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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TOKYO 001322 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR E, P, EB, EAP/J, EAP/P, EAP/PD, PA; 
WHITE HOUSE/NSC/NEC; JUSTICE FOR STU CHEMTOB IN ANTI-TRUST DIVISION; 
TREASURY/OASIA/IMI/JAPAN; DEPT PASS USTR/PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE; 
SECDEF FOR JCS-J-5/JAPAN, 
DASD/ISA/EAPR/JAPAN; DEPT PASS ELECTRONICALLY TO USDA 
FAS/ITP FOR SCHROETER; PACOM HONOLULU FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR; 
CINCPAC FLT/PA/ COMNAVFORJAPAN/PA. 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP KMDR KPAO PGOV PINR ECON ELAB JA
 
SUBJECT: JAPANESE MORNING PRESS HIGHLIGHTS 03/26/07-2 
 
 
Comfort-women issue: 
14) Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shimomura: No military 
involvement in recruiting WWII comfort women 
15) LDP league decides to reinvestigate the comfort-women situation 
and report findings to Abe 
16) US Congressman Honda's resolution on comfort-women issue likely 
to pass House in May 
17) Anti-Japanese organization with direct Beijing ties behind the 
Honda comfort-women resolution: Sankei's Komori 
18) Washington Post weighs in with editorial blasting Prime Minister 
Abe for handling of comfort-women issue 
 
19) LDP policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa: China's President Hu coming 
to Japan to set up equal ties with Japan 
 
20) Possibility that Abe might visit Pyongyang 
 
21) Three minutes after Hokuriku earthquake, Prime Minister's 
Official Residence had set up a task-force office, with Abe joining 
a couple hours later 
 
22) Abe rival in LDP, former Finance Minister Tanigaki, wants to set 
up liberal force to counter party's powerful rightwing 
 
23) Japan's national debt climbs to whopping 832 trillion yen 
 
Articles: 
 
14) Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shimomura: Imperial Japanese Army 
had nothing to do with recruitment of comfort women 
 
TOKYO SHIMBUN (Page 2) (Full) 
March 26, 2007 
 
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Shimomura said in a 
commercial radio program yesterday: 
 
"Although there were military nurses and war correspondents, 
so-called military comfort women did not exist. But it is true there 
were comfort women. I think there were cases in which parents sold 
their daughters. In such cases, the Imperial Japanese Army was not 
involved." 
 
The statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 
1993 recognized "the army's direct or indirect involvement" in 
establishing and managing wartime brothels and transferring comfort 
women. The statement also acknowledged the army's coercion of 
wartime sex-sex slavery. Shimomura's remarks are considered to 
reiterate the government's view that evidence does not exist to 
prove the Imperial Japanese Army's direct involvement. 
 
15) LDP league to reinvestigate wartime comfort women issue 
 
SANKEI (Page 4) (Full) 
March 24, 2007 
 
The Diet members league to consider Japan's future and historical 
education (chaired by former education and science minister Nariaki 
Nakayama), composed of likeminded lawmakers of the Liberal 
Democratic Party, decided yesterday that it would reinvestigate the 
so-called comfort women issue by looking into the documents that 
became the basis for the statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary 
 
TOKYO 00001322  002 OF 006 
 
 
Yohei Kono in 1993 (Kono Statement) that recognized official 
involvement in recruiting comfort women and issued an apology for 
such. 
 
The league had earlier asked the government to reinvestigate the 
issue. However, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in consideration of a 
move in the United States House of Representatives to adopt a 
resolution denouncing Japan on the comfort-women issue, instructed 
on March 8 that reinvestigation be conducted within the LDP. The 
league intends to ask the government to disclose the documents held 
by the government and military on the comfort women and to find out 
whether the military or government at the time was involved in 
recruitment. The group will put together the findings into a report 
of recommendations and present it to the prime minister. 
 
The government adopted in a cabinet meeting on March 16 a written 
reply noting: "In the documents discovered by the government, there 
was no direct evidence proving that the military or constituted 
authorities coercively rounded up comfort women against their will." 
Should the parliamentary group launch a reinvestigation, it is 
highly likely that the group will come up with a conclusion denying 
the involvement of the military or constituted authorities in 
recruiting comfort women. 
 
Some government officials, though, are calling on the group to 
constrain their activities, focusing on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's 
planned visit to Japan in April and the Prime Minister Abe's 
upcoming visit to the US. For that reason, the league has yet to set 
a schedule for the reinvestigation. 
 
16) Representative Honda: "The US House will vote on the comfort 
women resolution in May" 
 
SANKEI (Page 3) (Full) 
March 24, 2007 
 
Hideya Yamamoto, Washington 
 
US Congressman Mike Honda, who introduced a resolution condemning 
Japan over the "comfort women" issue, told media companies including 
the Sankei Shimbun on March 22: "The  House Committee on Foreign 
Affairs (chaired by Tom Lantos) will likely take a vote on the 
resolution around May." The resolution was initially planned to be 
adopted in the committee by the end of the month. 
 
If things go as Honda has said, the resolution will not be taken up 
before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's planned visit to the United 
States in late April. But there is still the possibility that during 
his visit to the US Abe will face demonstrations by US-based South 
Korean-affiliated organizations. 
 
As of March 22, the resolution has now been jointly sponsored by 49 
representatives, up from the initial 6. Soh Ok Cha, chair of the 
Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, an anti-Japanese 
group seeking to adopt the resolution, said that day, "We will 
increase the number of co-sponsors of the resolution to 100," 
appealing to legislators in the House while her organization's 
members circulated fliers. 
 
Referring to Soh's appeal, Honda said, "She has made a great 
effort." When asked about the Japanese government's rebuttals and 
persuasion efforts via its embassy in the US, Honda ridiculed Japan: 
 
TOKYO 00001322  003 OF 006 
 
 
"It appears desperate to save its face." 
 
17) House comfort women resolution similar to assertions of 
anti-Japan China-linked organization 
 
SANKEI (Page 3) (Excerpts) 
March 24, 2007 
 
Yoshihisa Komori, Washington 
 
It has become clear that the House resolution condemning Japan over 
the "comfort women" issue is very similar to what a certain 
anti-Japanese China-linked organization in the United States has 
demanded for years in terms of wording and composition. This 
resemblance apparently points to links between the proponent of the 
resolution and this anti-Japanese group. 
 
The "comfort women" resolution introduced by Congressman Mike Honda 
and other lawmakers in the House of Representatives in late January 
demands that the Japanese government  (1) should formally 
acknowledge, apologize for, and accept in a clear and unequivocal 
manner the fact that during the days of its occupation and colonial 
rule from the 1930s through World War II, its armed forces coerced 
young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as "comfort 
women"; (2) should have this official apology given as a public 
statement presented by the prime minister of Japan in his official 
capacity; (3) should clearly and publicly refute any claims that the 
sexual enslavement and trafficking of the "comfort women" for the 
Japanese armed forces never occurred; and (4) should educate current 
and future generations about this horrible crime while following the 
recommendations of the international community with respect to the 
"comfort women." 
 
However, according to one US Congress member, the demands in the 
resolution closely resemble phrases and expressions used by the 
Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia, a 
China-linked organization based in California. 
 
According to the Global Alliance's "official demands," in fact the 
major mission of the group is to have Japan "officially apologize in 
a clear and unequivocal manner and acknowledge" (its responsibility) 
for all war crimes, including recruitment of women by force for 
sexual slavery." Noticeable is the use of the same adjective 
"unequivocal" with respect to apology and acknowledgment as to 
historical responsibility. 
 
Other major points of the demands include that Japan should 
officially "apologize" in an "unequivocal manner," that it is 
"illegal to deny war crimes," and that "Japan should fully educate 
its people about Japan's history of aggression and its war crimes at 
every level of schools." 
 
According to the same Congress member, these major points of the 
group's demands  are the same as those of the resolution, namely, 
(1) officially acknowledge and apologize the fact of rounding up 
women by force and apologize for it in a clear and unequivocal 
manner; (2) prohibit any claims that deny the Imperial Japanese 
Forces' coercion of women into sexual slavery; and (3) school 
education in Japan about the comfort women issue. There is a 
resemblance between the group's demands and the resolution in terms 
of composition. 
 
 
TOKYO 00001322  004 OF 006 
 
 
18) US daily in its editorial criticizes Japan's prime minister over 
comfort women under the title "Double Talk" 
 
ASAHI (Page 2) (Full) 
March 26, 2007 
 
Yoshiyuki Komurata, Washington 
 
The Washington Post in its March 24 edition carried an editorial 
titled "Shinzo Abe's Double Talk" and criticized Prime Minister Abe 
for closing his eyes to the wartime comfort women issue, even though 
he is eager to deal with the abduction issue. It wrote: "If Mr. Abe 
seeks international support in learning the fate of Japan's 
kidnapped citizens, he should straightforwardly accept 
responsibility for Japan's own crimes -- and apologize to the 
victims he has slandered." 
 
The daily also sarcastically describes Japan's posture of giving the 
highest priority of the six-party talks to progress on the abduction 
issue this way: "This single-note policy is portrayed as a matter of 
high moral principle by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has used 
Japan's victims to rally his wilting domestic support." On the 
abduction issue, the daily said, "Mr. Abe has a right to complain 
about Pyongyang's stonewalling," but on the other hand, it 
criticized him: "What's odd -- and offensive -- is his parallel 
campaign to roll back Japan's acceptance of responsibility for the 
abduction, rape and sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of women 
during World War II." 
 
The editorial says the written reply released on March 16 by the 
government made the 1993 statement released by then Chief Cabinet 
Secretary Kono "less significant" and asserts that the "historical 
 
SIPDIS 
record on this issue is no less convincing than the evidence that 
North Korea kidnapped Japanese citizens." The editorial also says 
that if the prime minister were to back away from the Kono 
statement, it would be a "disgrace for a leader of a democratic 
nation. Mr. Abe may imagine that denying direct participation by the 
Japanese government in abductions may strengthen its moral authority 
in demanding answers from North Korea. It does the opposite." 
 
19) LDP Policy Affairs Research Council Chairman Nakagawa urges 
early visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Wen for realization of equal 
relationship 
 
YOMIURI (Page 4) (Full) 
March 25, 2007 
 
Referring to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan slated for 
April, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Policy Affairs Research 
Council Chairman Nakagawa on Mar. 24 indicated his position that his 
visit to Japan at an early date is necessary. He noted, "To begin 
with, we would like Premier Wen Jiabao, the number-two official in 
China, to come to Japan. It is not until he visits Japan that Japan 
and China will stand at the starting line in realizing an equal 
relationship." 
 
20) If conditions are met, Prime Minister Abe may go to Pyongyang 
 
NIHON KEIZAI SHIMBUN (Page 2) (Full) 
March 26, 2007 
 
Former Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura of the Liberal Democratic 
 
TOKYO 00001322  005 OF 006 
 
 
Party (LDP), appearing on an NHK television program on March 25, 
made this remark about the North Korea problem: "He won't wildly fly 
off (to Pyongyang), but if the conditions and environment are right, 
there is a good possibility of negotiations at the top." He 
indicated that in his view there was a possibility of Prime Minister 
Abe visiting North Korea for summit talks with General Secretary Kim 
Jong Il on the abductions and other issues. 
 
21) Kantei launches task force three minutes after quake: Prime 
minister comes to official residence two hours later 
 
TOKYO SHIMBUN (Page 1) (Excerpts) 
March 26, 2007 
 
The government was quick to set up a task force at the Prime 
Minister's Office (Kantei) following an earthquake on the Noto 
Peninsula yesterday and began collecting information. The Abe 
cabinet has been pressing ahead with efforts to strengthen crisis 
management since its inauguration exactly six months ago today. The 
earthquake has put the cabinet to the test regarding how the 
nation's crisis management system has been improved. 
 
Upon receiving a report from his secretary at his private residence 
in Tomigaya, Tokyo on the quake at 9:42 a.m. a minute after its 
occurrence, Abe gave an order to immediately investigate into the 
situation of the disaster and take every possible measures to secure 
the safety and relief of residents. The task force was set up at the 
Crisis Management Center at the Kantei at 9:45 a.m., three minutes 
after the incident 
 
Since the quake happened on Sunday morning, a time when the prime 
minister and many cabinet ministers are most likely at home, 
telephone communications appeared to have gone smoothly. The 
measures reportedly taken were generally in line with the Kantei's 
crisis management control manual, which was compiled based on 
lessons learned from the 1995 earthquake in the Osaka-Kobe area. 
 
State Minister for Disaster Management Kensei Mizote, who was 
yesterday morning attending the kick-off ceremony of a Hiroshima 
mayoral election campaign by a candidate running in the race on the 
Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) ticket, immediately returned to 
Tokyo by air and headed for the disaster-hit area by an Air 
Self-Defense Force plane. When Mizote arrived in Wajima City, 
Ishikawa Prefecture that evening, the prime minister ordered him to 
deal with the situation properly in cooperation with local 
governments. 
 
22) Tanigaki indicates desire to join forces with Niwa-Koga faction 
 
YOMIURI (Page 4) (Full) 
March 25, 2007 
 
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker and former Finance Minister 
Sadakazu Tanigaki yesterday made a speech in Saza Town, Nagasaki 
Prefecture. In the speech, he indicated a desire to link up with the 
Niwa-Koga and Tsushima factions, noting, "Prime Minister Abe's 
faction has taken a rightist position as an outgrowth of the Fukuda 
and Kishi factions. The trend of the thought of Kochi-kai, to which 
the Niwa-Koga and Tanigaki faction belong, is liberal. The LDP will 
lose seats in the Upper House election if it does not show that it 
has members with various thoughts." 
 
 
TOKYO 00001322  006 OF 006 
 
 
23) National debt reaches 832 trillion yen, setting new high for 
13th consecutive quarter 
 
YOMIURI (Page 2) (Full) 
March 24, 2007 
 
The Ministry of Finance on March 23 released the outstanding balance 
of liabilities held by the state, including government bonds and 
borrowings, as of the end of Dec. 2006. The national debt reached 
832.2631 trillion yen, up 2.3% or 19.801 trillion yen compared with 
the preceding year, setting a record high for the 13th consecutive 
quarter. 
 
Japan's outstanding debt is approximately 160% of GDP. Per capita, 
this comes to approximately 6.51 million yen. According to the 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 
ratio for the US is about 60% of that. Japan has the highest level 
of national debt. 
 
Among the debt, the outstanding balance of ordinary bonds, issued to 
cover revenue shortages in the general account, reached a record 
high of 534.3758 trillion yen, up 8.4524 trillion yen. 
 
SCHIEFFER