The campaign launched by The Asahi Shimbun in 1991 claiming that “comfort women had been forcibly taken away.”
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who visited South Korea and apologized eight times without investigating the facts.
The South Korean government, which recognized, “We can use this,” and transformed the comfort women issue into a bargaining card for extracting advanced technology from Japan.
And what lay beyond this was the transformation into a giant of Samsung, which around 1990 was not yet the global corporation that it is today.
This chapter reconnects, as a single chain of causation, The Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on comfort women, the Japanese government’s hasty apologies, South Korea’s political exploitation of the issue, the transfer of advanced technology from Japan to South Korea, and Samsung’s transformation into a global corporation—events that until now have been discussed separately.
What was damaged by The Asahi Shimbun’s reporting was not only Japan’s honor.
What was lost was Japan’s national interests themselves: advanced technology, industrial competitiveness, and national wealth.
How enormous was the damage to Japan’s national interests caused by The Asahi Shimbun?
This is an important chapter that every Japanese citizen should reread, one that sharply exposes this little-known structure.
The chapter entitled “Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who visited South Korea, apologized as many as eight times. From South Korea’s perspective, they must have thought, ‘We can use this,’” which I published on Ameba on 2018-02-06, now ranks high in searches.
This is a chapter that every Japanese citizen needs to reread.
The following special feature reveals, from its very first page, the truth that could never be known by reading The Asahi Shimbun and other such newspapers, or by watching the news programs of their television stations and NHK.
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who visited South Korea, apologized as many as eight times. From South Korea’s perspective, they must have thought, “We can use this.”
The chapter bearing that title, which I published on Ameba on 2018-02-06, now ranks high in searches.
This is a chapter that every Japanese citizen needs to reread.
The following special feature reveals, from its very first page, the truth that could never be known by reading The Asahi Shimbun and other such newspapers, or by watching the news programs of their television stations and NHK.
Pro-North Korean, Anti-Japanese, and Promise-Breaking…
The Crimes and Punishment of The Asahi Shimbun, Which Created a Dark South Korea
How to Fix the Goalposts in Place
—At this point, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s administration is making moves to reopen the Japan–South Korea agreement concerning the comfort women issue that was concluded at the end of 2015.
How do you view this?
Abiru
I believe that the present situation was probably anticipated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On December 28, 2015, the day the Japan–South Korea agreement was concluded, Prime Minister Abe told those around him, “At the times of the Kono Statement and the Asian Women’s Fund as well, the South Korean side did not keep its promises. With that in mind, we proceeded with the negotiations while insisting on obtaining confirmation from the other side that this constituted a ‘final resolution.’”
In other words, the negotiations were conducted on the premise that “the South Korean side does not keep its promises,” and the agreement therefore took this form.
At the time, Prime Minister Abe made remarks to the effect that, “If South Korea violates the agreement after we have gone this far, it will be finished as a member of the international community,” and, “With this, we have fixed in place the goalposts that had continued to be moved.”
And this time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is also saying, “We will not move even one millimeter.”
I think that says it all.
Nishioka
For my part as well, the present situation was anticipated, but I disagree with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials publicly declaring that “South Korea has continued to move the goalposts.”
It was Japan that first moved the goalposts, and the deterioration of Japan–South Korea relations to this point arose from the interaction between Japan and South Korea.
In 1991, The Asahi Shimbun launched a campaign claiming that “there had been forced recruitment of comfort women,” and in response, without conducting an investigation, the Japanese government sent Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to South Korea the following January, where he apologized as many as eight times.
From South Korea’s perspective, they must have thought, “We can use this.”
2018-12-31
Upon investigating the matter, it was found that even within the Roh Tae-woo administration at the time, there had been debate over whether or not to use the comfort women issue as bargaining material in dealings with Japan.
The ambassador to Japan opposed it, but the Blue House—the Presidential Office—judged that the issue could be used as leverage to advance negotiations arguing that Japan should provide South Korea with advanced technology in order to resolve the trade-deficit problem that was then pending, and used it for that purpose.
Abiru
The Japanese government was naive and probably thought that historical issues and economic and trade issues were separate matters.
To be continued.
＊I am someone who knows what kind of company Samsung was before 1991, and this chapter also explains one of the major reasons why Samsung became the company that it is today.＊