Row reveals weakness of superficial reconciliation

The diplomatic row that has erupted between Japan and the Republic of Korea once again highlights the raw nerve in the region that the current administration in Japan keeps rubbing with its stance on history. In the latest development over the sensitive issue of “comfort women” that has long marred its relations with the ROK, Japan recalled its envoy on Monday after a bronze statue symbolizing the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during its occupation of the Korean Peninsula was reinstalled outside Japan’s consulate in the port city of Busan.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also called on the ROK to stick to the bilateral deal inked in December 2015 that was intended to settle the issue once and for all.

However, Abe failed to mention that activists in the ROK reinstalled the statue only after the Japanese defense minister paid homage at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted World War II war criminals are honored together with Japan’s other war dead.

The row highlights that the accord struck between Japan and the ROK on the issue of “comfort women” was reached more as a result of political expediency than justice, as the two, both close allies of the United States, were pushed by Washington to improve relations so they could work together to contain China.

Yet it was only superficial reconciliation. Singularly absent from the negotiating table were any of the surviving “comfort women”. This explains why the deal failed to admit Tokyo’s legal responsibility for the women and funded a foundation of only $8.5 million as part of measures to help the victims.

In fact, Abe himself has sought to deny the existence of “comfort women”, insisting there was “no evidence” when he was a candidate to be leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2012.

Piling pressure on Seoul over this issue only serves to reinforce the perception that Tokyo wants to write an alternate history for future generations.

At a New Year news conference after he visited the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, on Wednesday, Abe called on his compatriots to learn from their predecessors of 70 years ago and to face “our challenges head-on and fulfill our responsibilities for the future”.

Instead of continuing along their path of denial, Abe and those of similar intent, who would like the world to forget what happened to bring Japan to that point where they had to rebuild, should fulfill their own responsibilities to the future and meet the challenge of fully accepting what happened in the past.