Can Japan lay its ‘comfort women’ ghosts to rest?
A row over a statue symbolising the thousands of Korean women forced into sex slavery by the Japanese military comes at a pivotal moment for Tokyo
In Japan this week, a sense of urgency pervades as past and present come together in unexpected ways. The week before Donald Trump becomes leader of Tokyo’s most important military ally is also the week that the continuing issue of the “comfort women” came back to haunt Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
A few days ago, South Korean protestors placed a statue of a teenage girl in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan. It symbolised the tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of Koreans who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the second world war, of whom barely forty are still alive.
In December 2015, the governments of Japan and South Korea agreed what was supposed to be a full settlement of the issue, with statements of atonement by Japan along with a fund to support the surviving women. Most of the women did accept the agreement, but many protestors in South Korea did not, maintaining their vigil opposite the Japanese embassy in Seoul, and now adding a further protest in Busan. China has also demanded recognition from Japan for the fate of its own “comfort women”, as has Taiwan.
WATCH: Japan to recall its South Korea envoy over ‘comfort women’ statue
The row over the Busan statue comes at a difficult time for Japanese policy. Conversations with thinkers involved with foreign affairs keep returning one central question: What will be the effect of a Trump presidency on Japan’s role in Asia? The morning after the president-elect’s rumbustious press conference, which was mostly consumed by proposals on a blind trust and a blow-up with a CNN reporter, Tokyo newspapers reported some disappointment that policy towards Japan didn’t get a mention. Here, by contrast, there is lively discussion on what the new president may mean: experienced hands range from the idea that Trump will be the greatest opportunity Japan has had for decades to the more pessimistic sense that the US-Japan alliance is heading for the rocks. The one thing everyone admits is that nobody really knows.