Apology Politics: Japan and South Korea's Dispute Over Comfort Women

In popular Korean blockbuster I Can Speak (2017), Ok-bun, an elderly Korean woman and former comfort woman under the Japanese empire, struggles to learn English with the help of a kind public service worker. Unpopular in her town for constantly filing complaints to the city office, Ok-bun keeps her comfort woman past a secret. In a heartbreaking scene, Ok-bun cries in front of her mother’s grave, bemoaning how she was forced to keep her past a secret to protect her brother’s future. Ultimately, the movie reveals that Ok-bun is learning English to fulfill the wish of her best friend, another former comfort woman, to testify about her past in front of the United States Congress.[i]

Movies of this ilk are extremely popular in South Korea. On their faces, the movies only appear to vilify the World War II-era Japanese military. A closer view of these movies, however, reveals their more complex commentaries on Korean society. Not only do the movies lament the Korean government’s inability to protect these women during wartime, they also denounce the absence of substantial justice for the victims today. In the heavily politicized treatment of comfort women, these movies illustrate the inherently personal nature of the matter.

Although commonly seen as an intense bilateral conflict, South Korea and Japan’s dispute over comfort women transcends the political and enters the personal. Despite their personal stake in the issue, survivors have mostly been left out of the political dialogue. Even the term “comfort women” is a euphemism, masking the real trauma these women experienced.[xxii] In Japan, the term “ianfu” refers to prostitutes, suggesting that these women were voluntary sex workers. In Korea, the term “wianbu”encompasses the idea that the women were taken against their will.[xxiii]

The issue of comfort women presents the critical question of how Japan and South Korea, two allies under the US geopolitical framework, will resolve this conflict, both for the women who demand an apology and the Japanese government. At the heart of any dialogue, policy, or statements must be the women themselves and their experiences–not the interests of the state. Otherwise, Japan and Korea risk burying personal trauma with politics.

History of Japan’s Apology and the 2015 Deal to Compensate Comfort Women

In 1993, Japanese Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono publicly apologized for Japanese army’s behavior in World War II, recognizing the Japanese army’s coercive actions and its direct and indirect involvement in exploiting comfort women.[ii] The statement acknowledged that the Japanese army used private contractors to coerce and coax women against their will. Kono’s statement, however, was criticized by both Japanese and South Korean society. The former viewed the apology as unnecessary, and the latter found it inadequate since it was made only by a Cabinet Secretary.[iii] Crucially, Kono’s apology was careful to separate the Japanese army’s actions from the Japanese government, ensuring that the Japanese government had no legal liability or responsibility for its treatment of the comfort women. Furthermore, in 2007 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly denounced the Kono Statement, citing a lack of evidence supporting that these women were truly coerced.[iv] Abe’s pattern of undermining the statement continued into 2012, when he declared that he would formally review the facts.[v] Although Abe ultimately did not change the wording of Kono’s apology, he delegitimized the statement and displayed his desire to distance himself from further apologies.

In 1995, former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a second apology. Wholly acknowledging the government’s “colonial rule and aggression” and responsibility for its crimes against the comfort women, the “Murayama Statement” is held up as Japan’s only true apology.[vi] However, in 2013, Abe again questioned the validity of the term aggression and Japan’s colonialist history. Later in 2015, while commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, critics wondered whether or not Abe would continue using Murayama’s language of apology and acknowledgement. While Abe did use the terms colonial rule and aggression, his tone was markedly different compared to Murayama’s statement:[vii] ,

“Incident, aggression, war – we shall never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. We shall abandon colonial rule forever and respect the right of self-determination of all peoples throughout the world.”[viii]

In his statement, Abe spoke generally of the need to avoid colonial practices, but did not clearly state that Japan’s colonial history contributed to the exploitation of comfort women as Murayama did. As expected, the South Korean public did not view Abe’s statement of regret and grief as a direct apology.

In 2015, a “final and irreversible” deal was made between South Korean and Japan when the Japanese government established the Asian Women’s Fund, worth $8.3 million, to support survivors.[ix] The deal was particularly valuable due to the North Korean security threat, making a resolution to the issue and creating a stronger Japanese-South Korean alliance necessary.[x] Again, the women cited a lack of a formal and substantial apology from the Abe administration and absence of a recognition that the government was liable, since the fund was an agency independent from the Japanese government. This sentiment was made clear in a confrontation between a survivor and the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, where she asked him: “What does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs do? Is it our (Korea’s) Ministry? Or is it the Japanese government’s Ministry?”[xi] After the election of Moon Jae-in in 2017, the 2015 deal began to unravel as the public’s discontent rose to 75%. In response to growing public anger, President Moon began a formal review of the agreement, citing how the deal failed to address the survivors’ grievances and experiences.[xii] While the Moon administration did not cancel the agreement, Moon dissolved the foundation and has since apologized for the deal’s implementation, including its lack of survivor input and voices.[xiii]

Japan’s complicated history of apologies and its 2015 deal highlight how, for the most part, the actual survivors were absent from the dialogue. Abe’s politicization of the apologies made by previous administrations ignored the suffering of comfort women survivors. His actions reflected how Japan’s apology was not genuine or meaningful, but rather molded to the political whims of different administrations. Even in the case of the Kono statement, Kono’s attribution of blame to the Japanese army failed to address the suffering of the comfort women. Their use of technical and distant language such as “coerce” and “coax,” as opposed to “rape” or sexual slavery,” did little to explicitly outline the trauma the comfort women experienced.[xiv]

The initial 2015 deal was mired with geopolitical factors that undermined the voices of living survivors. The rising North Korean security threat pushed both parties towards the deal in order to create a stronger relationship between two US allies. Outside the context of survivors, comfort women are also representative of the remains of Japanese colonialism. For South Koreans, the lack of a clear conclusion to this issue means unfinished business with a formerly colonialist Japan.

Politics of Memorials

Outside of the political arena, monuments portraying comfort women under Japanese colonial rule have created tension. These statues depict and legitimize the narratives of the victims; as a result, they have been met with the Japanese government’s ire. When a memorial was constructed outside of the Japanese consulate in Busan, the Japanese government demanded to remove it. This demand, however, was met with anger from the South Korean public.[xv] A statue outside of San Francisco’s Japanese consulate was also met with disdain by the Japanese government.[xvi] While the construction of these statues is not reflective of any of these countries’ direct policies, they serve as a reminder of both Japan’s original atrocities and its continuing unapologetic stance.

Furthermore, memorialization creates a transparent setting for historical discourse. It allows survivors to be acknowledged in a public setting, while opening dialogue to discuss the historical events of the issue.[xvii] Japan’s desire to remove these statues highlights a stark difference from other countries. While the US debates whether to take down statues of war participants, Professor Alexis Dudden from the University of Connecticut notes: “It remains only Japan that is seeking to remove a statue of a victim.”[xviii] In a personal issue that has been so politicized, memorialization is a crucial method to personalizing the struggles and trauma of each of these women.

Political Questions and Personal Suffering

For the most part, the United States—a mutual ally of the two countries—has remained neutral on the subject of comfort women. In Congress, Rep. Mike Honda authored House Resolution 121, which sought to acknowledge the violence the Japanese government perpetrated against comfort women and to request a formal apology from the Japanese government.[xix] On an international level, however, the US has shied away from taking a clear foreign policy stance on the issue.

Nonetheless, South Korea and Japan remain allies under the US framework, and understand the need to work bilaterally, especially with the security threat of their shared neighbor, North Korean. At its surface, the historical tension of colonialism has not been inhibited economic cooperation and security allies. However, the deeply personalized nature of comfort women themselves makes it difficult to approach the issue solely in the political arena. In between these two countries, there are 31 remaining survivors who testify about abuses and provide explicit details, all in order to seek justice.[xx]

At its core, the individual trauma comfort women experienced has embedded itself in the national consciousness.[xxi] Korean comfort women represent a remnant of Japanese colonialism, violence, and exploitation. Reaching a proper agreement with Japan is a step to addressing such historical wrongs, not only for the survivors but for the nation as well. Any whole, complete agreement worth achieving with Japan will have women at its center.

Illustration by Lane Letourneau

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