Sumio Yamagiwa criticizes the renewed tensions over the comfort women issue following the Japan–South Korea agreement.
He argues that repeated apologies and concessions by Japan have contributed to ongoing disputes.
The column examines structural problems in Japan–Korea relations and historical controversies.

The problem lies in the fact that Japan has repeatedly offered temporary reflections and apologies to South Korea and China, who repeatedly revive what are described as false historical narratives.
2018-01-29
The following is from a serialized column by Sumio Yamagiwa published at the beginning of this month’s issue of the monthly magazine HANADA.

All emphases in the text, except for the headline, are mine.
The Japan–Korea Agreement: A “Devil’s Whisper”
Japan–South Korea relations have become complicated.
This is because South Korean President Moon Jae-in has revived the comfort women issue and once again demanded a “sincere apology” from Japan.
Was not the Japan–South Korea agreement of two years ago intended to resolve the comfort women issue “finally and irreversibly”?
Statements and actions that effectively nullify it cannot be accepted.
President Moon has also said that he wants to become a “true friend” of Japan, but one cannot say that after unilaterally trampling a formal agreement between the two countries.
Moreover, this agreement was clearly concluded in a form in which Japan made concessions to South Korea.
Prime Minister Abe’s apology to former comfort women and the contribution of one billion yen in “atonement money” from taxpayer funds were responses to South Korean demands.
In particular, the contribution from tax funds clarified Japan’s responsibility as a state regarding the comfort women issue, something South Korea had demanded since the Democratic Party administration.
For this reason, even the Asahi Shimbun, which had repeatedly pursued Japan’s alleged wrongdoing, lavishly praised the agreement as a “historic advancement in Japan–Korea relations.”
Precisely because of this, the sudden reversal by South Korea has prompted strong reactions from Japan’s diplomatic authorities, including statements such as “Japan–Korea relations have collapsed” and “there is nothing to do but leave them be.”
Online, calls for severing diplomatic ties with South Korea are overflowing.
However, given the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula, the responses available are limited, and Japan’s anger cannot be taken entirely at face value.
Just as comfort woman statues continued to increase even after the agreement, such developments were to some extent foreseeable from the beginning; in that sense, President Moon’s explosive remarks merely reaffirm the current situation.
Even so, why does this happen every time?
The problem also lies with Japanese diplomacy, which has repeatedly offered temporary reflection and apologies to South Korea and China as they revive what are described as false historical narratives.
South Korea and China have come to believe that they can do anything to Japan.
But it is Japan, with its consistently indecisive responses, that has led them to believe so.
The comfort women issue is no exception.
Comfort women were wartime prostitutes accompanying the military, and at the time this was legal.
Furthermore, the issue of claims was “completely and finally settled” by the Japan–South Korea agreement.
Japan was not in a position of abundance.
Yet, from its strained postwar finances, it provided aid amounting to more than two years of South Korea’s national budget at the time in order to establish diplomatic relations.
To be continued.