Written on August 17, 2020, this essay begins with questions about NHK reporting prompted by Emmanuel Todd’s remarks on globalization and China on NHK BS1, and then cites a 2015 dialogue between historian Ikuhiko Hata and scholar Tsutomu Nishioka to examine how the comfort women issue developed into an international diplomatic controversy through the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting, the testimony of Seiji Yoshida, the Kono Statement, and the activities of Japanese lawyers and activists.

2020-08-17
Beginning with Yoshida, there were also lawyers who traveled throughout Asia to seek out former comfort women and bring compensation lawsuits, and lawyers who appealed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights—now the Human Rights Council—to have comfort women described as “sex slaves,” and succeeded in doing so.
Last week, I was half-watching a special program on the coronavirus broadcast on NHK BS1.
Emmanuel Todd was appearing on it, so from time to time I listened more closely.
That was because there was no reason to expect him simply to say whatever suited the intentions of those who control NHK’s news division.
The program was hosted by Chiaki Kamakura.
I first became aware of her when she served as the principal presenter of programs related to the Shanghai Expo.
The night before Todd appeared, a woman had been the guest.
I had the sound turned off and was only half-watching the screen, but the height of Chiaki Kamakura’s high heels was greater than anything I had ever seen.
Now, to the program featuring Todd.
Put simply, Todd said things such as, “Globalism was a fraud. It was a system designed to enable a handful of people to make enormous profits, and China was the country that exploited that system to expand and become increasingly overbearing…” — all perfectly obvious observations.
At the end of the program, Kamakura made a strange comment.
In the first place, it is itself strange for an NHK employee to insert personal commentary.
If she has something she wants to say, she could resign from NHK and become a politician—although I would rather not see more people like Azumi, who was also once an NHK employee.
There are any number of other paths, such as earning one’s living as a commentator.
Is the relationship between Chiaki Kamakura and the CCP a sound one?
When I searched because this question bothered me, I found that she had been the main presenter of Close-up Gendai Plus, which frequently featured figures such as Daisuke Tsuda and Koichi Nakano.
The following is an article I discovered in the course of that search.
From:
https://ironna.jp/article/825
Ikuhiko Hata × Tsutomu Nishioka Dialogue: “The Asahi’s False Reporting Defamed Japan”
The Sankei Shimbun, January 3, 2015
The year 2014 marked a major turning point in the “comfort women issue,” including the government’s review of the “Kono Statement” and the resignation of the president of the Asahi Shimbun.
As the new year begins, will there be progress concerning the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea?
Modern historian Ikuhiko Hata, 82, recipient of the 30th Seiron Grand Prize, and Tsutomu Nishioka, 58, professor at Tokyo Christian University, held a dialogue.
The two men, who have continued to argue for what they regard as historical truth, presented their views.
(Moderator and composition: Masatoshi Ono, Deputy Director, Seiron Research Office)
—On December 10 last year, former Asahi Shimbun reporter Takashi Uemura published a personal account in Bungeishunju concerning the “comfort women issue,” including a rebuttal to Professor Nishioka.
He has also responded to interviews by some media organizations.
Is the comfort women issue entering a new phase?
Nishioka: In the latest February issue of the monthly magazine Seiron, I responded comprehensively to Mr. Uemura.
In his account, he insists that he did not write fabricated articles.
I criticized as fabrication the fact that he added, on his own, the fictitious history that the former comfort woman had been “taken away as a member of the Women’s Volunteer Corps,” something she herself had never said even once, while omitting the history she repeatedly described—that, as a result of poverty, she was sold to a brothel to become a kisaeng and was later taken to a comfort station by her foster father from the brothel.
Hata: On December 22, the report of the third-party committee commissioned by the Asahi was released.
I had been paying attention because of the controversy surrounding the attempted termination of Mr. Uemura’s teaching position at Hokusei Gakuen University, but I was disappointed that the committee’s examination remained superficial, concluding that his conduct was “careless and imprudent” but that there was “nothing unnatural.”
Regarding the tape recording of the former comfort woman’s testimony that became the basis of the “scoop,” the explanation is that the Seoul bureau chief at the time learned of its existence, informed Mr. Uemura, and that Uemura then traveled to Seoul, listened to the tape, and wrote the article.
But why did the bureau chief go out of his way to summon Mr. Uemura from the Osaka City News Department?
It is puzzling, isn’t it?
Nishioka: At the Asahi at the time, there was a difference in temperature between the Tokyo and Osaka headquarters.
Osaka was pursuing a special project called “Women’s Pacific War” with strong convictions such as “the Japanese before the war were truly bad,” while many of those articles were not carried in the Tokyo edition.
Perhaps the Seoul bureau chief, who came under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Foreign News Department, wanted Osaka to write the story.
Hata: Even so, the fact that an article was written on the basis of a tape whose recorder was not clearly identified leaves an element of dubiousness.
It is said that the representative of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan played the tape for him, but he returned to Japan without meeting the former comfort woman herself.
Had he remained there for another three days, he could have attended the press conference of Kim Hak-sun, who had come forward publicly.
If he had done so, I think it would have become a complete scoop.
Some former Asahi employees even question whether the supposed tape recording actually existed.
The third-party committee’s report is generally severe in tone, but regarding the facts, it seems merely to trace the Asahi’s own August review.
It uncovered no new facts and offered no new understanding that reached the essence of the comfort women issue, which left me considerably disappointed.
The Yoshida testimony (Note 1) has already been examined exhaustively, and I do not believe it will become a new point of contention in the future.
Nishioka: Why did the Asahi publish its review article in August last year?
Under the Park Geun-hye administration’s openly anti-Japanese diplomacy, and through long-running comfort women campaigns by Koreans living overseas, including in the United States, the original Uemura articles and Seiji Yoshida’s earliest testimony were being disseminated internationally in the form of the claim “200,000 sex slaves.”
Ordinary Japanese people began to wonder whether something was wrong, and when they investigated, they realized that the Asahi may have published erroneous reports.
I believe the review came as debate intensified over the grave responsibility of reports more than twenty years old that had gradually damaged Japan’s reputation throughout the world.
Hata: I agree.
The Asahi’s influence over public opinion was rapidly weakening, while a tendency to criticize its position on the comfort women issue was growing stronger.
The gap between the Asahi and public opinion had also become conspicuous on other issues.
Perhaps it realized that it would be in trouble unless it changed direction somewhat.
Nishioka: The review itself was framed as “To Our Readers,” maintaining the posture that it was simply answering readers’ questions.
Twenty-three years earlier, Professor Hata traveled to Jeju Island and was the first to raise the issue that Yoshida’s claims were fabricated, but the Asahi did not take the position of answering Professor Hata.
Criticism was mounting, yet the approach was essentially, “We will respond to the false accusations being made against us.”
As a news organization, it should respond to criticism by saying, “We will answer that Nishioka paper.”
Uemura’s account does not answer the Nishioka paper either.
—Last year, the government conducted a review of the Kono Statement (Note 2).
Will clarifying historical truth open a path toward the future of Japan–South Korea relations?
Nishioka: I believe one event that had a major impact on Japan–South Korea relations was Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa’s apology to President Roh Tae-woo during his visit to South Korea in January 1992.
Since negotiations for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea began in 1951, the comfort women issue had never been raised as a diplomatic issue.
If it truly constituted an unresolved issue, it should have been raised when the 1965 Japan–South Korea Basic Treaty was concluded, but it was not.
Then, in the 1980s, Mr. Yoshida wrote a book and even went to South Korea to apologize.
In 1991, lawyers in Japan specializing in postwar compensation became involved, former comfort women filed lawsuits, and the Asahi continued reporting the developments in real time.
Until then, the South Korean media had treated the comfort women issue only modestly, but after the Asahi’s major campaign in 1991, it began to receive extensive coverage.
Hata: Against that background, on January 11, 1992, the Asahi launched a major campaign using what I regard as a trick-like method, reporting such claims as “Evidence of military involvement discovered,” “Women forcibly taken away under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps and made into comfort women,” and “The great majority of comfort women were Korean women.”
The editorial the following day argued that Japan “should apologize and compensate.”
I call this the “Big Bang,” and in fact the comfort women issue subsequently developed according to the Asahi’s scenario.
Nishioka: What added further momentum was the Foreign Ministry’s attitude of apologizing first.
Combined with the Asahi’s reporting, this transformed the comfort women issue into a diplomatic problem.
The recent review of the Kono Statement also states that, as early as December 1991, consideration was being given to making an apology.
At that stage, the facts concerning the kind of forcible recruitment described by Mr. Yoshida had not been established, and an apology should not be made before investigating what actually happened.
Why make a diplomatic apology at that point?
An apology should come after an investigation.
Hata: I think more than half the responsibility for the comfort women issue becoming such an enormous problem lies with Japan itself.
South Korea was essentially in a passive position.
Beginning with Mr. Yoshida, there were Japanese lawyers who traveled through various parts of Asia seeking out former comfort women and bringing compensation lawsuits, and lawyers who urged the United Nations Commission on Human Rights—now the Human Rights Council—to redefine the comfort women as “sex slaves,” and succeeded in doing so.
I simply cannot understand why some Japanese become so absorbed in activities that demean their own country.
In other countries, they would probably face social sanctions, but not in Japan.
Instead, the media elevate them.
Nishioka: It may appear that developments concerning the comfort women issue began with the Asahi’s review last August, but that is not actually the case.
The Sankei Shimbun and the monthly Seiron produced significant scoops, including obtaining contemporaneous records and revealing that interviews with sixteen former comfort women—said to have formed the basis of the Kono Statement—were unreliable investigations unsupported by corroborating research.
They also obtained and published in full the previously unseen Japanese government rebuttal to the Coomaraswamy Report (Note 3), a document that the Foreign Ministry had once submitted to the United Nations and then abruptly withdrawn.
Publishing government documents that had been treated as highly confidential and bringing new facts into the public domain raised the level of the debate.
I believe this background contributed to the rapid developments in comfort women reporting.
If people working in journalism want to make a point, it is absolutely necessary either to uncover new facts or to propose a new way of looking at the issue.
I hope the new year will bring further constructive debate of this kind.