[The Map of Japan in San Francisco Peace Treaty]

Source: Dokdo Research Institute (2008). The Map of Japan in San Francisco Peace Treaty. Reprinted from The Truth: Dokdo is Korean Territory, In Dokdo Research Institute, Retrieved from www.dokdohistory.com

In October 1951, the Japanese government submitted to the House of Representatives, the Map of Japanese Territory, drawn according to the San Francisco Peace Treaty (Dokdo Research Institute, 2008). In this map, Dokdo lies outside the line marking the boundary of Japanese territory, showing that the island is not party of Japan [Map. 2-2]. Another important factor that needs to be recognized is that Korea was never invited to the negotiation table.

“Despite the strong support of the US Ambassador in Korea, together with a request by Korea to be invited to participate in negotiations and the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Mr. Dulles pointed out that Korea would not be a signatory to the treaty, since only those nations in a state of war with Japan and which were signatories of the United Nations Declaration of January 1942 would sign the treaty” (S. Lee, 2002).

Also, Korea was excluded from the negotiation due to excessive claims by Korea for restitution and reparations, and North Korean demands for participation (S. Lee, 2002).

The settlement process could become complicated and slow, which was the last thing the Allied Powers wanted, especially U.S., in the midst of the Cold War.

The territorial issue over the island have been ongoing for more than six decades now. Koreans still fume about the humiliation of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 and the brutal colonial rule that followed (Carpenter, 2015). The colonial history is still unforgettable, hurtful memories for the South Korean people. From the perspective of South Koreans, constant false claims held by Japan over the island is “simply another manifestation of that exploitative imperial land grab” (Carpenter, 2015). For South Korea, the issue over the island is another denial of historical truth and one of many false assertions Japan has been claiming since the end of colonization.

2.1.2. Yasukuni Shrine

The Yasukuni Shrine controversy is another historical obstacle that lay between the relations of South Korea and Japan. The controversy over the issue is simple.

Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine established at Tokyo to commemorate Japan’s war dead. For Japan, it is considered a holy place honoring the souls who sacrificed for their nation. However, for the neighboring countries that were former victims of Japan’s colonization, the shrine is a place where thousands of war criminals are commemorated;

the men who committed crimes of “slave labor, biological and chemical warfare, medical experiments, massacres, massive forced displacements, and sexual slavery…”

(Fisher, 2007). In regards to the Yasukuni Shrine, Fisher argues the following:

What wartime Japan did to the living conscripts it continued after death to their spirit souls. Kidnapped and slaves to Japan’s military in life, tens of thousands of Taiwanese, Koreans and other in death have been subjected to Shinto ritual by Yakusuni Shrine priests hijacking, imprisoning, and enslaving them as guardian spirits of Japan to serve the Emperor and protect the divine nation alongside some 1,000 war criminal souls, including perpetrators of atrocities against Taiwanese, Koreans, and others, and members of the deceased’s own families (2007).

The lists of dead listed in the Shrine’s Book of Souls numbers 2,466,532 men and women, “including 27,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans (50,000), many forced conscripted and includes 1,068 post war Japanese military POWs convicted of war crimes, including 14 Class A war criminals” (Fisher, 2007).

The 14 Class A war criminals were secretly added to the list of souls honoured at the shrine by the priests in 1978, a move that reflected the belief of Japanese right extremists that those criminals were actually patriots who had been victims of victor’s justice by the Allies (Fackler, 2014). Thousands of Class-B and Class C war criminals were also added in the period of 1959 to 1970 (Pollmann, 2016a). Whenever Japanese politicians pay a visit to the shrine, tensions arise between Japan and the surrounding countries of former victims of Japan’s militarism, especially South Korea. While the meaning of the visit is restricted to the mourning of dead soldiers by Japanese government, foreign observers argue it as justification of aggression and rejection of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Pollmann, 2016a). The visits signaled “a resurgence of Japanese militarism through a rejection of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, and were thereby justifying Japanese aggression during WWII (Pollmann, 2016a).

As in the case of territorial dispute over the Liancourt Rocks, U.S. Cold War interest cannot be excluded from the origin of the issue. U.S. Cold War interest that

have failed to bring true justice to the war crimes of the colonial Japan at the end of WWII allowed the issue to be dragged until the present day. It allowed the Japanese right extremists to dominate the political field and distort the country’s past. U.S. have always maintained double standard against Japan. U.S. have always held soft stance over Japan in every case. While U.S. pressured proper settlements from the Germans, Austrians, and Swiss, the U.S. joined Japan’s side in every case demanding dismissal (Fisher, 2007). The obvious difference is found when compared to the case of Germany.

While U.S. pressured Germany to teach the Holocaust atrocities to its future generation;

to apologize and pay proper restitution to its former victims, no such pressure was placed on Japan.

Europe moved forward but Asia continued as a prisoner of the war and its colonial past.

Korea's division of Soviet and American creation remained, and Japan still refused even to consider, much less acknowledge, apologize, and settle, the claims of the victims of its wartime atrocities, instead dragging its last century of horror deeper and deeper into the new one. Japan’s postwar resistance is a function of factors, including U.S.

continuing Cold War interests that support rather than challenge Japan’s revisionist distortion of history, and particularly Japan’s religious and psychological differences from ally Germany of which the Yasukuni Shrine’s seemingly calm ambience defies its presence as nothing less than the spiritual and political center of Japan’s right wing revisionist movement rejecting wartime victim redress--Indeed, it’s the tyhoon’s eye of the growing international storm of protest against Japan’s rejectionism (Fisher, 2007).

The Japanese politicians’ visits to the shrine remind the victims of the pains they have suffered under Japanese colonialism. Japan is re-remembered as the enemy and aggressor as the Japanese politicians pay visits to the shrine (Ryu, 2007). The end result is the strengthening of nationalism, the worsening of bilateral relations and the weakening of cooperation (Ryu, 2007).

2.1.3. History Textbook

The right extremists often spread its influence within and outside the political field of Japan. One of its most active influence is found over historical education of Japan. In contrast to Germany, Japan was never pressured by U.S. to teach the war time atrocities to their future generations. Thus, the right extremists’ version of history, which support the proposition that little historical proof exists for the wartime atrocities and Japan need not apologize, expanded in the educational system of Japan (Fisher, 2007). Fisher argues “Japanese textbooks often indulge in outright whitewash and falsification, prompting protests from across Japan's former Pacific empire” (Fisher, 2007).

The Japanese right extremists argue that Japan’s military and political actions against its Asian neighbors since the Meiji Restoration were no different from the Western powers’ acquisition of territories and other imperialist actions around the world (Akaha, 2008). This is clearly seen at the Yushukan Museum, which is part of the Yasukuni Shrine complex in Tokyo (Akaha, 2008). One of the revisionist historian Shoichi Watanabe states:

There are shady parts in every country’s history. But if [a nation] collected and injected only those parts into its children, the nation could not but decline . . . The important point about a nation’s history education is to show a shining rainbow from myriad historical facts. The postwar education in Japan completely lacked a perspective from which to see a beautiful rainbow . . . It is only natural that the rainbow that the Japanese see should differ from the rainbows that the Chinese and the Koreans see, and it is nonsense to try to show the same rainbow. It is inexcusable to try to do so in compulsory education in Japan. (Akaha, 2008).

While education is a critical area of democratization reform, the school curriculum was continuously under the direct control of the MOE in postwar Japan (Nozaki & Selden, 2009). The state had control over the textbook authorization by introducing a textbook screening system (Nozaki, & Selden, 2009). During the 50s, the MOE increased the number of screening council members to add conservatives to the board and created full-time textbook examiner positions, filling the social studies positions with rightist wing extremists holding emperor-centred view of history and eager to defend the empire and Japan’s Asia Pacific Wars (Nozaki & Selden, 2009).

Nationalist version of emperor-centred history was prioritized over scientific history based on empirical data.

[This book] is as a whole too scientific. In particular, its description of history from the Meiji period [1868] to date is extremely lacking in [the spirit] of [Japan’s] autonomy [jishusei], to the extent that [I] sometimes took it to be the textbook of a foreign country, and wondered whether it was a social studies textbook for Japanese junior high school students or for certain [foreign] countries (Nozaki & Selden, 2009).

The MOE emphasized the colonization of other countries, minimizing and attempting to justify Japan’s war atrocities merely as one of many inevitable wars that were widely expanding in various parts of the world; as one of the many commonly committed colonialisms and invasions that occurred in various nations over the history:

[The textbook] says, “Our country inflicted immeasurable suffering and damage on various Asian nations, especially during the Pacific War.” . . . Eliminate this description, since a view even exists that [Japan] provided various Asian nations the chance for independence [from their Western colonizers] through the Pacific War. [The textbook],

in its treatment of the war, describes it as if Japan were unilaterally bad; it is not grounded in understanding of world history such as the international situation of the time (Nozaki

& Selden, 2009).

The publishers and authors of history textbooks often fought back and criticized against the MOE. However, over the decades, MOE always had significant influence over the school curriculum and power to pressure the publishers to revise the textbooks.

During the 80s and 90s, the textbooks happened to include more references to war atrocities Japan has committed during the Asia-Pacific War. The references to comfort women were included in some of the 1994 edition and 1997 edition of textbooks (Beal, Noazaki and Yang, 2001). However, even then, MOE continued to exert influence over the educational system in general by pressuring local schools on hosting flag Hinomaru and singing Kimigayo at school ceremonies (Beal et al., 2001).

The right extremists’ influence expanded within the political field as well. The LDP rightist politicians established the LDP Committee for the Examination of History during the 90s, to promote views of history that held the Asia-Pacific War to be justifiable, and which denied the existence of Nanjing Massacre and comfort women (Beal et al., 2001). In regards to the textbooks, they constantly demanded the MOE to order publishers in removing references to comfort women, in the resolution of apology that was to be issued at the fiftieth anniversary of Japan’s surrender, they removed key terms such as “acts of aggression” and “colonial rules” (Beal et al., 2001). Some of those members include those who later became prime ministers. Ryutaro Hashimoto and Yoshiro Mori were one of the members (Beal et al., 2001).

Then, one of the most controversial changes occurred in the education board of Japan in the early 2000. The revisionist textbook by the Fusosha Publishing Company that challenged or ignored some of the most sensitive aspects of Japan’s twentieth-century historical experience in Asia were approved by the MOE (Glosserman and Snyder, 2015). Many descriptions concerning Japanese war atrocities were cut back, removed, the most shocking being the almost total erasure of comfort women from the textbooks (Beal et al., 2001). This has not only won criticisms domestically, where many historians, teachers and scholars raised voices to fight back, but also has won immense international criticisms. Tensions rose between Japan and its neighbouring countries, especially with South Korea and China. Fusosha textbook was not the only version of textbooks approved by the MOE for use in secondary schools but other textbooks also underwent significant changes.

In the previous 1997 editions, all seven junior high history textbooks on the market mentioned the comfort women (Nozaki & Selden, 2009). In the 2002 editions, three of these texts dropped all references and three others made very brief reference without using the term “comfort women” and only one text retained the language and expanded discussion from the previous edition (Nozaki & Selden, 2009). The 2002 editions also altered or eliminated descriptions of other Japanese wartime atrocities (Nozaki & Selden, 2009). These changes remain more or less intact in the 2006 editions (Nozaki & Selden, 2009). Fushosha eventually disowned the controversial textbooks because they were financially unsustainable (Pollmann, 2015b). This was the result of hard efforts by citizen activists, who convinced local school boards to not adopt the textbooks (Pollmann, 2015b).

“…After the authors had made 137 corrections, the Ministry of Education approved the text and declared that it would not request further revisions, and that the local education boards, not the Ministry, would be responsible for their textbook adoption” (Beal et al., 2001). Leaving the decisions to the local school boards is an irrelevant issue for the neighboring countries that were former victims of Japan’s militarism. The mere approval of the textbook by the MOE was enough to anger the former victims, especially South Korea. The anger resulted in cut-off of many local-level and nongovernmental exchanges with Japan; temporary recall of ROK ambassador Choi Sang-Yong from Japan in April 2001; and incited public demonstrations in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul (Glosserman and Snyder, 2015). The South Korea’s public fume over Japan’s textbook during this period was further ignited when Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro insisted on making official visits to Yasukuni Shrine (Glosserman and Snyder, 2015).

During Lee’s administration, a claim over the islands of Dokdo/Takeshima in the Japanese textbooks stirred another outrage in South Korea. There were several attempts of improvement between Lee’s administration and DPJ leaderships in Japan.

Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya proposed a joint history textbook with South Korea and China in October 2009, Prime Minister Kan Naoto issued apologies in 2010 and in 2011, Japan returned some South Korean historical archives that had been taken to Japan during the colonial rule (Glosserman & Snyder, 2015). However, another round of Japanese textbook revisions reasserting Japan’s claim to Dokdo/Takeshima failed to bring significant improvement in the relationship.

The textbook controversy continues in recent years. All textbooks approved in the latest round of the government’s screening process promoted Japan’s claims on the disputed Dokdo/ Takeshima Islands (Pollmann, 2015b). In regards to the comfort women issue, right extremists even strived to assert its influence over the history textbook in U.S. A group of 50 Japanese scholars attacked McGraw-Hill U.S. textbook and his backers in academia for “factual errors” that the group claims no Japanese scholars would support (Johnson & Osumi, 2015). By likening the comfort women to those working in the red-light districts in the Dutch and Japanese capitals, one of the scholars, Ikuhiko Hata argues: “Prostitutes have existed at every time in human history, so I do not believe that comfort women are a special category” (Fifield, 2015a). In regards to the historical information of estimated 20 to 30 services carried by comfort women, Hata argues “the soldiers would have had no time to fight the war; they would have been too busy going to the brothel all the time.” (Fifield, 2015a).

Andrew Gordon, a professor of history at Harvard University’s Edwin O.

Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, argues that there was also Japanese government’s intervention in the efforts. Gordon said that the Japanese government

“sent its officials directly/uninvited/unannounced to the office of the textbook author, demanding deletion or correction” (Johnson & Osumi, 2015). Twenty American professors published a letter in this month’s edition of the American Historical Association’s journal to express their “dismay at recent attempts by the Japanese government to suppress statements in history textbooks both in Japan and elsewhere”

(Fifield, 2015a).

For former Ianfu, they remember their reality as it was: a life of sexual torture and a lifetime of persecution to follow. Today, they want a sincere apology from the Japanese government which may or may not include compensation. They want to tell their story to the public before they die, they want the Japanese government to be made accountable for their actions, and they want their story to be written into the history textbooks so that it will never be forgotten and never repeated again (Orreill, 2008).

To educate future generations on nation’s historical mistakes is an essential part of true reconciliation process and a step necessary for overcoming historical issues that lay between the relations of Japan and South Korea. It is a proof of acknowledgement, gesture of apology and sign of repentance to the victims. It is an inevitable step in avoiding recurrence of historical mistakes and a necessity in separation from the past.

The failure to do so results in inability of detaching postwar Japan from the prewar imperial Japan. For the victims, it chains the painful, vicious memories of the colonial

past to the present, making the victims impossible to forgive and move on from the past.

2.2. The Comfort Women Issue

Comfort women issue is one of the most controversial historical issues that lay between South Korea and Japan. The issue is however, not just an unresolved issue for South Korea but it is an international issue that remains unresolved for many countries that were previously under the colonization or invasion of Japan. An estimated number of 200,000 women of various ethnic and national backgrounds scattered all across Asia were victims of the issue. Yet, South Korea is the only country at the focal point of comfort women issue. Why is it that Taiwan was also the colony of Japan but maintains more positive relations with Japan while South Korea and Japan constantly fails to move on from historical disputes, especially in the comfort women issue?

This section is focused on answering those questions. The section begins with a detailed study on the origin and development of comfort women system, then focuses on a brief case study of Taiwan’s comfort women issue. Although this thesis is focused on the case of South Korea, since comfort women issue is an internationally unresolved issue for many countries, it is useful to understand other cases as well. The case of Taiwan has been chosen because Taiwan was another important colony of Japan but maintains contrasting relations to the one held by South Korea-Japan today. It is also necessary to raise awareness of the Taiwan’s case for there are currently only three remaining survivors in Taiwan. The case of Taiwan provides understanding of the significance of South Korean comfort women case and explains the reason why comfort women issue remains highly controversial in South Korea but not much in Taiwan.

Then, at last, this section focuses specifically on the South Korean case of comfort women to further understand its significance.

Then, at last, this section focuses specifically on the South Korean case of comfort women to further understand its significance.