Hammerhead comments

@Yoshi tsune

Again, you clearly acknowledge, at great length, that Japan was purchasing women

'Japan' did not, and never has, purchased women.

Unlike the US, it never engaged in "mass human trafficking" or slavery to build up its economy and industry.

You'll have to accuse the private contractors first.

Japan has and never has had any need to because, unlike Mainland China, it has enough women of its own, enough prostitutes of its own, enough willing women of its own.

It has a perfectly good male-female gender balance.

During WWII the military and private contractors transported a few thousand, perhaps 10,000s to 20,000 at the very most, to wherever their business was but that is all. It was all for their convenience and safety.

You could not have had private transportation wandering all over a war zone. You still cannot today.

@zichi

As I have underlined each time, every source for the evidence I have provided has come from a Korean. 90% of it from Korean women.

There is no evidence support the 40% to 50% estimate figures you are making up.

If the Koreans who were Japanese at the time are happy to accept Japanese citizenship, then Japan will be happy to hear their legal cases in a Japanese court.

But they will need evidence.

Shameful that the emperor allowed his subjects to be treated like nothing better than property.

Why, Japan banned slavery in 1590. When did the UK or US ban slavery.

It had to do so because the European Christians were enslaved 10,000s of Japanese women. Mainstream historians say 500,000. (The Portuguese purchased large numbers of Japanese slave girls to bring to Portugal for sex). The Christians paid a barrel of gunpowder for fifty slaves.

Well, an independent Japan will include its Senkaku until the matter is resolved in a court.

When Japan and Taiwan made agreement to share the fishing rights to the waters around it it angered China greatly as it hinted towards official recognition of Taiwan's independence.

What's your position on Taiwan's independence?

I would say it is already independent, and that Taiwanese control of China mainland would be preferable. But unlikely!

It here;

Nintoku-tenno-ryo Kofun

http://www.city.sakai.lg.jp/english/visitors/topics/world_heritage_site/notable_tombs/nintoku-ryo.html

The tomb of Emperor Nintoku. One of the three largest tombs in the world, originally surrounded by minor tombs, built in the mid-5th century and basically unknown outside of Japan.

Of course, the Koreans claim they invented Kofun.

@Toasted Heretic

I'm on Okinoshima, hunting for bears.

Bare bears?

"Bears" being the current nickname for big, fat, hairy gay guys.

I'd doubt they make the 200 long guest list.

This "anti-tourist ... anti-archeology" position is not unique in Japan. Have a look for some of the Kofun keyhole shaped lakes and burial mounds in, for example, Sakai, Osaka.

They too are left untouched out of respect for whoever and whatever is buried underneath them.

A bit of a shame from an archeological point of view, but typical of the respect for others that underpins Japanese society.

Japan is not the law. 'International Law' and 'International Maritime Law' is the law. It would be nice if China accept it and acted accordingly.

Japan has and is and has benefited hugely from doing so.

The PRC is only 70 years old at most. Through out the history of the region, previous dynastic influence has increased and decreased.

Which Middle Earth fantasy does the Communist Party choose? Which is the most authentic one?

Can we pick the smallest one, or does China demand the biggest of all them put together, even where it includes now foreign territorities?

Who is the rightful descedent of the Qing Dynasty, the Communist (CPC) party or the Kuomintang (KMT) party?

I'd probably agree the the Kuomintang (KMT) and that China should be owned and ruled by Taiwan and then china can go to court to have the Senkaku Islands back.

But try telling that to the Communist Party first.

The Japanese government's official position on China/Taiwan hasn't changed since the 1978 'Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between Japan and the People's Republic of China'. In this signed treaty, Japan recognizes Taiwan properly as part of PRC China. It follows the law and sticks to its agreements.

It, and numerous other Asian countries, expects China to do so, and recognize International Law.

The problem is, China does not. It is hemmed in at all sides by International Law but refused to accept it. It acts like North Korea demanding to make its own laws, in the shared international realm. That is the problem and one that Japan will not provoke, so as not to be accused by Beijing.

Japan does not and has never blocked Taiwan from taking a case to an international tribunal.

Taiwan and China need to resolve their identity crises in order for the matter to procede legally.

Whose side do you take? China's or Taiwan's Indepedence?

Personally, I favor Taiwanese Indepedence. Taiwan is independent, it is just another one of China's arrogances and stupidities meddling in others affairs.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/senkaku/pdfs/senkaku_en.pdf

G.MAL.O.Q

Only SK and China have an agenda, other countries have moved on. So yes my take is, in the big picture today, why give a s*** ?

The why to why give a s*** is for the young women and girls who will be trafficked TODAY and TOMORROW.

Not for a bogus, hateful, re-invention of the past that is part of a communistic or nationalistic plot.

Plots exaggerate by a bizarrely and hypocritically schizophrenic attitude towards sex, and a confused national pride.

@itsonlyrocknroll

there is no justification for the these acts of prolonged incarceration and imprisonment for the purpose of sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. 

There were no "prolonged acts incarceration and imprisonment for the purpose of sexual slavery". Check the actually diaries I linked to elsewhere.

The evidence shows the women were allowed to leave by their Korean brothel masters after they had paid off their debts to them, but that many chose not to because they were making such good money.

I would just request that Hammerhead expand upon  " personally, I think that is a terrible thing"

Much of the debate, especially within modern Korea, is based on a disgust at the idea of prostitution. Any prostitution. A disgust of prostitutes. A disgust of commercial sex and of mass sexual activities, e.g. one women having sex with 10 men a day, or 10 different men over 10 different days (depending on the class of prostitute their experience was different, some were just entertainers, others just maids, other worked in tents near the frontline).

What is your position on prostitutes, on the whole?

With the Koreans, it is a strange combination of a core of Confucianist ideals of femine purity and docility (women being the lowest order and subservient to men) with a thin veneer of Christian Protestantism/Moonie-sim on top (denial of the pleasure of the flesh, salvation and redemption etc) both of which are riding upon a huge hypocrisy ... and that huge hypocrisy is that Korean is a huge consumer, and provider, of prostitution and commercial sex and has been for the last 100 years.

Look at the statistics. Look at the statistics of how much they increased the comfort women system after the Japanese left and when the American came. And come they did. It rose 5 times as the highest of estimates of the scale of the entire Japanese empire's to 1,000,000 women in 1950 - with reliable figures being provided by the UN.

It was the American "UN army" that was consuming it in 1950.

There is no evidence to support the 200,000 figure. It was and remains only a "high estimate". However, the 1,000,000 figure is reliable and it remains the estimated scale of the sex industry in Korea to this day.

Although technically illegal,

Therefore it demonstrates not just a use of prostitution but evidence of the society's attitude towards illegal activities, criminality. And remember that the government and authorities were promoting it right up until the 1970s.

According to the government-run Korean Institute of Criminology, 1 in 5 of men in their 20s buy sex at least four times a month, and it has a thriving child and teen prostitution industry. South Koreans are the biggest customers of the child sex industry in the region, expanding to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The feminist point of view now tends to be that the choice to be a prostitute is a woman's right. The choice to voluntarily sell her body, if she so wishes, is hers alone. Clearly millions do and either enjoy it, or the fruits - money and independence - it brings them.

They do it to make "easy money" to buy nice things, to pay off debts, to support family ... just as they did in the 1940s.

Should women or even "girls" be forced by economic pressures to survive in such a way? Of course not.

It would be wonderful if there was a "global socialist state" that served and protected the interests of every women and female child in the world.

If you want that, and vote for that, and are willing to pay the taxes or demand corporate taxes afford such a system, then I would be very happy and not oppose it.

The Japanese world order was not communist but it was far more communalistic and family based than the current American New World Order, and we can see the nature and effect of the US New World Order on prostitution in Asian directly from 1945 onwards, expanding to an industrial level wherever it goes.

Alternatively, we can also measure the improvements to the quality of life, life expectancy, and population Japan brought to the Korean pennisula during its investment into Korea. Huge improvements. It doubled life expectancy and population, banned traditional slavery, educated girls, provided healthcare and so on.

However, it was not possible to rid Korea of every vice.

If a girl wants new shoes and brand handbag, a father is a drunk and a gambler, or a single women keeps getting pregnant and dumping excess children, is that the all the State's responsibility?

Where do you draw the line of personal responsibility?

You cannot blame the Japanese State for all of Korean society's and individals' vices.

@Ah_so

The women were not sold to the army. The army did not buy women. They got paid. It was not slavery.

And, zichi, you continue to post known falsehoods when you write "the underage girls were ordered by procurement" as you know, as you have been told before just recently, the military specifications were utterly specific;

a) over 21, and

b) voluntary.

The women were not even contracted to the army, they were contracted to the brothels and comfort stations. The brothels and the comfort stations contracted to the military.

The women took the advance fee from the Korean brokers/agents/pimps, and signed the contract to repay it.

That is how the system worked, as it works until this day.

If a women or a agents or pimp lied or falsified documents, whose fault it that? The military was managing a war, not a spring break in Florida Keys.

What the record shows, time and time again, many examples of which have been given here, is that when abuses in the hiring process happened, and were brought to the authority's attention, the police stepped in and military alerting commanding officers. At times rescuing 100s of women.

Explain it they were "rescuing" and free women, if at the smae time they were supposed to be "enslaving".

The evidence is there, in Korean, from Korean newspapers.

Those are what the records evidencing the military's involvement show, along with the military providing necessary medical treatments and transportation.

Of course, in a war, in a war zone, you cannot have civilian contractors wandering around where and whenever they want. Seriously guys!?!

Do you think civilian contractors in Okinawa are allowed to wandering around where and whenever they want to this day?

No one with any intellectual integrity can accept the propagandist line that you have repeated.

The statistical proportion of the number of women suffering 'genuine sex crimes' was lower than the number of women suffering genuine sex crimes within the US military today, and perhaps many times as lower than the number of women suffering genuine sex crimes in the cities of US or Korea today.

The weight of evidence, all of which I have presented from Korean sources, shows what you are asserting is blatantly false.

Who are to blame for the experience of the remaining wartime prostitutes are,

a) their parents for selling them,

b) Korean society, for allowing parents to sell their daughters,

c) the Korea sex industry for buying and selling women and girls and contradicting the terms of the contract it had with the Imperial Army.

The weight of evidence shows that the women either accepted their lot at the time - as it was cultural and traditional - or profited from it immensely, in comparison to the other options that the rigidly class bound and chauvinist Korean society offered them.

Paradoxically, becoming a prostitute was one of the few freeing and empowering options that they had, that allowed women to become personally and financially independent.

(The same being true in Japan).

Personally, I think that is a terrible thing, but it was reality in Asia at the time and remains reality for 100,000s in Asia to this day.

For Westerners, the way in which to understand the Korean nationalist reaction is along the line of very highly exaggerated and unresolved "Freudian issues" around the issues of sex and, in particularly, women's sexuality.

Hypocritically so due to the extremely high proportion of Korean males using prostitutes today.

There are many paper being written about this, again, by Korean and Korean women or feminists, e.g.

'Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism' by Elaine H. Kim, Chungmoo Choi

'Revisiting the Issue of Korean “Military Comfort Women”: The Question of Truth and Positionality' by Hyunah Yang (a professor at the Seoul National University School) and so on.

I think part of that "Freudian element" is a kind displaced Christian guilt for their own interactions with modern day prostitutes, or during their military national service (there are, of course, huge "camptowns" running according to the same old habits, serving the Korean Army in Korea and, in the past, the Korean Army in Vietnam) and amongst Americans of a certain generation for their use and abuse of the “blanket corps” (Korean women who followed pimps searching for American troops during their movements, who operated out of "field brothels" as the Americans lined up outside).

I suspect that many of the vociferous American and Korean-American anto-Japan voices have much to hide.

Certainly their military intelligence knows all about it.

The business were run by the same people according to the same traditions.

In  “Comfort Women of the Empire” Park Yu-ha wrote

There is no evidence, she wrote, that the Japanese government was officially involved in, and therefore legally responsible for, coercing Korean women.

 190 South Korean scholars and cultural figures issued a statement supporting what Ms. Park had tried to do in her book.

@Toasted Heretic

Another tired and worn out trope, TH, attempt to equate honest enquiry with neo-Nazidom.

You'll notice that 90% of the sources I am quote are from Korean and Korean women academics.

It's a bit difficult to stick the "Japanese right winger" label on them but you could try the "Self-hating Korean" one ... again borrowing from the Holocaust Industry, the same parties as we are discussing do try that on too.

VANK, of the 'Voluntary Agency Network of Korea' has been well studied and documented. I think their influence, and funding, has waned recently, however, for years they hammered internet companies into submission over their various anti-Japan campaigns.

They claimed, "100,000 Korean members and 30,000 Koreans abroad members".

With the Chinese, it is largely Chinese overseas students who are mobilized by intelligence agents working in embassies.

To a degree, the women were "victims" and "forced", but they were 'economic victims' and forced by 'economic pressures', as indeed, were the traditional sex industry and brothels. But that's capitalism for you. As soon as the market is opened up, so are women's legs.

They were also victims to the state of the nation, the Korean Yangban ruling class having run the country into the ground, who turned into economic opportunists. And many "forced" to leave Korea as they could no longer marry a Korea, hence taking their sex businesses elsewhere, or marrying foreigners, as they do Americans to this day.

'The Origins of the US Army's Korean Comfort Women' by Ch’oe Kil-song, details how this happened and how rapidly this happen. Their village was right on the border between north and south.

When the US Army came to our village there was an explosion of sexual violence, and when prostitutes flocked to the village, we welcomed them in the way that I described earlier. The prostitutes were the village's saviors. We had the real fear that, without them, all of the women in the village might become the target of sexual assault. In other words, we invited the prostitutes in as a means of self-defense, and that is how we became a "prostitution village".

The US Army stockpiled condoms in order to protect its men from STDs. Whenever it rained you could see condoms flowing everywhere. Children filled them up with water and played with them. At my uncle's house condoms could be procured cheaply so he cut them into long, thin strips with a razor to make rubber strings and set up a business of sewing them into the ankle part of socks.

To understand the contrived moral outrage, one has to understand various formative developments in the Korean psyche and, in particularly, it attitude towards sex and sexual purity, from its Confucianists roots to the influence of extreme forms of Protestantism after the war (from American missionaries, to deeply political cults like the Moonies - Unification Church).

Briefly, under normal circumstances women who lose their chastity are despised, but particularly when the country is attacking an external enemy they suddenly become "victims" or "patriots", e.g. described as "our nation's daughter" or "a good women victimized by beastly Japanese, GIs etc". The shame of the comfort women is the shame of all Koreans", the comfort women being transformed into victims of crimes against the entire Korean people, who now had a noble mission of promoting nationalist sentiments.

A Christian like redemption story.

Now this is important ...

What is going on, is the losing of their virginity for money, is being re-defined as a "rape" in order to be able to re-deem or translate it into a socially acceptable construct. A face saving re-invention. Like I noted earlier, prostitutes are also commended for their filial piety and devotion to their families.

Yang Hyunah has put at issue the discrepancy between Korean nationalist discourse and the confessions of the prostitutes.

Under normal political circumstances, women who lose their virginity are despised, but particularly when the country is attacking an external enemy they suddenly become "victims" or "patriots". The taking of the virginity of Korean women by Japanese troops was not only a rape of the women themselves, but also a rape of the whole nation of Korea.

There is an excellent document made public recently referred to as "The Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager" by a Korean comfort station manager called Mr Bak from South Gyeongsang. It was never meant for publication but it is daily record of real life at a comfort station during 1942 to 1944.

It debunks all of their myths.

Written by a Korean in Korean at the time. Google it. It comprises of twenty-six volumes found thirty-six years ago before the issue became politicized, by Oh Chae-hyeon, curator of the Time Capsule Museum in Paju.

It goes into many details, e.g. period when comfort women were "forced" to remain in doors being due to outbreaks of plague, or other epidemic diseases, or nearby military movement that would threaten them. It details how much they were paid, how they were allowed breaks, how they had slow periods, they had their own Association called the "Comfort Station Association", referred to as a "geisha agency," and regular meetings. They were not treated as being a part of the military.

Someone erroneously mentioned, I think it was Zichi that the system started in 1932.

It did not. It started in the late nineteenth century, when Japanese prostitutes known as karayuki-san, exported the sex trade abroad to Korea, Shanghai in China and elsewhere.

There was nothing new or alien about it for either Korea or Japan. Indeed the same economic "force and coercion" existed within the poor areas of Japan just as Tōhoku right up until the 1970s.

Either you sold your daughter or you and your family died. Life was that hard. Young women took the onus on out of filial duty. Everyone in Asia knows it, and it still goes on today.

It's not right by today's standards, but there was no social welfare back then.

Yubara,

You do realise that there are other people involved in the running of the government, and it is not all a one man show? I've never understood the fixation on one man.

It's going to be great.

Having manage to get rid of the European colonialist in Asia during and immediately after WWII, finally a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere will be able to arise, with the last white colonist (the USA) on the outside periphery of it.

Of course, an Asia united and combined would have the power to destroy the USA economically several times over, especially given the size of both Chinese and Japanese holdings in the USA, and the successful destruction of the US manufacturing base.

Hence the USA having to maintain its protection racket in the region. The threat of violence, both economic and military, being its only leverage point.

God knows how the Americans were so dumb as to elect somelike Trump. He and his cronies are going to be the destruction of the USA.

Apart from the nukes and monopoly on military aviation hardware, what exactly has the US to offer Asia that Asia really needs any more anyway?

As soon as they start building 'Pan-Asian' fighters, we'll know the axis of power has changed.

Look, Mulan, I'll be kind to and try to explain what's going on here.

Two of the primary tools of the Communist progandists is to seed confusion, in order to impair proper judgement, and whip up angers and disgust in order to misdirect people. I don't know if you know what you and others like you are saying is rubbish, or whether you are deliberately saying so as to confuse people.

Putting aside for one minute that for China and Taiwan it is all just about the potential of petroleum resources under the sea around them, the core problem relates to China's relationship with International Maritime Law.

Historically, China made a great mistake of banning large ships capable of overseas journeys (which is one reason why Chinese ships and seamen never went or made it over to the Senkaku) and turned its attention within to its land and all important internal water. Therefore, it was not party of the creation of International Maritime Law.

Whereas Western powers, followed by Japan, grew to become international maritime powers, China was asleep, looking within and tied up with land based struggles.

Modern Communist China did not arise until the 1950s until the colonialists' party was long finished, and International Maritime Law already well established.

Modern Communist China has absolute ZERO legal claims on China's various historical pasts.

In plain English, it is just butt hurt at its own stupidity, for 'not being asked to play' (being part of the creation of International Maritime Law), and 'no one caring it what it thinks'.

Not existing before 1949 ... Mao's "navy" being little more than a few canoes ... it simply was not there to be asked.

Unfortunately, the only response one can have to that is ... I am sorry, but tough luck. That's life. If you did not exist, you could not be asked ... but this is the established order now.

Japan owns the Senkaku and all the waters around it because it followed International Law. Not Japanese Law. Not 'Jacky Chan's Middle Earth Kung Fu Secret Law'. International Law. And, Japan being Japan, followed it carefully to the letter.

China has no legal claim. What claims it makes are about equivalent to me claiming to own the Shires on the basis of what Tolkein wrote in Lord of the Rings.

In other words, mythology.

Bizarrely, Modern China appears to have adopted some of the cultural baggage of the same kind of self-centered arrogance and stupid of the very same Chinese people the Communists fought against to depose. The mentality of believing itself to be "the Middle Earth" kingdom.

Actually, in truth, I don't think the leaders believe that, however, I do think the leaders are aware of the value of the nationalistic value of that, and Japan Hate, and how useful it is at misleading it own people from internal problems, such as corruption within the leadership of the CPC and their powerful families.

On the other hand, if we look at the work of an academic who was actually alive at the time, such as Ch’oe Kil-song who wrote, 'The Origins of the US Army's Korean Comfort Women', we find

"Neither I nor the many other scholars who had done field surveys throughout South Korea had ever heard of the so-called "comfort women". And yet, the issue found its way into Japanese-language media and then became a political problem and human rights issue within South Korea. I realized early on that this had been caused by the false testimony of Yoshida Seiji and misreporting published in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun."

"There is no clear difference between the way that comfort women were recruited by the Japanese Army and the way that they were recruited by the US Army ... If a statue is built in memory of the comfort women of the Japanese Army, there will be some people who will pipe up and ask for another statue beside it in memory of the comfort women of the US Army. The immature diplomatic actions of South Korea need to stop immediately."

Ch’oe Kil-song analysis the psychological problems these people - the nationalist hate mob - suffer from in great detail, how it developed both culturally and historically.

@Kasper123

Dishonourable for Japan to run away from the truth rather than facing the harsh truth of Japanese aggression!!

What the evidence shows is that, time and time again, the Japanese police were rescuing women from Korean traffickers at the time.

You will find that not just Japanese academics but also Koreans are working their way towards the truth.

When the article says, "Mainstream historians say up to 200,000 women" it is an absolute lie. A fallacy (appeal to authority).

@zichi

"intellectual integrity"

ah your favorite fall back!

No, my fallback are;

the facts,

understanding the players, and

understanding the greater historical context to understand the game.

As soon as the word Chongryon (North Koreans association in Japan) or their equivalent North Korean allies in South Korea arise, you can be sure of the need to apply great caution ... unless, of course, you support the North Korean regime.

There is another historical element to consider in both these issues, and that is the American post-war conduct in Japan, Korea, and elsewhere in SE Asia, where its military carried out and "enjoyed" exactly the same excess that are habitually accused of the Japanese.

For example, in Korea where mass rapes of Korean village women led to the camptowns being set up with comfort women who served the Japanese, or in Japan where women were coerced by poverty to sell themselves into comfort stations to serve the American military, in order to stop the rapes, and forced to serve up to 60 men a day. Some ending up committing suicide because of the abuse.

Now, all of that is historical facts that I can sustain. I've long considered that popular consensus in the US is based on a whole heap of daddies and grandpappies with someone to hide about what they did in the war.

The British coming out look far more decent in this department, something to do with tea and bromide I believe. The French and Dutch less so, they were among the more vicious colonist. After the war, the Japanese had to protect the Dutch from the Indonesias who want to literally chop them up to pieces.

I expect none of this complexity to be present in the Korean exhibition that will have no right to call itself a museum.

The difference between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is that we can be sure they happened. We have the evidence.

The Comfort Women issue ... little to no evidence and plenty to contract it and the ingegrity of its proponents.

@Hiro

Taiwan indeed want to brought the issue to the International Arbitration Court

Taiwan has never brought the issue to the International Arbitration Court.

China's claim is based on "owning" Taiwan. Perhaps it should resolve that issue first.

The Taiwanes are not interest in becoming part of a mythical Middle Earth.

@mulan

I appreciate it is "on script" to blame Abe and characterize him as "Far Right" etc but in this case there is no blame on the Japanese side.

It owns the Senkaku. The blame is on China and Xi for aggressing and invading Japanese waters.

Essentially, China is smacking Japan in the face and then accusing it for being the problem.

@Hiro S Nobumasa

I don't know what DYT stands for, are you discussing the Senkaku Islands?

The Senkaku Islands were lawfully incorporated into Japan in the 1800s. End of story.

PRC and Japan indeed agreed to have the island issue shelved ... both parties agree that their is indeed a sovereignty dispute

The PRC and Japan never agreed to have the island issue shelved. You are referring to a one side, unofficial statement a Chinese leader made at a press conference. Chinese leaders do not get to tell Japan what has been agreed.

Show us the treaty or withdraw your claim.

Japan does not agree there is a sovereignty dispute, it has no need to. It owns them.

If China disputes Japan's ownership, all it has to do is go to the right tribunal and prove its claim. Both China and Taiwan only began making their own assertions on territorial sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands in the 1970s, after the academic that indicated the possibility of the existence of petroleum resources.

Taiwan is not a "sovereign nation" ... as recognized under international law and by the UN.

It is China who demands that the rest of the world does not recognize Taiwan as a nation, so you cannot blame Japan for that.

None of the arguments that the Chinese government or Taiwanese authorities have presented on historical, geographic or geological grounds is valid evidence under international law. The U.S. Government recognized Japan’s “residual sovereignty” over the Nansei Shoto Islands, including the Senkaku in 1957.

But, of course, you are just repeat verbatim the usual troll army script on these matters.

It is just the usual spreading of confusion with half truths, outright lies and blurring of lines, and attempting to wear people out with them.

The Senkaku are part of Japan. If you have a problem with that, take it to the court.

The big joke is, the CPC is currently in the process of burning 10,000s of books and maps it published in the recent past that show the islands are Japanese.

Credibility ... ZERO.

Meanwhile, Japan and Taiwan have a friendly relationship that allows Taiwanese to fish around them in Japanese waters.

@zichi

even before the outbreak of the war there were conventions prohibiting human trafficking Japan was a signature. It also applies to forced laborers.

You are confusing a number of entirely different things here - especially that the early comfort wome were all Japanese - however, in the later period Japan was not trafficking Korean women, the Korean sex industry was.

Just why that was has been clearly studied and documented. It was because their business was dropping off in the mainland, due to the war time recession, and so they took it overseas to Manchuria, Formosa and elsewhere.

With regards to the Myth of Forced Conscription

Anyone with any intellectual integrity would be found to take on board the works of

Park Kyongsik and A chronicle of the forced conscription of Koreans

Professor Chung Dae-kyun who wrote, "Korean residents in Japan: The myth of forced conscription" and "Tell me about that day, Father: The movement to restore the history of Korean residents in Japan" for the Youth Association of Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan).

After a wide survey, he found,

"If we examine the oral accounts contained in the report, there are almost no accounts of the kind the editor was anticipating.

Certainly we can discern that that they were thrown into factories in a foreign country and forced to do hard labor, however there are almost no accounts of actual “conscription” such as driving a truck into a village, threatening people with bayonets and taking them away by force."

You might cross reference that with, "The treatment of Korean residents: transitions and situation today" by Morita Yoshio (1955).

As with the wartme prostitute issue, we have a problem of extremely narrow and specific historical events, occurring at a specific times, being exaggerated and applied to all by people who were not there, who were not alive, who cannot even speak Korean or Japanese to know what actually happened.

The use of the term should be limited to the conscription that occurred from September 1944 to the end of the war and applied to all Japanese citizens whether born in Japan or Korea.

it refers to wartime labor mobilization in which the Korean-Japanese had it easy, as they were only sent to labor camps, while the Japanese-Japanese were sent to the front lines.

Which would you have preferred?

The individuals were not Koreans they were Japanese citizens at the time, and no one was allowed to sit around drinking tea for the duration of the war.

The theory of forced laborer arose from 'A Chronicle of the forced conscription of Koreans' (1965) by Park Kyongsik.

So, if you have intellectual integrity, ask yourself, "who was Park?".

Who was Park ... and what was going on?

Park was part of the educated the elite of the pro-North Korean, Pro-Communist or Pro-Juche group in Japan. The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon).

Same players, same game.

Are you a player or are you being played by them?

At the time Chongryon was actively promoting a repatriation campaign, and the necessity for Korean residents of Japan to return to participate in rebuilding their homeland.

How did that work out for the ones that fell for it?

it was designed to create a basis for Korean residents not to remain in Japan and to return "home" instead, therefore, it stressed that Korean residents had been brought to Japan through “forced conscription” ... which was not true.

If you are interested, and the moderators allow, I am happy to full in the historical gaps in yours and others knowledge about these development.

Both campaigns are malicious and bogus.

@Toasted Heretic

Yeah; imagine. Equal rights.

Do you have "equal rights" to stomp about and do what you like in a Carmelite Nunnery or innumerable convents all around the world?

Or are the nuns just unfairly discriminating against you?

Is Mount Athos also not a UNESCO World Heritage Centre?

You are exhibiting nothing more than irrational prejudices in this matter.

Japan has never had the same degree of discriminatory prejudices against homosexuality and transgender issue as Christian nations, as the very same habitual critics of Japan will always pounce upon when they deride, for example, the tolerance of homosexuality with samurai or Buddhist cultures.

If that's what you are looking for, you'll find clubs, bars, bathhouses and even highly specific prostitutes in most cities.

Does it need to be rubbed in the face of a holy island?

That does not appear to be necessary for the sake of "equality".

To be honest, I don't know if there is a Japanese Fire Island, as in the USA. I don't swing that way even if you do. But I know there are specific beaches and cruising locations so on.

Where are you and I'll try and find you the nearest location?

There are numerous website catering for such interests.

But I'd the two interests are incompatible, and so should remain separated.

Let us be reminded of these people's intellectual integrity

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, a former Korean comfort woman Kim Sun-ok said that she was sold by her parents four times.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

A former Korean comfort woman Mun Oku-chu said in her memoir:

"I was recruited by a Korean comfort station owner. I saved a considerable amount of money from tips, so I opened a saving account. I could not believe that I could have so much money in my saving account. One of my friends collected many jewels, so I went and bought a diamond. I often went to see Japanese movies and Kabuki plays in which players came from the mainland Japan ... I felt very happy and proud. I received permission to return home, but I didn't want to go back to Korea. I wanted to stay in Rangoon."

According to Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, Mun Oku-chu continued to work as a prostitute in Korea after the war.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In an interview with Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh (15th May 1991) a former Korean comfort woman Kim Hak-sun said that she was sold by her mother.

In 1993 Kim Hak-sun told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "My mother sent me to train as a Kiseng in Pyongyang and then sold me."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Kim Gun-ja told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "I was sold by my foster father."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Lee Yong-soo told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "At the time I was shabbily dressed and wretched. On the day I left home with my friend Kim Pun-sun without telling my mother, I was wearing a black skirt, a cotton shirt and wooden clogs on my feet. You don't know how pleased I was when I received a red dress and a pair of leather shoes from a Korean recruiter."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Her false testimony resulted in the passage of United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121.

According to Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, a former Korean comfort woman Moon Pil-ki was recruited by a Korean comfort station owner's agent and taken to Manchuria with four other women.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Kil Won-ok told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "I was sold by my parents."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh's book "The Comfort Women", she relates the story of Kim Sun-OK who was sold by her father 4 times from the age of 7 years old for the price of 500 Won (approximately $30). Each time she paid off "her debt" she was returned to her parents who then sold her again ultimately ending up in Manchuria comfort station in 1941.

Her misfortune was to be the pretty daughter and, hence, her parents could get more for her.

According to several witnesses, Chong Dae Hyup (pro-North activist group) coached women to say "I was abducted by the Japanese military."

Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University says,

"When I interviewed former comfort women in the early 1990s, none of them had anything bad to say about the Japanese military. They hated their parents who sold them and Korean comfort station owners who mistreated them.

But after Chong Dae Hyup put them on its payroll, their testimonies had completely changed."

A former Korean comfort woman Sim Mi-ja who refused to be on Chong Dae Hyup's payroll said,

"The Korean women, who testified before UN Special Rapporteur, lied on behalf of Chong Dae Hyup. They are swindlers".

In an interview with Professor Park Yuha of Sejong University in South Korea, a former Korean comfort woman Bae Chun-hee said she hated her father who sold her.

She said that men who recruited Korean women and operated comfort stations were all Korean, and that the women who testified before UN Special Rapporteur lied on behalf of Chong Dae Hyup.

Has this website no intellectual integrity? Can the discussion really not be moved on by new evidence about the actually events and the motivations of the parties included?

Does this same discussion, and the same old falsehoods, really need to be repeated day in day out by the same people posting the same links and comments?

@ Dango bong

Japan has formally apologized and both countries signed an agreement on which Korea pledged not to make public statements or issues out of it again. Lying, classless money stealing hypocrites.

Thank you for being so straight forward.

To it I would also add "deluded" ... deluded as to what the agendas of those behind the the campaigns are.

Of course, it's purpose will be to re-affirm an entirely incomplete and false picture of what went on.

They are unlikely to shakedown Japan for more money now though.

The real agenda now is just about damaging, in particular, popular support for Japan in the US, and the US-Japan-South Korean alliance against Communist China and NK.

It's bizarre how both "liberals" and "patriotic conservatives" are swept along by the confusion they are creating to support strategies that benefit to notoriously undemocratic, anti-US/West nations with appaling human rights records in the here and now.

How wonderful to be able to keep people blinded to them by whipping up hate about imaginery events 70 years.

@Hiro S Nobumasa

Obviously, this is a subject about which the Chinese Communist Party troll army has been activated for many years and provided with a number of scripts. Although I am not accusing you of being directly part of it, you may be being effected by the halo effect around.

One of its scripts or strategies, where it cannot win the argument, is to cast doubt and confusion about the current situation.

However , this does not alter the official Washington statement that 'USA don't take a position on final sovereignty on DYT" which is very clear language

All the "USA don't take a position on final sovereignty on Senkaku Islands" means is precisely that. You are correct, it is perfectly clear, however, it does not mean what you are inferring.

The USA is not the final arbiter in such disputes.

In short, "it's none of its business" ... beyond defending the Senkaku as Japanese territory according to the international agreement.

All China has to do is take the matter to the correct international court or forum to have the matter decided.

China refuses to do so because it would lose, and the leadership thereby lose face to its citizenship.

For Japan, there is no sovereignty dispute. It owns them. It administers them. It has done so since the 19th C when it acquired them as terra nulla in a perfectly legal and painstaking manner. And it has been official recognized by China, in official maps and official correspondence, in the past for doing so. There is no argument.

If China disagrees, all it has to do is take it the matter to court (UNCLOS Tribunal). Why won't it?

China’s first assertions of sovereignty over the Senkakus were made just one year after seismic surveys of the sea floor surrounding the islands had discovered the existence of significant oil and gas reserves.

I'd say it's "perfectly clear" what's going on here and the whole world is laughing at China's undignified posturing over the matter.

China's contempt towards international law and the international community is summed up in Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Hong Lei bizarre and arrogant comment,

“Isn’t it a weird thing in international affairs to submit a sovereign country’s territory to international arbitration? What a chaos the world will be in if this happens?"

It disregards International laws and conventions and sees itself above them.

The answer is simple, go to court, pick a fight with the combined US and Japanese navies, or STFU.

Just out of interest, do you know the the the model of the deliberately insulting statue is actually of one of the two 14 year old school girls, Shin Hyo-Soon and Shim Mi-Sun, that were run over and killed by a US army armoured vehicle back in 2002, while walking to a friend's birthday party?

(The two girls were ran over from behind when the driver failed to see them. There were daily protests for weeks demanding that the U.S. military hand over two U.S. soldiers. US soldiers, being immune from prosecution if they commit crimes against the Korean people, were cleared by a US military court).

It is likely that they initially started creating these statues to protest the US army but then had to stop midway because the US pressured them, and the money ran out. So when it came to starting the bogus comfort women campaign, they just pulled it out of storage.

In short, one shakedown replaced another.

I could go into more detail, there is a direction connection in the groups and the politics of separating Japan-USA relationship and USA position in Asia.

At least if you are being played, know what the game is about.

Going back to the issue of "intellectual integrity" that someone else raise earlier, intellectual integrity would demand some modification of positions as new evidence arises. Even a willingness to seek out those sources of new or more accurate information.

I can keep going into more and more specific details about and what happened during and after the WWII, during the American occupation and Korean War, and how the Japan Hate/disinformation campaign was started, manufactured and sustained until it overwhelmed and poisoned the original and quite genuine joint Korean-Japanese feminist campaign.

How the former has been funded and coordinated internationally by the Korean government into the internet age.

Here's the kicker. Look at the sources, they are all Korean and women. Feminists, indeed. Check them for accuracy.

Let's look for the pattern and de-construct the myth.

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, a former Korean comfort woman Kim Sun-ok said that she was sold by her parents four times.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

A former Korean comfort woman Mun Oku-chu said in her memoir:

"I was recruited by a Korean comfort station owner. I saved a considerable amount of money from tips, so I opened a saving account. I could not believe that I could have so much money in my saving account. One of my friends collected many jewels, so I went and bought a diamond. I often went to see Japanese movies and Kabuki plays in which players came from the mainland Japan ... I felt very happy and proud. I received permission to return home, but I didn't want to go back to Korea. I wanted to stay in Rangoon."

According to Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, Mun Oku-chu continued to work as a prostitute in Korea after the war.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In an interview with Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh (15th May 1991) a former Korean comfort woman Kim Hak-sun said that she was sold by her mother.

In 1993 Kim Hak-sun told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "My mother sent me to train as a Kiseng in Pyongyang and then sold me."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Kim Gun-ja told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "I was sold by my foster father."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Lee Yong-soo told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "At the time I was shabbily dressed and wretched. On the day I left home with my friend Kim Pun-sun without telling my mother, I was wearing a black skirt, a cotton shirt and wooden clogs on my feet. You don't know how pleased I was when I received a red dress and a pair of leather shoes from a Korean recruiter."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Her false testimony resulted in the passage of United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121.

According to Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, a former Korean comfort woman Moon Pil-ki was recruited by a Korean comfort station owner's agent and taken to Manchuria with four other women.

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In 1993 a former Korean comfort woman Kil Won-ok told Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, "I was sold by my parents."

Yet she testified before UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

In Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh's book "The Comfort Women", she relates the story of Kim Sun-OK who was sold by her father 4 times from th age of 7 years old for the price of 500 Won (approximately $30). Each time she paid off "her debt" she was returned to her parents who then sold her again ultimately ending up in Manchuria comfort station in 1941.

Her misfortune was to be the pretty daughter and, hence, her parents could get more for her.

According to several witnesses, Chong Dae Hyup (pro-North activist group) coached women to say "I was abducted by the Japanese military."

Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University says,

"When I interviewed former comfort women in the early 1990s, none of them had anything bad to say about the Japanese military. They hated their parents who sold them and Korean comfort station owners who mistreated them.

But after Chong Dae Hyup put them on its payroll, their testimonies had completely changed."

A former Korean comfort woman Sim Mi-ja who refused to be on Chong Dae Hyup's payroll said,

"The Korean women, who testified before UN Special Rapporteur, lied on behalf of Chong Dae Hyup. They are swindlers".

In an interview with Professor Park Yuha of Sejong University in South Korea, a former Korean comfort woman Bae Chun-hee said she hated her father who sold her. She said that men who recruited Korean women and operated comfort stations were all Korean, and that the women who testified before UN Special Rapporteur lied on behalf of Chong Dae Hyup.

And let's not forget the comfort women who were bought and sold by Koreans to specifically to service Korean workers in Japan for a mere 40 or 50 Won ($3 or $4). Who are they to accuse and sue?

Or the Korean comfort women who were bought and sold along with the furniture of the apartment by American servicemen during the Korean War.

I suppose that is Japan's fault as well and the Korean's and American military has a clean nose?

Funnily enough, we know that more than their noses were clean as, thanks to the Japanese's excellent record keeping, we have the syphillis statistics (45%).

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vJYnL967Rqc/VIWpXfCPOUI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/siqqc8vqlSQ/s3600/kim%2Bsun-ok.jpg

And, folks, there's nothing to see on the island. It's just the same as 1,000s of other small islands in the archipelago with nothing to do.

Expect some LGBTQI activist to flood the island demanding equal rights to see and do nothing.

Apart from a potential Chinese threat, and the fact that limiting human spread as much as possible anywhere is a good thing, I don't really get this listing. I can think of loads of other more deserving places within Japan.

They say no one is allowed to take anything away from the island. Not even a twig.

What are they doing with all the plastic waste and polystyrene that is bound to wasting up on their shores? Are the kami-sama attached that too?

I love the idea of the "what happens on the Island, stays on the Island" rule, the fisherman have.

No women, no telling any women what happens on the island. A few fishermen found a place to have a few blissful beers without being nagged by their wives or explain what they've been up to and next thing you know, bingo, it's a UNESCO monument.

How can we get our local bar listed too?

"Sorry, love, can't tell you where I've been ... It'll upset the kami-sama."

What a great, all purpose excuse.

I suppose it's all a Chess game to stop the islands being claimed by the Chinese.

AgentX

I think the reason they do not do so, is because Japanese would have to admit: a) that they are not from the sun

Wow. Thank you for wonderful evidence of the level of insight inspiring debate on this website.

Please fund me to do a research study finding out how many Japanese really believe they are from the Sun. $100,000 should do.

Beware the 'Out of Sundaland' theory, currently gaining strength. It says the Chinese came from out of Taiwan, not the other way around.

"A 2009 genetic study published by the 2009 Human Genome Organization Pan-Asian SNP Consortium found that Asia was originally settled by humans via a single southern route. The migration came from Africa via India, into Southeast Asia and what are now islands in the Pacific, and then later up to the eastern and northern Asian mainland."

@Hiro,

Legally, the USA could not "return sovereignty" to Japan because Japan never lost it. Japan did not "nationalize" the Senkaku, it had already on formally incorporate them into Japanese territory on January 14, 1895. That did not change during the American occupation.

Either you have no idea what the legal terms mean, or you are deliberately attempting to confuse people's minds about them.

@mulan

There are no Taiwan originals, they are all from Chinese ancestors, as

there are no Japanese, they are all from mainland

Wow, let me have some of that Middle Earth dope this guy is on. I had no idea the CPC was manufacturing its own strain of LSD.

Austronesian Taiwaneses might have migrated 6000 years ago (the 'all Asians came Out of Sundaland 10,000 years ago' theory is going to blow their minds), but they are still Chinese.

And so are the Japanese?

NB:

a 2009 genetic study published by the 2009 Human Genome Organization Pan-Asian SNP Consortium found that Asia was originally settled by humans via a single southern route. The migration came from Africa via India, into Southeast Asia and what are now islands in the Pacific, and then later up to the eastern and northern Asian mainland. Chinese expansion occurred very recently, within only the last 2,000 to 3,000 years,

But, hey, by the same logic, does not that mean all Chinese are just African emigrants too?

When China's Xi "urges Japan to put aside distractions in relations" he means, "Shut up and stop complaining about how we are trying to shaft you, and stop meddling in our affairs as we shaft your neighbors".

@Zichi

We were specifically discussing Kore and the Korean women of 1943/44, don't change the subject to 1932. Actually, according to the AWF and military documents, private agents first opened brothels for officers and men stationed in China, around the time of the Manchurian Incident in 1931.

I have no problems with a well organized, legislated and policed sex industry serving the military as the Comfort Women system was. Far better that than the alternative.

The agents were private businesses/individuals "policed" by the police and contracted to the army as any military supplier.

Do you understand the difference?

Whether you were a business providing boots or women, the military set its standards to be met and the agents agreed to meet them.

Whether those business cut corners or were dishonest in their supply was the responsibility of the businesses, and the documents show that when the military discovered evidence of abuses, they clamped down upon them, time and time again.

Those conditions stipulated, e.g. over 21, not coerced, fully voluntarily. Clearly, it was not the nature of th Korean sex industry and the Korean sex industry carried on as it had done, and how it continued to do so after WWII ... and, indeed, up until this day tricking and coercing young women, exploiting poverty, using debt bondage and extorting prostitutes for high charges in brothels.

Not the army.

historians put the figures at 80,000 to 400,000.

Do you understand the meaning of the logical fallacy, "appeal to authority"? Appeals to authority are not valid arguments (even in they are constantly used in media articles on this topic).

Which historians? Name them. Allow us to check their credentials, examine their findings, their linguistic abilities, and the evidence they used to come to their conclusions.

For example, if a "historian" cannot read old Japanese (bear in mind that many present day native Japanese find it difficult to read official Showa Japanese documents), I tend to question their authority as all of their opinions are dependant on second or third sources, and exclude the original ones. Same too with Korean, as without Korean how would they know what was widely published across the Korean media and official documents of the time.

I think by "historian" you actually mean "Chinese Communist Party propagandist" which kind of shoots down your own credibility in this area too, if you cannot tell the difference between the two.

Ditto, again, you write "agents of the police". The police did not have agents. Can you admit that?