Misreporting by the Asahi Shimbun played a major role in spreading the false narrative of “forced abduction” in the comfort women issue.
Reports based on the fabricated testimony of Seiji Yoshida fueled anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea, intensified by a 1992 Asahi article published before Prime Minister Miyazawa’s visit.
South Korean media amplified the claims as “Japanese imperial atrocities,” triggering mass protests and leading to repeated apologies and the Kono Statement.
Although Asahi later admitted the testimony was false and retracted its articles, the damage to Japan–Korea relations had already been done.
Accurate historical reporting is essential to prevent further harm.

South Korea is often described as a country ruled not by law but by emotions.
This is because judicial decisions are frequently swayed by surges in public sentiment.
When anti-Japanese sentiment is involved, the situation becomes even more troublesome.
The lawsuit surrounding the 2013 book Comfort Women of the Empire is one such example.

The academic work argued that emphasizing “forcible abduction by the Japanese military” in the comfort women issue does not match historical reality, yet the author was criminally accused of defaming former comfort women and indicted without detention.
The first trial resulted in an acquittal.
After the inauguration of the Moon Jae-in administration and a rise in anti-Japanese sentiment, however, the second trial overturned the ruling and declared the author guilty.
The Moon administration effectively scrapped the Japan–South Korea agreement that had declared the comfort women issue “irreversibly resolved.”
Truly, rule by emotion.

However, Japan also bears responsibility for the confusion surrounding the comfort women issue.
The origin lies in the falsehoods told by Seiji Yoshida, reported from 1982 onward by the Asahi Shimbun, which claimed that Korean women on Jeju Island had been “rounded up” under military orders during the war.
This lie was elevated into “testimony,” and the baseless theory of forced abduction spread widely.

The rapid deterioration in Japan–South Korea relations, however, began in January 1992, when then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa visited South Korea.
This too was triggered by an article in the Asahi Shimbun.
Just before the visit, the paper reported on its front page that documents had been found showing Japanese military involvement in the establishment of comfort stations.
Although the documents had nothing to do with forced abduction, the Asahi insisted that Japan should “apologize and provide compensation.”

South Korean media seized upon the article, sensationalizing it with headlines such as “Atrocities of the Japanese Empire.”
Amid rapidly intensifying anti-Japanese demonstrations, Prime Minister Miyazawa apologized repeatedly in summit talks and other meetings during his visit.
The following year saw the issuance of the infamous Kono Statement, in which Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono expressed “heartfelt apology and remorse.”

Until then, in South Korea, the term “comfort women” referred to women made to serve South Korean or U.S. troops during the Korean War and afterward.
But after Miyazawa’s visit, it came to refer to women who had served Japanese soldiers during the war.

In 2014, the Asahi Shimbun acknowledged that Yoshida’s testimony had been false, apologized, and retracted sixteen related articles.
Had those articles never existed, Japan–South Korea relations would likely have been very different.

In October last year, the South Korean Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict in the Comfort Women of the Empire case and remanded it to the Seoul High Court, which finally issued an acquittal this April.
Reporting that is not grounded in historical fact must not be allowed to damage Japan–South Korea relations.