01:29
South Korea’s ‘comfort women’ statues featuring PM Abe ‘lookalike’ spark anger in Japan
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https://scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3094981/comfort-women-statues-if-thats-abe-its-unforgivable-japan-warns East Asia
Comfort women statues: If that’s Abe, it’s ‘unforgivable’, Japan warns South Korea
- A new display in South Korea features a girl representing wartime victims of sexual slavery, and a kneeling man that appears to look like Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe
- The statues have sparked an angry response from Japan, which has warned its neighbour of diplomatic consequences
The statues are located at the Korea Botanical Garden in Pyeongchang. Photo: Korea Botanical Garden via AP
The Japanese government on Tuesday reacted angrily to a pair of newly-erected statues in South Korea that appeared to depict Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe kneeling and bowing to a “comfort woman”.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said if reports of the statues were true, it would be an “unforgivable” breach of international protocol.
“If the reports are accurate, then there would be a decisive impact on Japan-Korea relations,” Suga told a news conference in Tokyo.
Called “Everlasting Atonement”, the statues are on display at a botanic garden in Pyeongchang, northeast of the country. They feature a man who resembles Abe, bowing to a figure of a seated young girl.
The issue of comfort women – mostly Koreans forced to work in Japan’s brothels before and during World War II – and whether the surviving victims have been adequately compensated, have long been a thorn in the two neighbours’ ties.
Japan regards the matter as “finally and irreversibly resolved” by a 2015 agreement reached by Abe and then South Korean President Park Geun-hye under which Abe apologised and pledged a fund to support the survivors.
However, the current South Korean government of President Moon Jae-in has declared the 2015 deal flawed, effectively voiding it.
South Korean news reports said the statue was commissioned by the privately-run Korea Botanical Garden, located in the rural county of Pyeongchang.
Similar statues of girls alone have been set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and at other places to honour the women.
The head of the Korea Botanical Garden has said the statues were not meant to represent Abe specifically and denied it was meant to serve any political purpose.
But South Korean media have quoted the local sculptor who made the statues as saying they were designed to show “forgiving is possible only if Japan continues to ask for atonement until South Korea accepts it”.
South Korean activists say there may have been as many as 200,000 Korean victims, only a few of whom have ever told of the abuse they endured at the hands of Japanese forces.
Ties were strained last year when Japan imposed restrictions on exports of key hi-tech materials to South Korea following a ruling by South Korea’s top court ordering Japanese firms to pay compensation to Koreans forced to work for them during the war.
Additional reporting by Kyodo