during the war, in general terms, and then intentionally visit a place where the perpetrators of said atrocities are enshrined.

flatbus posted:

I've cited Prime Minister Abe repudiating the comfort women twice already. As someone elected to the office of Prime Minister, Abe is not just 'some lawmaker in the Diet' or a 'private citizen' but a veritable voice of the Japanese government. As the current president of the LDP, he is a pretty major government figure. Also, I never mentioned that the entirety of Japan is responsible for the lack of genuine apologies for WWII, just the government itself; I've been very clear to maintain that distinction and when I use Japan, without the modifier of 'people', I intend for that to stand in for the Japanese government.

flatbus posted:

I didn't know about the Korean cover-up. If the Korean government renounced reparations and still received them and hid them from the proper recipients, that's very dastardly. As for the request for the Chinese source, here is the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of People's Republic of China:

The PRC refused reparations from Japan, and any incidental money sent by Japan in the form of foreign aid is foreign aid, not reparations. Those two are separate, despite whatever intention lay behind them. From the tone of that there was no direct connection to giving up the reparation in exchange for an apology, so I was mistaken on that belief.

flatbus posted:

Also, pikahitler is pretty hilarious. Does the student have any other artwork interpreting European history as pokemon? Gotta catch 'em all to make the Lebensraum.

PrezCamachoo posted:

If anyone is interested, here is a US military report written in 1944 based on interviews with 20 Korean comfort women captured in Burma. It's a fairly interesting read and at least with the girls in Burma, it should be pointed out that no one was getting raped to death and each girl had the right to refuse to see any soldier they didn't want. Not sure how universal that treatment was around the rest of Japanese Empire though.

http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html

quote:

The interrogations show the average Korean "comfort girl" to be about twenty-five years old, uneducated, childish, and selfish. She is not pretty either by Japanese of Caucasian standards. She is inclined to be egotistical and likes to talk about herself. Her attitude in front of strangers is quiet and demure, but she "knows the wiles of a woman."

quote:

the so-called “comfort women” program—the Japanese systematic enslavement of women of subject populations for sexual purposes

Wibbleman posted:

I am not sure that the "quote" from Abe Shinzo says what you think it does.

The original japanese quotes are:

"当初定義されていた強制性を裏付ける証拠がなかったのは事実だ" and "定義が大きく変わったことを前提に考えなければならない" which the NYT translated to "There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it" and “So, in respect to this declaration, you have to keep in mind that things have changed greatly.”. Other translators have it translated as “It is a fact there was no proof to support coercion as it was initially defined” and a in context translation is “We must consider (the Kono statement about comfort women) on the basis that the (initial) definition (of coercion) had greatly changed.”

occidentalism.org translation posted:

there no proof to support the assertion that “the women were taken out of their houses forcibly” but accepting that in “many cases” the women “wanted to choose to not go but they were in an environment that compelled them to go in the end”.

Wibbleman posted:

Except the very same place you link there shows scan's of WW2 documents regarding the comfort woman, you can see them and the translations in the digital museum here. So I am not really sure what you are saying. The Asian Womans fund has the documents or scans of them, which implies that they were not destroyed. Or that the destruction was incomplete.

Previously linked AWF publication posted:

First of all, there are no documents with comprehensive data one could use to
determine the total number. We can assume that such documents were never
compiled. There are, however, various opinions on the total number of comfort
women, all based on estimates made by researchers

U.S. government agencies held far fewer records pertaining to Japanese war crimes than to Nazi war crimes. A major reason is that at war’s end, the Japanese destroyed or concealed important documents, which dramatically reduced the amount of evidence available for confiscation by U.S. authorities.

the actual number of comfort women remains unclear because the Japanese army incinerated many crucial documents right after the defeat for fear of war crimes prosecution

Wibbleman posted:

Yeah but my comments are on the sources of the comfort woman and here which does the number calculations also works out the percentages from each country, which shows 49.8% to be Japanese for some parts of china

Wibbleman posted:

This is getting pretty close to straw manning, at no point has anyone claimed the that the Japanese army didn't go out and pillage and rape and kill, so whats the point here?

Wibbleman posted:

So are you selectively quoting now? the full quote for that is available here

AWF posted:

None of Arafune figures have any basis whatsoever. It is most unfortunate that Special Rapporteur McDougal, who held a responsible position working for a United Nations organization, relied on such an untrustworthy source.

Wibbleman posted:

Also some of the Korean comfort woman were volunteers as they had newspaper advertisments for them http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=527. And a page I have linked multiple times shows that there were japanese comfort women in china and likely to be other areas as well. http://www.awf.or.jp/e1/facts-07.html. Here is some analysis of some of the testimony from one ex comfort woman http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=531.

...

here's a good page to read about the whole Abe saga. http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/congress-backstabs-us-ally-times-lie-trashes-abe/.

occidentalism.org posted:

Lee Yong-soo is not the only person claiming to be a former comfort woman to give contradictory testimony. There are many. From what I have read from comfort woman supporters, the contradictory testimonies can be accounted for by -

*The interviewers of the comfort women are injecting their own words into the testimony
*The women suffer from a “fragmentation” of memory, and thus unable to give a consistent chronological account of their experiences

Which testimony are we supposed to believe? Since questioning the factual validity of womens testimonies is taboo, we are expected to believe every single testimony, even those that contradict each other. I think there is some truth to some of the testimony, but I do not think that testimony should be the only way of determining what happened. Testimony should be cross referenced with existing documents to determine what really happened.

occidentalism.org posted:

I think the money was probably a big attraction for many desperately poor families and women in colonial Korea. Korean women have often sacrificed themselves for their families and male siblings, and I think this may have been considered one such sacrifice.

US Congress backstabs US ally!!! posted:

In fact, Lee has told six different versions of her story. The variations range from the story above, which she told the House committee, to “Japanese soldiers took me from my home at gunpoint”, which she tells Japanese audiences at conferences sponsored by her local supporters.

Had the media done its basic homework, it would have discovered there are three possibilities for what happened:

Possibility One: They did it for the money

Wibbleman posted:

But as they are a democracy the officials can do whatever they want. Japan can't legally place any restrictions on what they do in their own time. And there is a difference between acting officially and then acting as a person. It's certainly not advised but there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Wibbleman posted:

Those are huge amounts of money and its only up to 2005, and to then claim "oh japan they haven't done anything" is hugely dishonest. Yes they aren't direct reparations, but they have been acknowledged by Chinese politicians as being essential to China's growth.

flatbus posted:

I would expect the definition and condition of 'comfort women' to be vastly different in Taiwan than in a military base in China.

flatbus posted:

I fail to see how the translations differ in meaning, or how it differs from what I think it says. I wrote that Abe denied that comfort women were forced prostitutes, and both translations support that. The coercion aspect is important because it determines the difference between victims and volunteers. By saying there was no proof for coercion, Abe necessarily implies that comfort women were volunteers. That amounts to denying the sexual slavery aspect of the program, which is integral to its existence. I mean, if you deny the mortality rate and coercion of the Holocaust you just end up with high-density voluntary housing for minorities. Denying coercion is equivalent to not acknowledging the victimhood of those who were in the program.

flatbus posted:

That report is extremely suspect, because it directly contradicts the firsthand testimonial of comfort women survivors. It also mentions that the women live in luxury, shop often, take 40%-50% of the cut of prostitution money, and this strange MRA-level aspersion on the women:

flatbus posted:

First, let's discuss what Abe actually said.

I fail to see how the translations differ in meaning, or how it differs from what I think it says. I wrote that Abe denied that comfort women were forced prostitutes, and both translations support that. The coercion aspect is important because it determines the difference between victims and volunteers. By saying there was no proof for coercion, Abe necessarily implies that comfort women were volunteers. That amounts to denying the sexual slavery aspect of the program, which is integral to its existence. I mean, if you deny the mortality rate and coercion of the Holocaust you just end up with high-density voluntary housing for minorities. Denying coercion is equivalent to not acknowledging the victimhood of those who were in the program.

Moreover,

makes it even worse, because now Abe is victim-blaming - sure the women didn't want to go, but really, they were in an environment that compelled them to go - what does that mean? They were raised to be slutty? Their parents sold their daughters into prostitution? When taken in context that he's denying coercion, it doesn't help hedge his statements at all.

flatbus posted:

Thanks for the list of apologies, but could you cite the source where China refused future Japanese apologies as well? That would help your case much more than a list of apologies. As someone mentioned before, these apologies don't exactly sound sincere when, after apologizing, the government turns around and does the opposite by claiming comfort women don't exist. For fairness's sake, I think Abe eventually bowed to pressure and gave a half-assed apology. To make an analogy, that would be like the German government apologizing for WWII, then denying that the Holocaust happened. It's unsettling that in this day and age Japan would have PMs that refuse to acknowledge the existence of comfort women. As long as the Japanese government keeps poking at open sores like this, I'd say it wouldn't be able to convince anyone its apology was genuine.

flatbus posted:

Now, let's talk about document evidence for comfort women.

The image you linked to is a bit blurry and I can't make out what it says; I don't understand Japanese even if it's using kanji because the grammar won't make sense to me, so if you can read it and translate it for me, that would be much appreciated. As for the bolded part, let me quote the Asian Women's Fund PDF itself:

Emphasis mine. Now, being a Japanese government-created NGO, pardon me if I suspect a bit of pro-Japan bias when it makes its case, especially saying that 'such documents were never compiled.' The US believes differently. Here is what the war crimes interagency research group I cited above found:

http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf

Just a note here, the above document I linked is a compendium of essays but the quote came from the introduction, written by the IWG rather than individual authors. The authors subsequently repeat much of what the IWG say about the Japanese destroying war records.

Now, the AWF could argue that the Japanese government destroyed many records, but still didn't keep records on comfort women. Yoshimi, the same scholar who gave upper and lower bound estimates for the AWF, also mentioned that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women#cite_note-25

So there you go. Documents destroyed for fear of punishment, backed by multiple trustworthy sources. I'll grant you that the Japanese bureaucracy might have missed a paper or two that subsequent generations discovered, but the majority of documents were destroyed during the surrender process.

flatbus posted:

What about the claim that ~50% of comfort women were Japanese?

Incorrect. The table you link to shows Taiwan from 1938 to 1939, which was under Japanese occupation, hasn't been touched by Chinese authority for half a century, and at that time was not affected by WWII. So, if these statistics are true, they indicate that the Japanese sent Japanese women to a safe, isolated colony near China. I would expect the definition and condition of 'comfort women' to be vastly different in Taiwan than in a military base in China. It makes no sense to extrapolate the number of Japanese prostitutes in a solidly Japanese colony during a time of peace to the number of Japanese prostitutes used during the war in general.

flatbus posted:

The point is that the definition of comfort women, as strictly women who were procured through a bureaucratic contracted-out process, might not cover all women who were forced into prostitution by the Three Alls policy. This was in response to your point that the ratio of prostitutes to soldiers would be too high to maintain. My point was, there doesn't need to be a bureaucratic process involved in procuring comfort women when soldiers were allowed go out and claim these women if they want. Now they might not technically be 'comfort women' because they didn't go through the process, but they're forced sexual slaves nonetheless and the confusion as to which group they belong in - comfort women or sex slaves - might account for some of the estimates. Note that it's easy to get the two confused because they're pretty synonymous.

flatbus posted:

As for the actual number of comfort women, that is in debate. However, I did not selectively quote numbers in my favor.

I did not quote from that source; that is a secondary source quoting the primary source I used. I quoted the UN Commission on Human Rights report which was the original source that the AWF publication was attempting to refute. This is their refutation, as quoted by you:

Just that, nothing more. This is a categorical denial of UN Human Rights findings with no proof. I'd like to see more to the response than 'Nuh uh'

flatbus posted:

I agree, there is no need to invent poo poo, least of all artificially depressed estimates. From the same UN report I sourced above:

UN Commission on Human Rights Report posted posted:

:

Only about 25 per cent of these women are said to have survived these daily abuses. [Ibid., p. 499 and note 6 (citing a 1975 statement by Seijuro Arahune, Liberal Democratic Party member of the Japanese Diet, that 145,000 Korean sex slaves had died during the Second World War).]

A 75% mortality rate from sex is pretty high, and to imply that women were signing up for this in droves (200,000 is no small number - even 50,000 is no small number) is a bit ridiculous. I don't even know where to fit the claim that half of all comfort women were Japanese into this. I've never heard that claim, and the idea is patently ridiculous that Japanese women would be exported from Japan to be brutally raped by Japanese soldiers.

Seijuro Arahune posted:

"During the war, Koreans were told that they were now Japanese. This was to persuade them to place money in deposit accounts. They deposited 110 billion yen, and the money was all lost at the end of the war. Now they are demanding that the money be returned. They say, "Give us back Korea's wealth, the wealth Japanese bureaucrats held on to during 36 years of rule." They say Koreans were drafted by Japan during the war and taken from Korea to work, and those who worked well were used as soldiers, and 576,000 of those soldiers are now dead. There are claims that 142,000 Korean comfort women are dead, killed by the Japanese military's sexual abuses. Now they are demanding pensions for a total of 900,000 victims. At first, 5 billion dollars was claimed as compensation, but the sum has been whittled down and now they say they are willing to settle for 300 million dollars."

flatbus posted:

Just in case people didn't click on those sources, they are disgusting beyond belief. They are the worst filth I've ever read. People question the testimony of comfort women and accuse them of being greedy bitches. Here is what the sources say:

This is absolutely vile. There is a mountain of evidence from victims and impartial western observers that comfort women is sexual slavery, and you quibble about numbers, then claim they just want money, and when realistic explanations for contradictory testimony is given, you dismiss it without explanation. So you're saying no, Japan is right, the UN Commission on Human Rights is wrong, the US IWG is wrong, China is wrong, Korea is wrong, Korean testimonials are wrong, and just to be kindhearted Japan establishes the Asian Women's Fund which dissolved in a decade and dispensed compensation to a whopping 364 victims. This, right here, is the epitome of Japanese denialism that riles other countries. I can't even believe I'm having this discussion in this day and age. If this is what students learn in Japan, then no wonder people are concerned about history whitewashing. How can you ignore the mountain of evidence and statements the international community has compiled against Japanese claims? I'm not even citing any Chinese or Korean sources so I won't appear biased, although that precaution itself is biased as hell - should someone looking for Holocaust evidence not look at Israeli sites?

Jesus Christ, and all this is just about comfort women. That's 200,000 people; we haven't even started discussing general Chinese and Korean civilian casualties yet. There is some serious, serious Overton window poo poo going on here. We're discussing the least debatable details of coerced prostitution and an internationally recognized human rights disaster. We're arguing over poo poo like whether prostitutes can go shopping when the reality is they were sex slaves. We're arguing over whether sex slaves happened when it's part of a bigger system that committed genocide that, when I broach it in the slightest manner when I mention the Three Alls policy, gets called a strawman.

flatbus posted:

Officials aren't above the law, and they aren't allowed to engage in hate speech, for example. There can be a religious equivalent instituted in Japan, but I'm not even supporting that much anymore; how about government officials stop visiting shrines to war criminals? Yes there is a difference between acting officially and then acting as a person, but this is happening when these people are in office. You can't cop out and say 'Oh I was roleplaying a different person' when you are the Prime Minister and you visit a shrine honoring war criminals.

flatbus posted:

Yup, they're not reparations and Chinese politicians have indeed acknowledged their existence. But I'm not claiming 'oh japan they haven't done anything,' I acknowledge that Japan has made all those apologies for example. It's an issue of being genuine. I expect high amounts of foreign aid to a large yet poor neighbor as natural realpolitiking; if this was made in good faith, where did all that faith go when prime ministers visit Yasukuni, denigrate women, and the general culture itself (judging from your sources; I hope you aren't quoting far-right lunatics!) seems to be engaged in denialist behavior? Why doesn't the government acknowledge official UN casualty counts? Why does it continue to deny that comfort women were sex slaves, and pretend there was a voluntary contract?

Throatwarbler posted:

I don't have a position on this poo poo but if you actually believe that any government hand out foreign aid purely due to some kind of collective national altruism then you have a very poor understanding of how governments and large organizations work. Switch "China/Japan" with for example, "America/Israel" and tell me with a straight face that this is what you actually think.

Throatwarbler posted:

I don't have a position on this poo poo but if you actually believe that any government hand out foreign aid purely due to some kind of collective national altruism then you have a very poor understanding of how governments and large organizations work. Switch "China/Japan" with for example, "America/Israel" and tell me with a straight face that this is what you actually think.