This article revisits a chapter originally published in 2019 and examines the links among Seiji Yoshida’s testimony, the Sakhalin lawsuit, the comfort women lawsuits, wartime labor disputes, media reporting, and postwar compensation, based on a dialogue published in the Japanese magazine WiLL.

2020-07-15
This chapter, originally published on August 21, 2019, is being republished after corrections to typographical errors, wording, and paragraph structure.
It was previously published on May 13, 2019, under a title criticizing a comment made by Kensuke Okoshi while he was presenting NHK’s nine o’clock news program.
It was also based on a chapter published on January 4, 2019, entitled “Extortion and Intimidation: The Wave of Anger Toward South Korea and the Japanese Anti-Japan Activists Who Supplied It with Arguments.”
The following is taken from a special dialogue between journalist Masayuki Takayama and journalist Miki Otaka, published in the previous month’s issue of the magazine WiLL.
It is material that should be read by the people of Japan and by readers throughout the world.
Passages enclosed by asterisks are my own notes and opinions.
Evaluations of individuals and organizations are presented as the criticism and commentary of the author quoting the dialogue.
【On Haruki Murakami’s Remarks】
Haruki Murakami made remarks in the Asahi Shimbun suggesting that Japan should continue apologizing repeatedly to South Korea.
I strongly criticized those remarks, not merely as an error of judgment, but as words that effectively served to repeat and promote the South Korean position.
The Sakhalin lawsuit was followed by the comfort women issue and then by the wartime labor disputes.
One demand followed another, creating a situation that resembled repeated extortion.
Were Japanese activists hostile to their own country involved behind the scenes?
Did interests or financial benefits develop around the enormous sums paid as compensation?
【How Seiji Yoshida Was Used】
Takayama:
Here comes the former Miss Japan.
Otaka:
How embarrassing.
She laughs.
Takayama:
Not at all.
You are as beautiful as ever.
Let me get straight to the point.
In your 2017 book, “I Will Remove My Father’s Apology Monument: The Confession of the Son of Seiji Yoshida, the Origin of the Comfort Women Issue,” published by Sankei Shimbun Publications, you investigated every aspect of Seiji Yoshida’s life and the process that led to his false testimony.
Otaka:
Yes.
Takayama:
South Korea has once again produced an unreasonable ruling in the wartime labor case.
Otaka:
In 1983, Seiji Yoshida erected a monument at the Hill of Longing in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, South Korea, apologizing for the alleged forcible removal of Koreans.
He prostrated himself at the unveiling ceremony.
However, the monument contained no reference to comfort women.
That was because the comfort women issue had not yet emerged publicly at that time.
I believe the objective may have been to use Yoshida’s testimony as a preliminary step toward inscribing the alleged forcible removal of Koreans to Sakhalin in stone and extracting money from the Japanese government indefinitely.
Haruki Murakami made remarks in the Asahi Shimbun suggesting that Japan should continue apologizing to South Korea.
I criticized those remarks as serving a role comparable, in a figurative sense, to that of an “agent” repeating the South Korean position, rather than being a simple mistake.
Takayama:
I see.
So the existence of alleged wartime laborers had already been raised as an issue long before the recent court cases.
Otaka:
Yes.
I believe it began with questions concerning the treatment of Koreans who remained in Sakhalin during and after the war.
Takayama:
During the period when Japan governed the Korean Peninsula, Koreans who held Japanese nationality moved to Sakhalin together with Japanese workers, either in search of employment or through wartime labor mobilization.
Otaka:
The year before Yoshida published his book, “My War Crimes: The Forcible Removal of Koreans,” in which he described an alleged hunt for comfort women on Jeju Island, he spoke about those claims at a lecture.
In September and November of the same year, he appeared twice in court in connection with the lawsuit concerning the return of Koreans remaining in Sakhalin, commonly known as the Sakhalin lawsuit.
During his first appearance, he testified about an alleged roundup of Korean men for Sakhalin.
During his second appearance, he testified about an alleged roundup of comfort women on Jeju Island.
Some readers may not immediately understand how Yoshida became connected with the Sakhalin lawsuit.
However, without understanding these circumstances, it is impossible to see the essential nature of the comfort women controversy.
The Sakhalin lawsuit involved Kozo Igarashi, a former Socialist Party politician who later became Chief Cabinet Secretary.
Attorney Kenichi Takagi, who was also involved in lawsuits concerning Korean comfort women, served as secretary-general of the plaintiffs’ legal team.
The suit was filed against the Japanese government.
The legal team claimed that Japan had forcibly taken 43,000 Koreans to Sakhalin and had abandoned only the Koreans there after the war.
It argued that the Japanese government was responsible.
However, Koreans living in Sakhalin are said to have traveled there voluntarily in search of better wages.
If that was the case, Japan would not have incurred an obligation to compensate them.
A retrospective explanation was therefore needed, insisting that they had been “forcibly taken” to Sakhalin.
Yoshida was then brought forward as a witness who could testify about forcible removal.
Takayama:
I see.
I did not know that those matters were connected.
That was why the Asahi Shimbun reported his testimony.
Passages enclosed by asterisks are the author’s notes.
【The Common Structure Linking the Comfort Women and Sakhalin Issues】
Otaka:
As a result, the Japanese government provided more than eight billion yen from the national treasury for the return of South Koreans remaining in Sakhalin.
The Sakhalin assistance payments were still continuing when this dialogue was published.
Approximately 100 million yen had also been budgeted in the preceding year.
Like me, most Japanese citizens are probably learning this fact for the first time.
Two years after the Sakhalin lawsuit ended, comfort women litigation suddenly began in 1991.
The Asian Women’s Fund was established in 1995 after the formation of the Murayama Cabinet.
Approximately 4.8 billion yen was provided from the national treasury before the fund was dissolved in 2007.
Enormous amounts of money were involved in both the Sakhalin lawsuit and the comfort women issue.
Behind this series of lawsuits was the weakening and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, which had been a source of support for the former Socialist Party and other left-wing forces.
If even a political party such as the Socialist Party is said to have received Soviet funding, it is not possible to declare without investigation that private media companies such as the Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo have been completely free from attempts at foreign influence.
China seeks control over the Senkaku Islands.
Other forces seek to separate Okinawa from Japan or weaken Japan’s security system.
The possibility that such forces are conducting political or informational activities in Okinawa should not be rejected without examination.
I believe that reporting by newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, as well as by NHK, has ultimately helped to promote such positions and distort public understanding of Okinawa.
I also have serious doubts about claims presented internationally by the late Takeshi Onaga and some academics that the people of Okinawa constitute a separate minority people.
There should also be a strict investigation into whether foreign funds have entered political and propaganda activities aimed at preventing Japan from possessing military forces, retaliatory capabilities, or nuclear weapons.
When Hong Kong citizens faced the prospect of losing their freedom and many took to the streets, more than 900 accounts and websites reportedly connected to the Chinese government were used for disinformation and influence operations.
Facebook identified and removed them.
It would be dangerously naive to assume that China, which places great importance on shaping public opinion in its own favor, has undertaken no activities concerning Okinawa, an island separated from Japan’s main territory and of great military importance.
China seeks to expand its influence in Asia and ultimately throughout the world.
I therefore do not believe it has ignored the Okinawa Times or the Ryukyu Shimpo, both of which possess significant influence in Okinawa.
Under one-party Communist rule, propaganda and information control are essential instruments of government.
That reality must be confronted directly.
Otaka:
Once they could no longer expect support from the former Soviet Union, they may have turned to the interests connected with postwar compensation and devised ways of extracting money from Japan.
In other words, the comfort women issue may have been prepared as the next means of obtaining postwar compensation from the Japanese government by people connected with the Sakhalin lawsuit.
The comfort women issue and the Sakhalin issue share a common underlying structure.
Yoshida may therefore be described as having been conveniently used by people who gathered around the interests created by postwar compensation.
After the Soviet Union established effective control over Sakhalin, many Koreans were left there.
I believe that Kenichi Takagi and Yasuaki Onuma, the late professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo who helped establish the Asian Women’s Fund, used the concept of “forcible removal” to frame the matter as the responsibility of the Japanese government.
While serving as presenter of NHK’s News Watch 9, Kensuke Okoshi, who also studied at the University of Tokyo, confidently stated that forcible removal had taken place.
I strongly criticized both that statement and the reporting position behind it.
NHK is a public broadcaster financed through fees collected from the Japanese people and exercises enormous social influence.
It must therefore deal strictly with misconduct and embezzlement cases involving its employees.
It must also refrain from presenting one political interpretation of a historical dispute as though it were an uncontested fact.
I have similarly questioned whether reporting and activities involving Eriko Ikeda have, at times, appeared to repeat the position of North Korea.
Takayama:
But in reality, did the Koreans not settle there voluntarily?
Otaka:
Exactly.
During the 1990s, Socialist Party legislators repeatedly raised the subjects of forced wartime labor and comfort women in the National Diet in an attempt to transform them into political issues.
This becomes clear from reading the Diet records of the period.
According to Sawako Arai, author of “Why Could the Koreans in Sakhalin Not Return Home?” published by Soshisha, Takagi was serving at the time as legal adviser to the former Socialist Party.
His law office was reportedly located in the same tenant building as the office of Takako Doi.
【The Asahi Shimbun’s Retaliation】
Takayama:
Speaking of the 1990s, in 1991, Takashi Uemura, then a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, wrote about former comfort woman Hak-sun Kim.
He reported that one of the Korean military comfort women who had allegedly been taken to the battlefield under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps and forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers had been found living in Seoul.
He further reported that the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan had begun interviewing her.
Uemura later sued journalist Yoshiko Sakurai for defamation after she argued that his series of articles contained fabrications.
However, the Sapporo District Court dismissed Uemura’s claims.
In other words, Uemura lost the case at that level.
Then, in 1992, Yoshiaki Yoshimi, professor emeritus at Chuo University, gave Asahi Shimbun reporter Tetsuro Tatsuno copies of documents concerning comfort women that he had examined in the library of the National Institute for Defense Studies.
Those documents then became the basis of a front-page article in the Asahi Shimbun.
To be continued.