Bewildered by Japan: A Report From Washington

November 17, 2006

Among the most impressive presentations at ANU August conference on China-Japan Reconciliation was one given by an editor of the Yomiuri Shimbun. It appeared that the paper had done a great deal to better understand many of the historical issues surrounding the Greater East Asian War. One hint that the newspaper, however, may have missed some of the greater implications was the focus solely on decision-making within the Japanese government. No examination of society or of specific historical incidents was made.

One’s worries about the Yomiuri’s history series have been realized this fall. The newspaper came out strongly in favor of debating Japan’s nuclear weapons options and denying the comfort women war crime. This is bewildering because this “discussion” comes at a time when the US is trying to forge Asian unity to counter North Korea and Tokyo claims to have made a priority settling relations with Korea and China . The editorial pages of the Japan’s largest circulation daily does not appear to have helped create an atmosphere of regional confidence building.

Prior to the Pyongyang’s nuclear test and his trip to Beijing and Seoul, the Prime Minister found himself twice affirming his commitment to the “Kono Statement” on comfort women. This is a position he had long been outspokenly against. One can surmise his discomfort with having to repeat the official position by his repeated reference to “so-called” before his mention of comfort women. Whether and in what form the comfort women exist is one of the central issues for Japan’s conservatives hoping to do away with their country’s “apologetic diplomacy.”

Soon after his return from China and South Korea, the Yomiuri Shimbun, twice took issue with a US House of Representatives Resolution, H Res. 759, that asked the Japanese government to “acknowledge and take responsibility for” the Imperial Army’s comfort women system. The first editorial (Oct 14) said that the “Japanese government should properly rebut such a questionable resolution,” and asserts that the enslavement of these women by Japan in the 1930s and 1940s was a “fabrication” based on “groundless” reports.

The second editorial (Oct 27) emphasized that Japan’s “apology” to the Comfort women as represented in the 1993 Kono Statement was not based on “objective and scientific knowledge” and should be reconsidered. The crux of the issue being no documentation other than the words of the victims existed to support “the transportation of women for forced labor.” As one stunned congressional staffer told me after reading these editorials, “what would Americans think if Germany’s leading newspaper urged its government in the midst of the regional security crisis to deny the Nazi regime’s many crimes against humanity and to contest any suggestions that this wicked history existed?” (this is a near exact quote, but I left out some of the more colorful Anglo-Saxon)

Further, these editorials echoed the thoughts by Abe appointee, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shimomura who said in a speech in Tokyo (Oct 24) and to others that it was necessary to review the 1993 Kono Statement "by studying more about the facts after collecting objective and scientific knowledge." To be sure, the Yomiuri does not understand the US legislative process. H Res. 759 is only a House resolution. Mid-September it did pass unanimously out of the House International Relations Committee with the recommendation that it be passed by the full House of Representatives. The next step was for the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, to put on the legislative calendar for a vote, preferably before the October 1 recess.

This did not happen. Intense lobbying by the Japanese Embassy primarily through Speaker Hastert’s good friend, former minority leader and a decorated WWII veteran Bob Michel ensured that the resolution—which is essentially a meaningless document, as resolutions are non-binding and used mainly to appease domestic constituencies, in this case the increasingly important Asian-Americans—would buried on Speaker’s desk and never make it for a vote. In addition, Speaker Hastert is long rumored to want to be the next ambassador to Japan and he would thus do little to annoy Tokyo.

Thus, the October Yomiuri editorials were also essentially meaningless as the resolution appears dead. If anything one might wonder if the Yomiuri editors wanted to make Abe and the Foreign Ministry look good or just make themselves appear influential. No matter, the result is that they may have created a bigger diplomatic problem for Japan than if they had said nothing.

Yomiuri may have thought that no Westerner or even other Asians read their newspaper. This was a bad assumption. The first editorial was so alarming and its timing so ill-considered that the US Embassy in Tokyo quickly translated it and had it in the visiting US Secretary of State Rice’s briefing papers. She was in Asia to forge a working consensus on North Korea. The translation was also read by US Congressional staffers who shared it with their bosses. The result, I am told, is that Congressmen did not know what they were maddest about—Japan upsetting fragile Asian unity, Japan manipulating the US legislative process or Japan denying the obvious.

The result of the Foley sex-scandal during the October recess was the immediate further weakening of Speaker Hastert’s already questionable leadership. Advocates for the resolution, especially retiring senior members think that it is possible for the resolution to resurface this week, the last working week of this Congress, for a vote. Hastert has not clout to stop it and senior members have been pushing, including the Speaker to be. The Yomiuri editorials had a profound influence on the thinking of Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. Editorials from the Yomiuri were understood as not coming from some fringe group in Japan. The newspaper represented the “establishment.”

Interestingly, it might be to Japan’s advantage for the resolution to pass in this 109th Congress. Certainly, the current political climate in Japan may make swallowing the passage difficult. Tokyo may even interpret it, wrongly I may add, as a betrayal by the White House. However, if this resolution is not passed this session, it is certain to be reintroduced in the next, and possibly in both chambers. The result may be that process will be more colorful, more critical of White House coddling of Japan, and more involved with the Asian American, human rights and women’s rights communities.

The smart advice is thus to hope it gets off the Speaker's desk and passes the House when Congress returns for a short stint in December.The new Democratic 110th Congress with many new, independent-minded members who have serious human rights interests and from districts with influential Asian-American constituencies is likely to view this resolution very favorably. The House International Relations Committee will be headed by the only Holocaust survivor in Congress. The new Speaker comes from a district with an active Asian-American base. Everyone is fed up with Bush foreign policy and no one believes any relationship he claims to have is the “best ever.”

Yes, there are democratic lobbyists who work for the Japanese to silence issues of WWII responsibility and reconciliation such as former ambassador to Japan Tom Foley at Akin Gump and Hogan & Hartson attorney Ray Calamaro (same firm as Bob Michel). It is unlikely; however, that their campaign contributions ever targeted the new members interested in this issue or fully anticipated the growing power of Asian American voters or American distrust of anything Bush.

Moreover, as some believe, the Abe Administration will have to consider its conservative base. There is thus the likelihood that more inflammatory, ill-timed statements will appear both from Kantei and the Yomiuri. This will only further exacerbate the issue.

Mindy Kotler
Washington, DC