Attempts to spread anti-Japan feeling abroad cannot be ignored

Moves to spread a distorted historical perception around the world and damage Japan's image cannot be ignored.

A civic group with South Korean ties in Germany has erected a statue of a girl representing so-called comfort women on a sidewalk in central Berlin.

In response to a request by the Japanese government to remove the statue of the girl, the authorities in the district managing the sidewalk at one point rescinded their approval for it to be set up. However, as the civic group filed an objection in court, the statue has still been put on the sidewalk.

The civic group said the purpose of setting up the statue was to express "opposition to wartime sexual violence against women."

It goes without saying that the protection of women's human rights is an important international issue. However, it is problematic to set up this statue in a public place because it has a strong element of anti-Japanese political propaganda.

The inscription says that a group in South Korea supporting former comfort women donated the statue and describes the group's protest activities in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. It also states that the Imperial Japanese Army abducted countless girls and women in the Asia-Pacific region and forced them into sexual slavery.

The expression "sex slave" and the perception that the military forcibly and systematically took away comfort women go against the facts.

The Japanese government's investigation found no evidence to substantiate the forcible recruitment of comfort women. It must not be forgotten that the statements made by Seiji Yoshida, which have become a basis for the allegations of forcible recruitment of comfort women, turned out to be false.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry has criticized Japan's request for the statue's removal as "running counter to the spirit of apology to former comfort women." This claim is hard to understand. The root of the problem lies in the South Korean government's apparent intention to encourage the establishment of the statue.

In the 2015 Japan-South Korea agreement on the comfort women issue, the South Korean government pledged to "make efforts to resolve" the issue of a statue of a girl in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

The administration led by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, however, has not implemented the agreement reached by the previous administration and is pushing ahead with moves to make the agreement toothless. A foundation established under the agreement to support former comfort women was forced to dissolve.

First of all, the Moon administration must make efforts to persuade another civic group, which installed the statue of a girl in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to remove it.

Statues symbolizing comfort women have been set up in other locations, including the United States, Canada and Australia. South Korea's actions to apparently spread anti-Japanese feeling in countries that are friendly to Japan are unacceptable.

The Japanese government should strengthen its efforts to collect information on the activities of civic groups overseas and prevent them from putting up such statues. It is necessary to carefully explain to other countries that Japan has made repeated efforts on the comfort women issue and that the issue has already been settled diplomatically through the agreement between Japan and South Korea.

-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Oct. 22, 2020.

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