Osaka cuts ties with S.F.
It’s been threatened for nearly two years — now, it’s official. Sort of. The mayor of Osaka, Japan, sent a letter to Mayor London Breed this week saying his longtime threat of ending the sister city relationship between Osaka and San Francisco is now reality. The relationship, he wrote, is severed.
At issue is the “Column of Strength” statue in St. Mary’s Square that honors “comfort women,” the name given to the estimated 200,000 women from China, Korea and the Philippines forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.
Many officials in Japan say the number of comfort women and the severity of their treatment is exaggerated. They also say their country shouldn’t be singled out for wartime atrocities when so many countries have committed terrible acts of war.
Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura asked the late Mayor Ed Lee and then Breed to remove the statue from public land or risk severing the sistercity relationship. Both declined.
“The very relationship of trust between our cities, which was constructed over years of friendly exchanges, has ended up declining significantly,” Yoshimura wrote. “I have arrived at the conclusion that the continuation of the sister city relations is no longer possible.”
Lillian Sing, a former San Francisco Superior Court judge who helped spearhead the statue, condemned Yoshimura’s decision.
“We’re very saddened by his actions,” she said. “It provides no leadership and no vision for the future except for his continued denial of history.”
Jeff Cretan, spokesman for Breed, said the sister city relationship isn’t one between two mayors, but between two groups of citizens. And that won’t change.
“The mayor is disappointed Mayor Yoshimura doesn’t want to maintain ties between our governments, but we’re committed to our sister city relationship that will continue between our San Francisco and Osaka sister city committees,” he said. “We want them to continue to maintain that relationship.”
And for the record, Cretan added, the statue isn’t going anywhere.