Published on October 29, 2019.
Based on an essay by Abiru Rui, this article examines the process by which the Kono Statement was created.
Through diplomatic records and internal Foreign Ministry documents obtained by the Sankei Shimbun, it argues that the Kono Statement was not an independently drafted Japanese document, but a “Japan-South Korea joint production” shaped through close coordination with the South Korean side, while the Asahi Shimbun uncritically spread Kono’s assertions.

October 29, 2019.
In other words, Mr. Kono told a double lie in response to Asahi’s interview in an attempt to justify himself, and Asahi then uncritically and gleefully poured it out and carried his spear for him.
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
Mr. Kono and Asahi Are “Birds of a Feather.”
Mr. Kono also stated as follows, insisting that the statement was created independently by Japan, and clearly denied the suspicion that it had been coordinated between Japan and South Korea.
“The announcement of the statement may have been notified in advance to the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
At that time, the purport may also have been conveyed.
However, this issue is not of a character that would be coordinated with South Korea.”
However, this too was revealed to be untrue by diplomatic record documents obtained by the Sankei Shimbun at the end of 2013.
According to those documents, the Japanese and South Korean governments had closely coordinated the content, wording, and expressions of the statement right up until immediately before its announcement.
For example, in the draft of the statement, regarding the part that said, “Regarding the recruitment of comfort women, contractors who received the intention of the military carried this out,” the South Korean side demanded that “intention” be changed to “instruction,” which would clearly indicate coercion.
When the Japanese side pushed back, saying that there was no basis for saying that the military had “instructed” it, and that “request,” expressing strong expectation, was the furthest it could go, the South Korean side proposed “request” in the sense of “strongly asking for and requiring,” and in the end this expression was adopted.
The Kono Statement was created after repeated exchanges that were just like a teacher called the South Korean government marking in red the answer sheet submitted by a student called the Japanese government and ordering it to be redone.
Not only that, even the government’s report on the results of its investigation concerning comfort women, announced at the same time as the Kono Statement and constituting the official recognition of facts, was created after largely accepting South Korea’s demands for revisions.
It was, so to speak, a “Japan-South Korea joint production.”
To give one example, in the section on “the operation and management of comfort stations,” regarding the draft description that “the comfort women were in a situation far removed from a state of freedom,” the South Korean side demanded that it be rewritten as “they were forced to live a painful life without freedom,” and the Japanese side accepted it as it was.
In other words, Mr. Kono told a double lie in response to Asahi’s interview in an attempt to justify himself, and Asahi then uncritically and gleefully poured it out and carried his spear for him.
Mr. Kono’s actions can also be described as a betrayal of the people.
In Asahi’s interview, Mr. Kono also said, “I think what matters is whether it is accurate to historical fact,” but is it not he himself who has tried to distort historical fact through falsehoods?
Ordinarily, since Mr. Kono had told such blatant lies and Asahi had then published them prominently in its pages and been made to lose face, Asahi should have protested to Mr. Kono, corrected the article, and apologized to its readers.
However, Asahi ignored the Sankei Shimbun’s reporting and did not even independently verify the matter.
Afterward, even when the government’s verification of the process by which the Kono Statement was created publicly made clear that Sankei’s reporting was factual, Asahi continued its honeymoon with Mr. Kono.
The phrase “birds of a feather” comes to mind.
The Asahi Shimbun of August 5, 1993, the day after the announcement of the Kono Statement, described these circumstances as follows.
“On the night of July 30, after the hearing survey had ended, Tanaka Kotaro, councillor at the Cabinet Councillors’ Office on External Affairs, said in Seoul: ‘There are also parts where the memories of the former comfort women are vague, and we will not scrutinize the contents of the testimony one by one in detail.
We will receive them naturally and in their entirety.’”
It is clear that the Miyazawa Kiichi Cabinet at the time was simply rushing toward an early political settlement, and that pursuing the facts or clarifying the truth was secondary.
In any case, the attitude was to accept whatever was said, so as not to create friction with the South Korean side.
Naturally, such an attitude on the part of the government was understood by Asahi reporters who were covering this issue, and they even made it into an article.
On this point, the same view is also recorded in an internal document created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 1993, half a year before the announcement of the Kono Statement, which the Sankei Shimbun obtained in 2014.
Regarding the hearing survey of former comfort women, it stated as follows.
“To consider implementing it in the minimum necessary form, so to speak, as a ritual.”
From the beginning, it had been envisioned as a “ritual,” and the factual relationships were probably of no importance.
The people who have been hurt and bound by the Kono Statement, which was based on such a thing, have truly been made fools of.
This article continues.