An essay by Sakurai Yoshiko exposes how China’s fabricated “comfort women” narratives rely on unrealistic stories and grotesque imagery. These elements reflect not Japanese conduct, but the psychological and ideological mindset of the Chinese authors themselves.

2016-05-02

The following is an essay by Sakurai Yoshiko, published on the left side of today’s Sankei Shimbun front page.

All Japanese citizens should bow their heads before the quality of her work. She is the genuine article among genuine professionals. She sheds light on truths that Asahi and Nikkei concealed—truths deliberately hidden. Her work is, in that sense, also the work of an artist among artists.

Emphasis and passages marked with asterisks are mine.

On April 30 in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio without even a smile:

“Japan–China relations have repeatedly fallen into valleys.”

“And surely the Japanese side knows best what caused that.”

Faced with Wang’s arrogant remarks, which amounted to one-sided criticism of Japan, Kishida responded calmly, saying that it was undesirable for exchanges between the two foreign ministers to be suspended.

There is no need to be overbearing.

But is Japanese diplomacy really acceptable in this form?

China launched a joint committee last May with South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Netherlands to register so-called comfort women materials in the Memory of the World program of UNESCO.

They are eyeing the application deadline at the end of this month.

As Japan’s foreign minister, Kishida should at least have calmly warned Wang to handle historical issues such as comfort women fairly. Did foreign ministry officials inform Kishida of the shocking content of Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies of Sex Slaves of the Japanese Empire, a book long warned about by Professor Takahashi Shiro of Meisei University?

The book is believed to form the core of China’s UNESCO application materials and has already been introduced by CNN and The Wall Street Journal.

It was coauthored by three scholars, including Professor Su Zhiliang of Shanghai Normal University.

The English edition runs over 250 pages and was published with the cooperation of the University of British Columbia, the University of Hong Kong, and the University of Oxford.

This fact vividly demonstrates how irresponsible and unreliable universities can be, regardless of East or West. These universities should be ashamed.

The content is absurd, but because the prestigious University of Oxford was involved in its publication, it is likely to gain credibility in the international community.

Reading it leaves one with the same bleak feeling as reading the Coomaraswamy Report.

The unreality of the narrative and the brutality of its descriptions do not reflect the Japanese people, but rather vividly express the mentality of the Chinese authors who wrote it.

To be continued.