Max von Schuler-Kobayashi, Historian (German-American, Former US Marine based in Japan and now Representative lecturer of 「Hiizurutokorokara Philosophy of US-Japan relations」) sent out a protesting open letter to City Councilman Frank Quintero, and the members of the City Council of Glendale concerning their decision to put up a permanent memorial to the so called “ Comfort Women.
To City Councilman Frank Quintero, and the members of the City Council of Glendale.
I have read of your decision to put up a permanent memorial to the so called “Comfort Women” with deep unease and regret. This is the same as putting up a memorial to the camp guards at Auschwitz.
If I were Jewish, I would find this a great insult. Even though I am not Jewish, I find this insulting as a historian.
You are being conned. During the war, the Korean people were Japanese citizens, and were willing and able participants in the Japanese Empire. It is after the war that they decided that they were victims, and switched roles. And even in their own country, Korea, women are demonstrating for their right to be prostitutes. Yet they accuse Japan of a crime?
Protesting Korean prostitutes attempt to set themselves on fire.
Let me explain.
America is a country that treasures human rights for the individual. And in particular, the rights of women world wide are a concern for Americans. When people use the term “Sex Slave” to describe the Comfort Women, it resonates in the United States.
But were these women indeed slaves? No. First of all, as distasteful as it may seem, it was common in both Japan and Korea pre war to sell daughters into prostitution. For poor families with too many mouths to feed, this was the only option.
As far as the comfort women were concerned, they were paid. The recruiters were all ethnic Koreans. People have conjured up an image of the Imperial Japanese Army rampaging through Korean villages, and hauling off screaming women. This never happened. Please refer to the Pdf below.
In any case, Koreans continued the system after the war. And today, Koreans are the greatest human traffickers in the United States.
If the Korean people in the United States are serious about combatting prostitution, why do they not cooperate with the FBI and stop the traffickers from their own community?
There are no organized Japanese prostitutes in the US at all. Those massage parlors you see with names like Osaka and Nagoya, they are Korean.
In any case, Japan has paid extensive reparations to Korea.
Now it seems that some Koreans simply want more money.
Koreans have a problem with history. Years ago when I was in Korea, I was discussing WWII with some Korean people. They insisted that their country had the worst experience of the war.
I am a WWII historian, and I differ with that assessment. My candidate for country with the worst war experience, if I had to pick, would be Poland. Invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union, Occupied by Germany, the Jewish Warsaw
Ghetto uprising of 1943, the Polish Home Army Warsaw uprising of 1944 all devastated the country. Then the savage resistance of the German Army as the Soviets pushed towards Berlin.
And of course there was constant guerrilla activity.
Postwar, Poland lost a third of it’s eastern territory and was ordered to takeover the former German territories of Prussia and Silesia. Many people were killed and displaced. All in all, Poland lost 25% of it’s prewar population.
But when I was in Korea, Korean people insisted that their WWII experience was much worse than Poland. That is when Korean people lost my sympathy for any claim whatsoever about WWII.
The thing about Koreans is, they did not resist the Japanese annexation of their country. Most Koreans embraced it. And this is their shame today.
There was no resistance movement inside Korea. There was one major riot in 1919 where some hundreds were killed. That was all. There was a guerrilla movement in the far north of the country, but they could not base themselves inside Korea, their bases were in Manchuria.
All they could do was make the occasional foray into Korea, they received no help from the Korean populace. And they numbered only about 1,500 individuals.
In April 1938, the Special Volunteers System was inaugurated in Korea. Korean men responded in droves for service in the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces. In 1942, the recruitment goal was announced to be 4077. 254,273 volunteers applied, over-achievement factor reached 62,4.
More Koreans have died fighting post war Korean governments than fighting Japan.
For the March first movement riots, Japanese official figures list 553 dead for all of Korea.
However, the list of casualties for post war South Korean governments are; The Cheju incident of 1948,the South Korean government admits to between 15,000 to 30,000 dead. (civilian groups put the number at 100,000 dead) In the October 1948 Yosu Junten revolt 400 were killed. In the Korean war, in 1950, during the summer some 300,000 civilians were killed by the South Korean government, and in the winter several hundred thousand more were killed. Of course, figures of any kind for people killed by North Korean governments are totally unavailable, but one can imagine that many civilians must have been killed in the North.
Koreans will tell you that during war they were forced to cooperate because Japan was so brutal. Well in Europe, many Balts, Ukrainians, Russians and other nationalities fought in German uniform, something like 1 million. Would the city of Glendale put up a memorial to them? By putting up such an exhibition for the Comfort Women, that is what you are doing. But these countries also had anti German guerrilla movements. Korea has no such history. And this is their shame today. During WWII, they willingly fought for Japan. They willingly recruited their own women for prostitution.
By putting up this exhibition, you are getting involved with Korean inferiority complexes towards Japan. And you are making serious historical mistakes.
The only evidence the Koreans now have are a few eyewitnesses. Yet any historian will tell you, eyewitness testimony is very unreliable. You need other sources. Things just did not happen like Koreans say they did. I seriously ask you to do more research into the true nature of Japanese/Korean relations. And to be fair, if you want to address women’s issues, you should address modern day Korean human trafficking in the United States.
Thank you very much,
Max von Schuler-Kobayashi
April 3rd , 2013
Tokyo Japan
A cable about Takeshima(Dokdo) written by the U.S. ambassador
Here is a cable from Douglas McARTHUR U,once the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the General DouglasMcARTHUR's nephew, to the U.S. State Department in 1960. The cable said that the U.S. authority had a hard time with the Yi Syngman regime which draw a national bordered, so-called Rhee Line, on the sea between Japan and Korea in defiance of international laws, seizing many Japanese fishermen who was fishing around the Rhee Line, and using them as political hostage. Besides, it said clearly that Takeshima Island has always been considered as Japanese territory, that is, the cable is telling that in that time it was considered a simple recognition that Tkeshima(Dokdo) was Japanese territory. The Japan's claim to Takeshima has nothing to do with either the WW2 or the Japanese annexation of Korea.
Some Koreans claim that Japan should give up the islands because it lost the war, but this is also their own peculiar logic. Japan did not fight a war with Korea, but rather fought together in WW2. Korea is not a victor country of the war and it is the U.S. that Japan defeated with. The U.S. of the victor country was saying the islands was Japanese territory. Where on earth is the problem on it?
The letter made public due to being declassified lately.
It has been authenticated by National Archives.
for details, refer to the site "Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat"http://texas-daddy.com"
the full text in English
SECSTATE 3470 PRIORITY
Rptd info: Amembassy SEOUL 351
For Assistant Secretary Parsons from MacArthur.
Seoul for Ambassador McConaughy.
Now that we have prospect of new and democratic regime in Korea I strongly recommend that as soon as possible we seize opportunity to try to bring about durable solution to Korea - Japan dispute. As long as Rhee held power there seemed little chance of any solution but now we have entirely new situation which could lead to liquidation of Korea - Japan controversy. Implications of Korea-Japan are not just bilateral between government of Japan and Korea but deeply and directly involve US and our inescapable responsibilities in Northeast Asia. As practical matter if reasonable solution is to be found it will be produced only by our good offices and working closely with both Korea and Government of Japan. It is of utmost importance that we identify and be prepared to move swiftly for solution those specific Korea-government of Japan problems which prevent progress toward basic settlement this festering dispute. We do not know what response Communists may make to new Korea regime and it is vital we try to put Korea-Government of Japan house in order as soon as possible.
While Rhee regime violated most basic tenets of democracy in authoritarian police rule imposed on Korean people, it has also in past done violence to most fundamental principles of international conduct and morality by committing acts of piracy on high seas around Rhee Line and then imprisoning and holding as political hostage Japanese fishermen and by seizing and holding non-Korean territory by force. The uncivilized practice of hostage diplomacy is one of our serious charge against Communist China and if continued by Korea it will be a great liability to a new democratic Korea regime.
I therefore recommend strongly that as soon as new regime is in control in Korea (whether or not it be of interim character) we use all our influence to persuade it (1) to release and return to Japan all repeat all Japanese fishermen hostage (including those who have not completed their sentences) who have suffered so cruelly from Rhee's uncivilized and oppressive acts and (2) to cease practice of seizing Japanese fishing vessels on high seas. This would not only rid new Korea regime of liability of practicing hostage diplomacy but also more than anything else would lay foundation in Japan for really fruitful negotiations. At same time I would be prepared to press Kishi and government of Japan most strongly that in return for repatriation of all fishermen, Japanese would exercise self-restraint in their fishing operations in Korean Straits until reasonable opportunity had been given for negotiation of mutually agreed Korea - Japan fishing conservation agreement.
In addition to seizing Japanese boats in high seas and practicing hostage diplomacy, Rhee regime also seized by force and is holding illegally Takeshima Island which as always been considered as Japanese territory. This is very serious and permanent irritant in Japan-Korea relations and there can be no over-all Korea-Japan settlement until this island is returned to Japan. Therefore we should also press new Korea regime to return Takeshima to Japan. If it is unwilling to do so pending satisfactory conclusion of over-call Korea-Japan negotiations, new regime should at least signify a willingness to withdraw from as part of mutually satisfactory settlement of other outstanding issues between two countries. While we should press strongly for return of Takeshima to Japan, if by any chance new regime were unwilling to do so we should, as very minimum, insist that they agree to submit matter to International Court of Justice for arbitration.
Finally, we should inform new regime very clearly that it must be prepared to adjust its relations with Japan on terms of reciprocity, in such matters as diplomatic missions, visits by businessmen and journalists, commercial trade. Japanese have suffered Rhee's occupation-minded approach for eight years and will be unwilling to accept such indefensible treatment from his successor. In its own interests, new regime should start with conformity with normal International standards of conduct, and could most usefully begin (in terms of Japanese and other free world opinion) by permitting Japanese diplomatic mission to enter and function in Korea on same terms Korea Embassy operates here.
If we now move swiftly with new Korea regime which should generally be receptive to our views because of our helpfulness, we may have initial opportunity, which may never reoccur, to influence its position on Japan-Korea problem. Japanese would certainly welcome warmly and reciprocate fully, measures indicating new Korea regime willing take "new look" at Japan.
D MacAuthur:mek POL:WHGleysteem DCMWmLeonhart
Reproduction from this copy is prohibited unless "UNCLASSIFIED"
Confidential
classification Official file copy
FDA urges that oysters, clams, mussels, and some scallops products from Korea should be removed from the market
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is urging food distributors, retailers, and food service operators to remove from sale or service all fresh, frozen, canned, and processed oysters, clams, mussels, and whole and roe-on scallops (molluscan shellfish) from Korea that have entered the United States. This includes molluscan shellfish from Korea that entered the United States prior to May 1, 2012, when the FDA removed such products from the Interstate Certified Shellfish Shippers List (ICSSL), and that which may have inadvertently entered the country after that date. These products and any products made with them may have been exposed to human fecal waste and are potentially contaminated with norovirus.
Molluscan shellfish contaminated with fecal waste and/or norovirus are considered adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Following initial notifications last month, a number of food companies have begun to remove these products from their distribution chain. However, many others have yet to take action.
A comprehensive FDA evaluation determined that the Korean Shellfish Sanitation Program (KSSP) no longer meets the sanitation controls specified under the United States’ National Shellfish Sanitation Program. The FDA’s evaluation found significant deficiencies with the KSSP including inadequate sanitary controls, ineffective management of land-based pollution sources and detection of norovirus in shellfish growing areas.
The deficiencies in the KSSP prompted the FDA to remove all Korean certified shippers of molluscan shellfish from the ICSSL on May 1, 2012. Although Korean molluscan shellfish represent only a small fraction of the oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops sold in the United States, the removal of Korean shellfish shippers from the ICSSL is an important step in stopping the importation of molluscan shellfish harvested from polluted waters....
Consumers who have recently bought molluscan shellfish and are concerned that it may have come from Korea, should contact the store where it was purchased and ask about its origin. Consumers can check the label on packaged seafood to see if it is from Korea. If it is not clear where the product is from, consumers can call the manufacturer to find out. Consumers should dispose of molluscan shellfish from Korea and any products made with molluscan shellfish from Korea.
These actions only affect molluscan shellfish harvested from Korean waters. They do not affect the receipt of fresh and frozen molluscan shellfish by distributors, retailers, and food service operators from any of the other shellfish shippers listed in the ICSSL. Further, these actions do not affect the importation of canned and other processed product made with molluscan shellfish harvested from non-Korean waters. The FDA is in ongoing discussions with Korean authorities to resolve the issue.
Although the heat treatment that canned products undergo should eliminate the risk of norovirus, the contents of the cans of molluscan shellfish from Korea are still considered not fit for human food because the products were harvested from waters subject to human fecal contamination. For fresh, frozen, or products processed by methods other than canning, the products should also be considered food not for human consumption and may also carry a risk of norovirus.
Noroviruses cause gastroenteritis. Symptoms of illness associated with norovirus include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach cramping. Affected individuals often experience low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and a general sense of tiredness. Most people show symptoms 12 to 48 hours after exposure to the virus. The illness typically lasts one to three days. Dehydration is the most common complication, especially in young children and older adults, which may require medical care. While there have been norovirus illnesses in the United States from the consumption of Korean oysters as recently as 2011, there have been no U.S. illnesses from the consumption of Korean shellfish reported in 2012.
The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.
The picture is the map of "Ryukyu Archipelago( 琉球群島)" from Collection
of the world atlas(世界地図集)" issued in1960（the first edition April 1960）by
Map Publisher of The City of Beijing(北京市地図出版社). On the map we can see
the word "尖閣群島"(Senkaku Archipelago) in Japanese（arrow A) and the national
border line (arrow B) is drawn just betweenJapan and Taiwan. All the place
-names of China are described in Chinese and Japan's names in Japanese here.
So it is apparent that Chinese Government had acknowledged Senkaku
Islands belonged to Japan in 1960.
Then, despite all these hard evidences with the letter ofappreciation why China
started to claim to the island? It is thought to be related to the undersea
resources around SenkakuIslands.
In 1968 ECAFE (UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East ) conducted
the oceanographic activities in the East China Sea, and in the next 1969 it
announced that there is a possibility of huge amount of oil deposit in the
shelf floor. This might trigger China's territorial ambition in the region.
It was not until September 1970 that China started to claim to Senkaku Islands .
Strong Evidence for validity of the Japanese Claim over Senkaku
The following picture is a letter of appreciation from the Chinese Consul of Nagasaki to Japanese fishermen, presented on 20th May,1920, for the reason that 7 Japanese fishermen saved 31 Chinese crew who had been shipwrecked off the coast of one of the Senkaku islands. The letter had been kept by a son of one of the rescuers, and then donated to the government of Ishigaki.
In the letter we can see the words for the place name that the Chinese survivors drifted to, described clearly as "Wayo Island, Senkaku Islands, Yaeyama District, Okinawa Prefecture, Imperial Japan(日本帝国沖縄県八重山郡尖閣列島和洋島)". Wayo Island is what the Chinese call Uotsuri Island now, which means that the Chinese Government at the time undoubtedly recognized the Senkaku Islands as Japanese territory. This would be strong evidence that proves the validity of the Japanese claim over the Senkaku Islands.
Here is the letter of appreciation in English
letter of appreciation
Republic of China, 8ｔｈ year in winter.
31 fishermen including Mr.Gojun Kaku郭合順 living in Keian恵安prefecture Fujian, haｄ a day of storm, were wrecked and drifted down to Wayo island, Senkaku islands, Yaeyama district, Okinawa Prefecture, the Empire of Japan.
Mr.Sonban Tamayose 玉代勢孫伴 living in Ishigaki village, Yaeyama county, Okinawa Prefecture, the Empire of Japan, was kind enough to give aid to them and return them safely to their home country.
You reallly achieved a great thing. So we thank you here and offer a letter of appreciation to you with our whole heart.
Republic of China Consul to Nagasaki 馮冕
Republic of China 9ｔｈ year 20th May
Comparative study of history textbooks of Japan, America, China, Korea and Taiwan, conducted by Stanford University
"The Japanese textbook is the most controlled of all, it neither admires the war, nor fuels patriotism"
There have been concerns about worsening relationships among Northeast Asian countries due to the differences in historical perceptions about the past war. The ASIA-PACIFIC RESEARCH CENTER (Shorenstein APARC) at Stanford University conducted a project of a comparative study of the history textbooks used today in Japan, China, Korea, America and Taiwan. The result shows that Japanese history textbooks don't glorify the war and are the most controlled of all the textbooks in the study. We will introduce the following two articles. One is the result of the study written by Mr.Peter Duus, professor of Japanese History, one of the major members of the study. Another is a summary of the study written by Mr. Daniel C. Sneider, the former correspondent of a U.S. Paper in Tokyo.
Implicit Lesson
The Japanese history textbooks for high schools have gained a bad reputation in the foreign mass media for the last 30 years. They have been criticized for not paying much attention to the responsibility for starting the Pacific War or bringing suffering into people's lives in the regions Japan occupied. Some even maintain that the content of these books has become increasingly patriotic.
The study of "Divided Memories and Reconciliation" at APARC disclosed the fact that such criticism over Japanese history textbooks was incorrect. They don't seem to be patriotic, instead they seem to inspire the least patriotism of all. They don't glorify the war, emphasize the importance of the military, or describe acts of heroism on the battlefield. They are timelines that only give accounts of historical events without describing narratives.
What the Japanese history textbooks signify is an implicit lesson. They tell us that the expansion of militarism is stupid and war entails enormous cost to the public. The description in the Japanese history textbooks have perfectly kept in step with Japan's post-war foreign policies that refused to possess military forces as a diplomatic policy. The Japanese Education Ministry guidelines lay weight on the development of friendly cooperative relations with neighboring countries and the need for peace and stability in Asia and the rest of the world.
Strange Result
In contrast, most of the East Asian countries claim in their guidelines of school textbooks that the history textbook should enhance the people's ethnic self-esteem and national identity (a sense of belonging). This is seen as being a basic role in the history education of the country. Enhancing ethnic self-esteem sometimes produces a strange result. For example the Korean history textbook doesn't mention the main events during the war, which the other countries' textbooks refer to, such as the war that occurred in China in 1937, the Pearl Harbor attack and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Instead it focuses entirely on the Korean's resistance movement against Japan's colonial administration or their cultural development in literature. In other words Korean's history textbook is a story of the ethnic strife's process for liberation.
Ethnocentric Description
It is probably the Chinese history textbook that describes the war in the most patriotic way. It is filled with descriptions of heroic military operations, and even suggests that it was China, chiefly the Communist Party of China, that ultimately defeated Japan. There are no references to either the war which took place in the Pacific or the importance of a role that the allied country had played there. It also doesn't highlight the role that the atomic bombing had played in ending the war, rather it says that the determining factors for ending the war were the general attack against Japan demanded by Mao Tse-tung and the Soviet Union's entry into the war.
The history textbooks of China and Taiwan say that the victory in the Anti-Japanese War wiped out China's disgrace for a century, which the Imperialism force brought on her by disregarding her rights and benefits. The Chinese textbook also insists that China has kept on struggling for anti-imperialism even after the war against the US that it regarded as a new enemy. New China is described as the winner of the Korean war in the book, stating that they stopped the US from trying to chase "the progressive forces " away from Asia.
KYOTO, Japan ? The demonstrators appeared one day in December, just as children at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans were cleaning up for lunch. The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bullhorns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies.
Inside, the panicked students and teachers huddled in their classrooms, singing loudly to drown out the insults, as parents and eventually police officers blocked the protesters’
The December episode was the first in a series of demonstrations at the Kyoto No. 1 Korean Elementary School that shocked conflict-averse Japan, where even political protesters on the radical fringes are expected to avoid embroiling regular citizens, much less children. Responding to public outrage, the police arrested four of the protesters this month on charges of damaging the school’s reputation.
More significantly, the protests also signaled the emergence here of a new type of ultranationalist group. The groups are openly anti-foreign in their message, and unafraid to win attention by holding unruly street demonstrations.
Since first appearing last year, their protests have been directed at not only Japan’s half million ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and other Asian workers, Christian churchgoers and even Westerners in Halloween costumes. In the latter case, a few dozen angrily shouting demonstrators followed around revelers waving placards that said, “This is not a white country.”
Local news media have dubbed these groups the Net far right, because they are loosely organized via the Internet, and gather together only for demonstrations. At other times, they are a virtual community that maintains its own Web sites to announce the times and places of protests, swap information and post video recordings of their demonstrations.
While these groups remain a small if noisy fringe element here, they have won growing attention as an alarming side effect of Japan’s long economic and political decline. Most of their members appear to be young men, many of whom hold the low-paying part-time or contract jobs that have proliferated in Japan in recent years.
Though some here compare these groups to neo-Nazis, sociologists say that they are different because they lack an aggressive ideology of racial supremacy, and have so far been careful to draw the line at violence. There have been no reports of injuries, or violence beyond pushing and shouting. Rather, the Net right’s main purpose seems to be venting frustration, both about Japan’s diminished stature and in their own personal economic difficulties.
“These are men who feel disenfranchised in their own society,” said Kensuke Suzuki, a sociology professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. “They are looking for someone to blame, and foreigners are the most obvious target.”
They are also different from Japan’s existing ultranationalist groups, which are a common sight even today in Tokyo, wearing paramilitary uniforms and riding around in ominous black trucks with loudspeakers that blare martial music.
This traditional far right, which has roots going back to at least the 1930s rise of militarism in Japan, is now a tacitly accepted part of the conservative political establishment here. Sociologists describe them as serving as a sort of unofficial mechanism for enforcing conformity in postwar Japan, singling out Japanese who were seen as straying too far to the left, or other groups that anger them, such as embassies of countries with whom Japan has territorial disputes.
Members of these old-line rightist groups have been quick to distance themselves from the Net right, which they dismiss as amateurish rabble-rousers.
“These new groups are not patriots but attention-seekers,” said Kunio Suzuki, a senior adviser of the Issuikai, a well-known far-right group with 100 members and a fleet of sound trucks.
But in a sign of changing times here, Mr. Suzuki also admitted that the Net right has grown at a time when traditional ultranationalist groups like his own have been shrinking. Mr. Suzuki said the number of old-style rightists has fallen to about 12,000, one-tenth the size of their 1960s’ peak.
(snip)
