Chinese view Korea's comfort women deal

By Frank Ching

The yearend agreement between Japan and South Korea to resolve the issue of wartime “comfort women,” which has been poisoning the relationship between the two countries, has been widely welcomed internationally, but not by China.

Asked to comment on the accord, under which Japan acknowledged responsibility and agreed to pay US$8.2 million to the surviving women, a Chinese spokesman responded: “The forced recruitment of the ‘comfort women’ is a grave crime against humanity committed by Japanese militarism during the Second World War against people of Asian and other victimized countries. The Chinese side always maintains that the Japanese side should face up to and reflect upon its history of aggression and properly deal with the relevant issue with a sense of responsibility.”

Not a word was said about welcoming the improvement in relations between its two key neighbors, Japan and South Korea. This attitude was strikingly different from that two days earlier, when China was asked about an unexpected meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Then, China’s reaction was positive. China, the foreign ministry said, “welcomes the latest development of the relationship between Pakistan and India,” adding: “As a neighbor and friend to both Pakistan and India, the Chinese side welcomes and supports, as it always does, their increase of mutual trust and pursuit of common development through dialogues.”

Similarly, after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif, a Chinese spokesman said: “As the neighbor to both countries, China welcomes the positive efforts made by both sides to improve bilateral relations which are conductive to resuming the Afghan reconciliation process and realizing regional stability.”

China, it appears, generally welcomes any improvement in relations between its neighbors, but not in the case of Japan and South Korea.

One obvious reason, of course, is that Japan and South Korea are key American allies in the region; any strain in their bilateral relationship, such as the comfort women issue, hobbles the triangular relationship, making it difficult for the United States in Asia.

More specifically, China has been playing the history card against Japan and has been trying to get South Korea to act with it against Japan.

By saying that the comfort women issue affects the “people of Asian and other victimized countries,” China left the door open for itself to take action against Japan.

Taiwan has already acted. It has asked for talks with Japan and is calling for a formal apology, compensation, the “return of justice and dignity” to the women concerned, and “taking better care” of the few survivors. According to the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, more than 2,000 Taiwanese women were forced to serve in military brothels during the war but only four are still alive today.

North Korea, too, has joined in, saying the issue cannot be thoroughly resolved “unless the damage suffered by all Koreans be redressed throughout Korea.”

In addition, women from the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Netherlands also served as “comfort women” for the Japanese military during the war.

The South Korea-Japan agreement covers 46 elderly survivors, who will share in a fund being set up amounting to about US$8.3 billion being provided by the Japanese government.

There are people in both Japan and South Korea opposed to the deal. Vocal opponents demonstrated loudly outside the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo last week while opposition in South Korea was even more widespread.

There are also remaining issues between the two governments. Japan wants South Korea to act first by removing the very embarrassing comfort woman statue across the street from the Japanese embassy which was erected by a Korean civic group. Seoul has only promised to “strive to solve this issue in an appropriate manner” by talking to nongovernmental organizations concerned.

Japanese officials, however, say that the statue can be easily removed since it was erected illegally on the sidewalk.

The likelihood is that the two governments will be able to deal with their domestic critics and that the agreement will be implemented. This is a major development. On one level, the Japanese government has finally stopped hiding behind legalistic arguments and has accepted responsibility, and done so at a time when there were still a few survivors to make the act meaningful.

On a different level, South Korea has adjusted its relationship between China and the United States, ending a troubling trend that saw President Park Geun-hye and President Vladimir Putin as the only major international leaders attending China’s military parade last September.

Frank Ching is a freelance writer based in Hong Kong and can be reached at Frank.ching@gmail.com.