Tag: “Comfort Women”

  • Selden: How can the U.S. criticize Japanese atrocities?

    Mark Selden, coordinator of Japan Focus, asks: [M]ore than six decades since Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, by what right does an American critically address issues of the Nanjing Massacre and Japan’s wartime atrocities? Stated differently, in the course of those six decades US military forces have repeatedly violated international law and humanitarian ethics,…

  • Measuring Progress From Wen's Japan Visit

    What’s come out of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s visit in Tokyo? Well, the Associated Press has a quick list. Here are the parts that might actually be news, instead of reiterations of things like agreeing to work for a nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula: Agreements to work for a successor…

  • Abe Apologizes, Xinhua Seems Satisfied, Reuters More Skeptical

    Surrounding Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s trip to Japan this weekend, Japanese PM Abe Shinzo “expressed an unfeigned apology to ‘comfort women.’” Or did was the headline that he “trie[d] damage control over WW2 sex slaves”? If you ask the Chinese official news agency, which often serves as an outlet for the Chinese government’s scoldings…

  • Abe's 'Comfort Women' denial: U.S. reaction, a victim speaks, and classifieds

    Just joining us? See this entry and this follow-up. New developments: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte would not comment on Abe’s specific words, but AP reports: “Our view is that what happened during the war was most deplorable,” he said when asked about the sex slave issue. “But … as far as some…

  • More on Abe's 'Comfort Women' Denial

    Japan Probe has a good entry that digs up the transcript for the October statement I referred to twice previously. Abe was responding to questions from Shii Kazuo, the chair of the executive committee of the Japanese Communist Party, and insisted that his cabinet would follow the Kono Statement. Abe said his previous questioning of…