Drawing on a WiLL magazine dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Miki Otaka, this piece argues that a chain runs from the Karafuto (Sakhalin) lawsuit to the comfort-women issue and then to forced-labor claims—like an ongoing extortion of compensation money.
It claims Seiji Yoshida was mobilized as a “forced abduction” witness—through his apology monument and courtroom testimonies—because the narrative required a retrofitted logic of coercion.
The text links this to ex–Socialist Party networks, legal teams, and Asahi’s reporting, framing the core as postwar-compensation rent-seeking.

2019-01-04

Under the title, “Extortion and Shakedowns—A Nationwide Anti-Korea Wave. The Foolish Korea Taught by Ugly Anti-Japan Japanese,”.
What follows is from a featured dialogue published in the previous month’s issue of WiLL magazine, under the title “Extortion and Shakedowns—A Nationwide Anti-Korea Wave. The Foolish Korea Taught by Ugly Anti-Japan Japanese,” between Masayuki Takayama (journalist) and Miki Otaka (journalist).
It is required reading for all Japanese citizens and people throughout the world.
Karafuto lawsuit → comfort women → forced labor…… one after another, a situation that feels like being shaken down.
Behind it are anti-Japan Japanese.
Could there even be kickbacks from compensation money.
Seiji Yoshida, who was used.
Takayama.
Oh, here comes a former Miss Japan.
Otaka.
How embarrassing (laughs).
Takayama.
Not at all—you are as beautiful as ever.
Right away: in 2017, in “I Will Remove My Father’s Apology Monument: The Origin of the Comfort-Women Issue—The Eldest Son’s Monologue on ‘Seiji Yoshida’” (Sankei Shimbun Publishing), you pursued without omission the course of Yoshida Seiji’s life, from his background to his false testimony.
Otaka.
Yes.
Takayama.
Now, with the forced-labor ruling, Korea has once again done something utterly outrageous.
Otaka.
In 1983, Mr. Seiji Yoshida built a monument on “Bokyo no Oka” in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea, apologizing for forced abduction.
He prostrated himself at the unveiling ceremony, but the monument does not mention comfort women.
Because at that point, comfort women were not yet an issue.
I think the aim was that people connected to Sakhalin had “forced abduction of Koreans” carved into stone, and they may have used Yoshida’s testimony as groundwork to extract money from the Japanese government forever.
Takayama.
I see.
So the existence of “forced laborers” had been raised for quite a long time.
Otaka.
Yes.
I think it began when the treatment of Koreans left behind on Sakhalin during and after the war was made into an issue.
Takayama.
When Japan governed the Korean Peninsula, Koreans who held Japanese nationality moved to Sakhalin together with Japanese as workers, through seasonal labor or conscription, didn’t they.
Otaka.
The year before Yoshida’s “My War Crimes: The Great Forced Abduction of Koreans,” which described in detail the hunting of comfort women on Jeju Island, was published, he spoke about comfort-women hunting at a lecture.
In September and November of that same year, in the lawsuit over repatriating Koreans and Koreans from Korea who remained on Sakhalin—so-called “Karafuto lawsuit”—he took the stand twice.
The first time he testified about hunting Korean men for Karafuto, and the second time he testified about hunting comfort women on Jeju Island.
Some may not immediately grasp how Yoshida and the “Karafuto lawsuit” connect, but without knowing the circumstances around this, the essence of the comfort-women issue will not come into view either.
The “Karafuto lawsuit” was initiated against the Japanese government with involvement from people such as Kozo Igarashi of the former Socialist Party, who later became Chief Cabinet Secretary, and with attorney Kenichi Takagi—who is involved in Korea’s comfort-women lawsuits—serving as the secretary-general of the plaintiffs’ legal team.
The legal team argued: “Japan forcibly abducted as many as 43,000 Koreans to Sakhalin and, after the war, abandoned only Koreans behind.
The Japanese government should take responsibility for this.”
Koreans on Sakhalin were people who came of their own accord seeking better pay, but then Japan would not bear responsibility to compensate them, so they needed a retrofitted logic—no matter what—that they had been “forcibly abducted” by Japan.
That is why Mr. Yoshida was dragged in as a witness to forced abduction.
Takayama.
I see—so there was that connection.
And that is why Asahi wrote articles using that testimony.
To be continued.