Japan's Abe Affirms 'Comfort Women' Measures with South Korea

On 28 December, the international ministers of Japan and South Korea announced that the issue associated with comfort woman was ‘solved finally and irreversibly’. Japanese Pm Shinzo Abe expressed anew ‘his the majority of sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences’.

Japan also dedicated to contributing approximately one million yen (roughly US$10 million) to some foundation that the South Japanese government would establish to support former ‘comfort women’. For its component, the South Korean federal government ‘will strive to solve the actual issue’ of a commemorative statue built-in front of the Embassy of Japan in Seoul ‘in an appropriate manner’.

In Next year, when Abe regained the post of prime minister, there were recommendations that he would keep their distance from the Kono Statement and not take further action to heal the ‘comfort women’ issue. Why then did Abe change his position?

The agreement is perhaps not as surprising as it first seems. It is in line with Pm Abe’s positioning on the ‘comfort and ease women’ issue since April 2015.

In Abe’utes visit to the United States in 04, he stated very clearly that ‘just like all my predecessors, my heart is aching for the immeasurable pain these women had to endure, and the 1993 Kono Statement is going to be maintained’. The language used by foreign minister Fumio Kishida on 28 December resembles the Kono statement, which Abe experienced already approved in April.

Then in his August speech celebrating 70 years since the finish of World War II, Abe confirmed the most crucial part of the 1995 Murayama statement, ‘deep remorse and heartfelt apology for Japan’s actions during the war’, with concrete reference to the suffering associated with Asian people, including the Republic associated with Korea. He also stated that Japan should not to overlook ‘that there were women behind the battlefields whose honour as well as dignity were severely injured’.

With this background Abe and South Japanese President Park Geun-hye had their own first bilateral meeting in early November, where they agreed to ‘continue and accelerate the consultation services [on the ‘comfort women’ issue] in order to conclude them as promptly because possible’. There was some hint that the issue could be resolved by the end of 2015 — the 50th anniversary from the normalisation of Japan–ROK relations.

Whatever Abe’s original thinking, he has always been a pragmatist capable of listening to a wide range of sights. There are many reasons to prefer this particular new policy, including the moral authority that Japan could gain from resolving the issue, the importance of paying respect to sex issues in the 21st century, and the diplomatic demand for forging stable relations with South Korea given a increasing China. Such rational and pragmatic considerations likely outweighed Abe’s fundamental nationalist thinking. Except for his Yasukuni Shrine visit in December The year 2013, the past has shown Abe to be a pragmatist, especially on history issues.

The United States’ position must have affected Abe too. US President Barack Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US was very unhappy with the tensions between its two most significant Northeast Asian allies, Asia and South Korea. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also most likely played an important role advising Abe as well as finding the appropriate language as well as content for the agreement.

Despite these key reasons for resolving the issue, it is still difficult to understand how Abe convinced his nationalist followers of his new position. However, the political reality is that Abe is the most powerful political leader that shares sympathy to the nationalists’ considering. Some nationalists have already begun protesting against the present agreement, but eventually they are bound to follow their leader’s decisions.

It is more difficult to understand why the South Japanese government consented to the agreement. The agreement does not include an acknowledgement by Japan of its criminal and legal responsibility, which in fact had previously been a prerequisite for the South Korean civic movement. Possible reasons for this particular shift in policy include the All of us position, better balancing along with China and some domestic frustration at the lack of policy flexibility toward Japan.

So is the recent agreement tenable and will both nations remain committed to it? That is certainly possible. However, the long-term achievement of the agreement depends on each side continuing to act in the spirit that led to this agreement: efforts to understand each other and also to find a mutually acceptable solution.

For japan side, the agreement cannot be taken for granted. This is not the end of the actual ‘comfort women’ issue. In his August statement, Abe said that Japan should ‘not let our generations to come are predestined to apologise’. In addition, simultaneously, ‘Japanese, across generations, should squarely face the history of the past. We have the responsibility to end up with the past, in all humbleness, and pass it on to the future’. In this nature of humility and memories, will Japan implement what it has committed to and with patience wait for South Korea to implement their commitments?

For South Korea, the task is no less difficult. Will the government succeed in convincing the civic motion around former ‘comfort women’, that has already voiced serious criticism, to soften their position and accept the government’s agreement with Japan?

In the end, background is what one makes of it and there is no ultimate reason why the two nations cannot proceed further down the path of reconciliation.

What is at the rear of Abe’s new position on ‘comfort women’? is republished with permission from East Asia Forum