This article revisits an essay by Professor Nishioka Tsutomu, originally published in the magazine Seiron, to explain how the so-called “comfort women issue” was created as a diplomatic problem. It examines Asahi Shimbun’s misreporting, the Japanese government’s response, and the critical role played by Japanese activists themselves—facts largely unknown to the Japanese public.

June 15, 2016
The following is a reintroduction of an essay by Professor Nishioka Tsutomu of Tokyo Christian University, published in the March issue of the magazine Seiron.
This is because, as was the case with myself, most readers of Asahi Shimbun and many Japanese people are surely unaware of the facts and the course of events.
[Omitted.]
I have repeatedly argued that the so-called “comfort women issue” was created by misreporting by Asahi Shimbun and by the blunder of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which apologized without even conducting proper investigation.
While there certainly were women historically referred to as comfort women, there was no “comfort women issue” in the sense of an unresolved problem requiring solution until the early 1990s.
As former Diet member Nakayama has stated, the situation in which comfort women became a diplomatic issue was something “we ourselves created.”
First, Asahi Shimbun conducted a large-scale campaign contrary to the facts, spreading domestically and internationally the falsehood that “numerous Korean women were taken to the battlefield as members of the Women’s Volunteer Corps and forced to become comfort women.”
Politicians and bureaucrats of the government at the time, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister’s Office, were shaken by this false campaign and apologized without investigation, thereby causing the Japanese government to appear to acknowledge that “our ancestors casually committed cruel acts.”
Thereafter, for Japan the “comfort women issue” became the problem of how to eliminate the baseless falsehoods spreading both domestically and abroad.
[Omitted.]
What follows is from an essay published by Professor Nishioka in 1992 in Bungei Shunju.
[Omitted.]
To state a conclusion in advance, the direct trigger for the current comfort women issue—the lawsuit by so-called “Korean war victims”—was significantly driven by Japanese individuals.
Japanese people played roles in searching for plaintiffs, handling procedures, approaching the media, and even creating the pretext for demonstrations.
This distorted structure, in which Japanese—cast as perpetrators—speak on behalf of Korean victims, has made the comfort women issue complex and opaque.
I cannot help but think so.
Furthermore, it must not be overlooked that the media, led by Asahi Shimbun, actively fueled the movement while repeatedly committing misreporting, thereby worsening the situation.
First, let us accumulate the facts gathered through this investigation and explain them in order from the beginning.