This record examines claims concerning how the “forced abduction” narrative surrounding the comfort women issue spread internationally, including its impact on theatrical portrayals in the United States, comfort women statues, South Korean public opinion, and Japan–South Korea relations, while discussing the Asahi Shimbun’s verification articles and journalistic responsibility.

August 17, 2020
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
This section discusses the Asahi Shimbun’s August 5 feature titled “How We Reported the Comfort Women Issue: Answering Readers’ Questions” and its verification article published on August 6, focusing on what the perception of “forced abduction” in the comfort women issue brought about internationally and in Japan–South Korea relations, and on how the Asahi Shimbun itself examined the effects and responsibility associated with its reporting.

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The Asahi Shimbun’s August 5 feature titled “How We Reported the Comfort Women Issue: Answering Readers’ Questions”
No reference to its own role in the adverse effects on Japan–South Korea relations
Sakurai: What has happened as a result of the forced-abduction narrative taking on a life of its own? South Koreans are now staging a play in the United States called “Comfort” (comfort = slave), based on the comfort women issue. I saw it on the news. The stage depicts women who resist and cry out being violently taken away, as well as scenes in which they are about to be raped. It is understandable that Americans who know nothing about the comfort women issue would say, “I never knew such a thing happened. How terrible,” and in fact they have made comments of that kind.
The story created by the Asahi has in this way become an international issue and has begun to take on a life of its own as though it were established fact. The erection of statues is one example.
When I consider the gravity of that responsibility and the fact that the Asahi nevertheless appears to show almost no remorse, I believe the Asahi Shimbun should be urged to cease publication. Bungeishunju discontinued its magazine Marco Polo over an article concerning the massacre of Jews, did it not?
Kadota: I believe it was an article claiming that “there were no gas chambers” at Auschwitz.
Sakurai: There is another example. The Kodansha magazine DAYS JAPAN published an article saying that Agnes Chan received extremely high speaking fees, but when it became clear that this was not necessarily true, the magazine was discontinued as well. There may be room for debate over whether that latter decision was appropriate, but in any event the magazine ceased publication. Incidentally, DAYS JAPAN was published again fourteen years later under different management. What the Asahi has done this time is every bit as serious as what those two publications did. Could what the Asahi did not be described as criminal reporting against Japanese people of the past, Japanese people living today, Japanese people of the future, and Japan itself?
As I mentioned briefly already, the Asahi’s reporting also adversely affected many South Koreans who had believed that “the Japanese did not do anything quite so terrible.” This is another point that must not be overlooked. There are scholars in South Korea who have written serious papers and books arguing that “there was no forced abduction of comfort women; in reality, they were sold by their fathers or husbands.” Yet all of those arguments were pushed aside, and an erroneous story was constructed in which the Japanese military had forcibly abducted them, driving people who might otherwise have been more pro-Japanese toward anti-Japanese sentiment. South Korea has now reached a point where merely saying something pro-Japanese can result in social ostracism. In that sense, the Asahi has inflicted immeasurable misfortune on South Korean people as well. The Asahi bears a heavy responsibility. That is why I believe we have reached the point where the Asahi should first cease publication and, if it truly wishes to practice journalism, launch a newspaper again with an entirely new organization.
Abiru: In its August 6 verification article, the Asahi devoted a full page to the question, “Why did Japan–South Korea relations deteriorate?” Yet it made no reference whatsoever to its own responsibility. The government’s verification report on the Kono Statement had already pointed out that an Asahi Shimbun article dated January 11, 1992, caused South Korean public opinion to become inflamed. Despite that, the Asahi made no mention of this either. At one point—and this was only a joke—I composed a little verse: “If only there were no Asahi in this world, how tranquil Japan–South Korea relations might be.”
Sakurai: That is good. (Laughs)