August 30, 2020. This article examines the Asahi Shimbun’s 2014 retraction of articles based on Seiji Yoshida’s testimony, documents presented by Professor Yoshiaki Yoshimi concerning military involvement, the drafting of the Kono Statement, and remarks by former U.S. Representative Mike Honda, while discussing how the historical narrative surrounding the comfort women issue was formed and spread internationally.

The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
■ The Comfort Women Issue
The comfort women issue is entirely fictitious.
Even South Korean textbooks published before 1996 contained no reference to it.
It is no exaggeration to say that it all began with erroneous and fabricated reporting by the Asahi Shimbun.
The Asahi Shimbun itself finally acknowledged its errors and retracted the articles in its August 5, 2014 edition.
The newspaper also acknowledged that the testimony of Seiji Yoshida, whose claim that he had “forcibly taken comfort women away” it had featured as many as sixteen times, was false.
It offered no apology whatsoever, however, and devoted itself entirely to making excuses.
It is unforgivable that, for thirty-five years, the newspaper made no correction and continued to promote a self-denigrating view of Japanese history.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor at Chuo University, claimed to have discovered documents demonstrating the military’s involvement, and the Asahi Shimbun reported them on a large scale as “a major documentary discovery.”
In reality, however, the military was involved in order to fulfill its social responsibilities: (1) protecting local women, (2) addressing the sexual needs of soldiers, and (3) preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
They were by no means documents demonstrating forcible abduction.
The investigation conducted when the Kono Statement was issued found nothing demonstrating forcible abduction by the military.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, strongly requested that “because this is a matter involving the honor of former comfort women, we insist that wording suggesting coercion be included; if that is done, no questions of compensation or any other problems will arise in the future.” Consequently, the Japanese government showed the draft to the South Korean side in advance and adjusted its wording, producing a statement that could only be read as saying that the military had forcibly abducted comfort women.
The intention was to adopt a “calm and mature approach” and achieve a political settlement all at once, but it completely backfired.
Later, U.S. Representative Mike Honda, who introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives demanding an apology, was asked on Japanese television about the basis for the claim of forcible abduction. He replied, “There is already a statement in the form of the Kono Statement, is there not? Why, then, did the Japanese prime minister offer a heartfelt apology?”
If matters remain as they are, the Kono Statement will continue to dishonor Japan forever.
…has been quoted, detached from its original context, and allowed to take on a life of its own.
Kazuo Sone: He published a three-part series of memoirs concerning the Nanjing Massacre, entitled My Personal Account of the Nanjing Massacre: A Story of War Unrecorded in Military History (Sairyusha, 1984), but it was entirely fictional.
In it, he wrote that he had participated in combat as the leader of an infantry squad, that he himself had carried out massacres following the fall of Nanjing, and that he had witnessed such acts.
It was later revealed, however, that he had actually been a first-year artillery soldier; only part of his unit took part in the Nanjing entry ceremony, and he himself had never even entered the city.
Tamaki Matsuoka: A former female elementary-school teacher in Matsubara City, Osaka Prefecture.
She has published numerous works as a researcher of the Nanjing Massacre Incident.
Among them, The Battle of Nanjing: In Search of Sealed Memories attracted attention by describing numerous acts of brutality allegedly committed in China by 102 former Japanese soldiers.
The Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun praised the work so highly that they urged the Japanese people to reflect deeply upon it.
Professor Shudo Higashinakano of Asia University, however, pointed out that all the soldiers were identified by assumed names, making verification impossible, and that the contents were filled with errors.
Professor Yoshimi of Chuo University’s discovery of documents: In 1992, Professor Yoshimi copied documents concerning comfort women that he had examined in the library of the National Institute for Defense Studies of the Japan Defense Agency, gave them to an Asahi Shimbun reporter, and commented, “The military’s involvement is evident; an apology and compensation are required.”
The Asahi Shimbun reported the documents as “a major documentary discovery,” and stated in its editorial that same day that “Korean women were forcibly taken away under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps” and that “their number is said to have been between 80,000 and 200,000.”