Published on August 26, 2020. Drawing on Junko Miyawaki’s work, this article presents her arguments concerning the Yalta–Potsdam postwar order, Chinese and Korean narratives about Japan, President Obama’s remarks on the comfort women issue, the response of Japan’s Foreign Ministry and political leaders, historical education since the GHQ occupation, and her view that a scholar’s mission is to provide the historical account closest to what the evidence supports.

August 26, 2020
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The Yalta–Potsdam Order Reinforces the Falsehoods of China and South Korea
It is impossible to persuade Koreans and Chinese.
For them to be persuaded would mean denying their own history.
There is nothing more futile than debating with them.
However, the truth must be communicated to people in the rest of the world.
The United States, however, finds the claims of South Korea and China more convenient for maintaining the Yalta–Potsdam order that determined the structure of the postwar world, and therefore ends up supporting their assertions.
Indeed, when President Obama visited South Korea, he described the comfort women issue as a serious violation of human rights and expressed agreement with President Park Geun-hye.
The postwar system itself has become a structure that reinforces the falsehoods of South Korea and China.
That is why Koreans conduct anti-Japanese campaigns in the United States, while Chinese people likewise seek to deceive ordinary Americans and instill in them an anti-Japanese view of history.
As a result, the international situation surrounding historical issues has become unfavorable to Japan.
Americans, however, are people who, when something is explained logically and they are convinced, will change their previous attitudes and act accordingly, so it is extremely important for Japanese people to explain matters properly.
In that sense, the negligence of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a serious problem.
Its failure to provide proper explanations every time South Korea and China engaged in political propaganda has weakened Japan’s position today.
Needless to say, Japanese politicians must also assert what needs to be asserted in international diplomacy, with spirit and confidence.
However, before explaining Japan’s position to the world, we must correct the fact that Japanese people themselves have been taught mistaken versions of history ever since the GHQ occupation policies.
Japanese people themselves need to understand their own history properly.
Therefore, my mission as a scholar is first to free Japanese people from this mind control.
This is a separate matter from diplomacy and politics.
Diplomacy and politics require not only argument, but also bargaining and compromise.
A scholar, however, investigates and studies historical materials and provides the version of history that appears to come closest to the historical facts that can only barely be discerned from those materials.
How people use that history, or how they choose to think about it, is up to each individual.
Unlike South Korea and China, Japan is a genuinely free society, and everyone is free to think whatever they wish.
But I want at least to provide the historical truth that can serve as material for that free thought.
I believe that this is my mission as a scholar.