‘It is Japan-bashing’: Osaka may sever sister city ties with San Francisco over ‘comfort women’ statue

The mayor of Osaka has warned he will cancel the sister city alliance with San Francisco if the municipal government goes ahead with a plan to integrate a plot of land where a memorial to wartime sex slaves was recently established in a city park.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, the conservative mayor of Japan’s second city, expressed his anger at what he said were moves to further legitimise the “comfort women” statue, which was erected by a private group of Chinese-Americans and their supporters on September 22.

Yoshimura said the statue and proposals to incorporate the surrounding area into a city park amount to “Japan-bashing”, the Asahi newspaper reported.

Yoshimura and his predecessor as mayor, Toru Hashimoto, have written five letters to the government of San Francisco to state their objections to the statue. Yoshimura said he intends to write another letter to express his disappointment in the city’s failure to respect Japan’s views on the issue.

He is particularly opposed to the inscription on the memorial, which states hundreds of thousands of women were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military before and during the second world war.

“That is against the standpoint of the Japanese government,” Yoshimura said. “It is Japan-bashing and a one-sided view.”

Conservatives in Japan insist the mayor would be completely justified in cancelling the sister city agreement if the authorities in San Francisco ignore Japan’s objections.

“Ideally, it would be best if the two sides could hold discussions, the Osaka side could put its position across and an understanding could be reached,” said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University.