How the issue of comfort women affects Japanese and Korean relations today

Oct 18

Oct 18 How the issue of comfort women affects Japanese and Korean relations today

Japan and South Korea are two of the US’ most important allies in South East Asia. In comparison to other states in the region, such as China and North Korea, they hold values far more similar to those promoted in the West. Ranking 25 and 30 respectively, South Korea and Japan hold far higher positions in the 2020 Index of Economic Freedom than neighbouring states. In fact, the two countries hold higher positions in the Human Freedom Index than some Western states, such as Italy. These similarities regarding economic and individual freedom would seemingly lead to closer ties between the two countries than with other states in the region.

However, there is an issue which seemingly divides the two states: comfort women. During World War II, according to UN estimates, up to 200,000 girls and women were taken to work in brothels run by the Japanese military, a large proportion of whom were Korean. With the support of feminist movements in Asian countries, several hundred of these women came forward in the early 1990s, having previously remained silent about the horrors they suffered. South Korea has been vocal in demanding Japanese recognition of the atrocities committed.

A large source of tension today stems from the Treaty on Basic Relations, 1965, where Japan agreed to pay US$500 million in grants and low-interest long-term loans. This opened diplomatic relations between the two countries, and was considered to have settled the issues between them. Yet, South Korea at the time was under a military dictatorship, and the legitimacy of the treaty has been called into question. The initial response of the Japanese government to the survivors’ accounts was to deny any involvement of the state in the comfort women system, claiming that all matters of reparations had already been settled. However, mounting pressure, fuelled by the discovery of incriminating documentation, led the Japanese government to issue an apology in 1992.

In 2015, Tokyo made a payment of ¥1 billion as a form of settlement for the use of comfort women, which was deemed to be final and irreversible. This money was used by the government to establish the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation in order to support the survivors. However, in November 2018 the Moon Jae-In administration argued that the agreement does not properly account for the suffering of the sex slaves and moved to replace the compensation with its own funds. This was followed by the dissolution of the foundation. The issue has remained unresolved, and, as such, has placed tension in the relationship between these two countries.

Many of former comfort women and their supporters have also not been appeased by Japanese measures. Survivors have filed 10 lawsuits against the government in Japanese courts yet have lost in all cases. The victims claim that the agreement in 2015 was not adequate as it did not recognise the violations of human rights law and the Japanese government has not accepted legal responsibility. A number of books have been published recently on the topic including White Chrysanthemum, published in 2018, which depicts some of the atrocities that were committed towards the women. The growing attention brought to the issue has led to further strain in relations between the two countries.

Yet, from the Japanese perspective, it has been seen that Korea is promoting a nationalist agenda, using the suffering of comfort women to leverage its own demands over Japan. It has been argued that rather than representing the voice of victims, the Korean Comfort Women’s Support Group replaces the victims’ voices with dogmatic demands for state compensation and the condemnation of Japan. The liquidation of the foundation, from Japan’s perspective, confirmed that South Korea is avoiding efforts of reconciliation by altering their requirements for a settlement and formal apology. Additionally, prosecutors are now investigating allegations that the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan used the money given to them for private ends, rather than for the benefit of victims. The group has blamed ‘accounting flaws’ for financial discrepancies. Caught in the middle of this political dispute are the victims, the comfort women, who face being pushed to the side with their attempts to obtain recognition for what they experienced appropriated by political forces.

One of the physical manifestations of this debate has come in the form of statues commemorating comfort women. One statue in Seoul is situated on bus No. 151 which stops in front of the Japanese Embassy. Japanese officials expressed anger in July 2020 towards a pair of statues erected in a privately-run botanical garden which appear to depict the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, prostrating himself before a young women representative of the comfort women. More recently, there has been controversy regarding a comfort women statue unveiled in Berlin in September. Authorities in central Berlin rescinded its approval for the statue and were planning its removal until a pro-South Korean civic group in Berlin filed a petition with a Berlin court to suspend the removal order. This was effective, with the statue remaining in Berlin. The fact that European countries have been embroiled in this issue highlights the discursive strength it holds in both South Korea and Japan.

Japan believes that the matter is settled, with many viewing the South Korean government to be exacerbating tensions through the unveiling of comfort women statues. In South Korea, however, the predominant view is that Japan still has not accepted responsibility for the atrocities committed nor offered proper compensation to victims. For them, the statues are a form of remembrance for the comfort women and to highlight their plight.

With close economic ties the two states are seemingly logical allies. In particular, they could provide a counterbalance for the growing Chinese sphere of influence in the region. Yet divided by such an inflammatory issue, continuing trade disputes between Japan and South Korea could provide an opportunity for China to further its power in the region instead. This divide may impact their ability to resist Chinese influence, affecting the US’ influence in the region and the ideological footing that they seemingly share today.