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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TOKYO 000971 
 
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:  DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS 03/07/07 
 
 
INDEX: 
 
(1) Ozawa-led Minshuto expects Rengo's support for candidates in 
single-seat districts through strengthened alliance in Upper House 
election 
 
(2) Opinion column by Yukio Okamoto -- 70th anniversary of Nanjing 
Incident: Government responsible for countering anti-Japanese 
arguments 
 
(3) Editorial: Comfort women issue-Makeshift policy comes back to 
haunt 
 
(4) Now is the time to rebut Japan-bashing by the US Congress over 
the "wartime comfort women" issue 
 
ARTICLES: 
 
(1) Ozawa-led Minshuto expects Rengo's support for candidates in 
single-seat districts through strengthened alliance in Upper House 
election 
 
MAINICHI (Page 5) (Full) 
March 7, 2007 
 
In the run-up to the House of Councillors election this summer, 
Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) President Ichiro Ozawa, who 
places priority on the organized vote, is stepping up efforts to 
strengthen cooperation with Rengo (Japanese Trade Union 
Confederation). Although former Minshuto President Seiji Maehara 
tried to find ways to limit dependence on trade unions, the main 
opposition party has now returned to placing high hopes on Rengo's 
support for its candidates. Rengo has decided to field eight 
candidates, the same number it fielded in the previous election in 
¶2004. Efforts are also being made to win over unaffiliated voters, 
given that union membership is on the decline. The "honeymoon 
alliance" between Minshuto and Rengo, though, is somewhat complex. 
 
Ozawa has been visiting single-seat constituencies (where one seat 
is up for re-election) with senior Rengo members since last month. 
He visited Nagasaki with Rengo Chairman Tsuyoshi Takagi yesterday. 
Before going there, Ozawa and Takagi had already visited five other 
constituencies. 
 
Ozawa was criticized for having stayed away from a House of 
Representatives plenary session on March 3, in which the FY2007 
budget bill was adopted. He intends to continue to give priority to 
election campaigning over Diet affairs. Ozawa is scheduled to make a 
round of visits to most of the 29 single-seat constituencies with 
senior Rengo members. He carries with him memos defining the details 
of each bloc, such as the results of past elections and the number 
of union members. Everywhere he goes, Ozawa underscores his 
determination to " work hard in the campaign both for the 
proportional representation seats and single-seat districts." 
 
Some members in the ruling camp have confided, "Depending on labor 
unions is an antiquated concept." In the alliance between Rengo and 
Minshuto, however, Rengo itself is probably more concerned. In the 
case of the All-Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers' Union 
(Jichiro), only one-sixth of all its members voted for its 
candidates in the 2004 Upper House election. For the upcoming 
election, the union picked as its candidate a 59-year-old woman who 
started working at a municipal government as a part-timer. The Japan 
 
TOKYO 00000971  002 OF 007 
 
 
Federation of Telecommunications, Electronic Information, and Allied 
Workers (Joho Roren) has decided to field a thirty year old young 
woman in an attempt to win over unaffiliated voters. 
 
Rengo aims to get all of its eight candidates elected, whereas Ozawa 
expects Rengo to support Minshuto-backed candidates in single-seat 
constituencies. The main opposition party has not made monthly 
payments to Rengo-backed candidates to support their campaigns, 
based on the view that "the union can take care of the money and 
personnel." a senior member of the Election Committee said. Such a 
severe response has put extra pressure on Rengo. 
 
(2) Opinion column by Yukio Okamoto -- 70th anniversary of Nanjing 
Incident: Government responsible for countering anti-Japanese 
arguments 
 
YOMIURI (Page 12) (Slightly abridged) 
March 2, 2007 
 
How gloomy! The documentary film Nanjing, which won an award at the 
Sundance Film Festival, is to come out. The film includes footage 
shot at the time, interviews with Chinese survivors, and former 
Imperial Japanese Army soldiers, and footage showing Western 
people. 
 
The film shows scenes of Japanese soldiers slaughtering or raping 
Chinese people one after another. There was also a scene of a former 
Japanese serviceman confessing what he saw at the time with a 
strained laugh. The theme of the film is a story about American 
medical doctors who saved many Chinese from Japanese soldiers. Just 
before the last scene of the film, the messagem, "The number of 
victims topped 200,000 persons" as stated in the Tokyo War Crimes 
Tribunal is quoted without reservation, and present-day Japanese 
wearing military uniforms are shown shouting "Banzai" in front of 
Yasukuni Shrine. I am sure a number of people who saw the film would 
come to hate Japan and Japanese. Following this film, similar films 
depicting the Nanjing Incident are expected to be produced this 
year. 
 
The easiest approach to this sort of film is to reject and ignore 
it. Our daily lives would not be jeopardized directly by that film 
as long as we live in the comfortable world of Japan. But while the 
Japanese people pay no heed to the film, the film will be released 
across the world and become available on the Internet. The producer 
is the co-founder of AOL. He has a powerful tool to send a message 
to the world. I had an opportunity to talk to him, and both of us 
took time for discussion. He is not anti-Japanese, but he seemed to 
have determined his view of Japan before Japan has sent a message to 
the world. 
 
Every country has a history of slaughter and brutality that it does 
not want to face. The film depicts Japanese soldiers' deeds done 
over six weeks as the most atrocious act in modern history. This may 
make people of other countries, including the United States, who 
feel a sense of guilt toward what their countries had done in the 
past, relieved at the thought that what they did was not as brutal 
as Japan's acts. 
 
Nothing occurred in the year marking the 50th or 60th anniversary of 
the Nanjing Incident. Why now on the 70th anniversary? Obviously, 
there are overseas Chinese organizations that systematically plot 
against Japan. What they desire most is to join hands with Americans 
to denounce Japanese militarism. 
 
TOKYO 00000971  003 OF 007 
 
 
 
But there seem to be more reasons. One is that some in Asia and the 
US are beginning to suspect that Japan is going to move to deny its 
war responsibility. 
 
How should Japan deal with that? My conclusion is that the Japanese 
government, upon examining the Nanjing Incident, must transmit its 
views to the world. For instance, what actually occurred in Nanjing 
and what did not occur there? Was there a massacre or not? I think 
the government can conduct a survey and come out with a definite 
conclusion. 
 
Doing so is never a pleasant process. But there are people who 
experienced (the Nanjing Incident) and are still alive. There are 
records left behind by former Japanese soldiers and diaries of 
military officers and soldiers involved in the incident. Also, there 
are distinguished scholars and researchers who independently 
conducted surveys in Japan. A number of ways to shed light on the 
truth are available now. 
 
I think the government needs to declare its resolve to examine 
Japan's history before the people of the world are deeply imbued 
with an anti-Japanese spirit stemming from scenes created by films 
like this. Doing so is the only way to rebut the criticism that the 
scale of the Nanjing Incident is just as China has asserted, but 
Japan is trying to cover it up. Otherwise Japan cannot have any way 
to counter an intentional anti-Japanese campaign. It is the 
government's responsibility to protect the honor of the present-day 
Japanese people. 
 
Yukio Okamoto: Advisor on international issues and guest professor 
at Ritsumeikan University; served as director of the First North 
American Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as advisor 
to Prime Minister Hashimoto and Prime Minister Koizumi; and is 61 
years old. 
 
(3) Editorial: Comfort women issue-Makeshift policy comes back to 
haunt 
 
SANKEI (Page 2) (Full) 
March 7, 2007 
 
A US congressional resolution blaming the Imperial Japanese Army 
over the "comfort women" issue is now causing ripples. In a House of 
Councillors Budget Committee session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was 
grilled with questions over a 1993 Japanese government statement 
that came from the then chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono, and 
that became one of the grounds for the resolution. In South Korea, 
President Roh Moo Hyun referred to the resolution and denounced 
Japan for "an act of barbarism under Japanese imperialism." Chinese 
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also criticized Japan. 
 
The way things are going, Japan's image-whether the resolution is 
adopted or not-will be hurt. This could unreasonably mar the 
Imperial Japanese Army's honor as well as the Japanese people's. 
 
The Kono statement pointed to "the Imperial Japanese Army's role" in 
setting up brothels and transporting comfort women. The Kono 
statement took the position that comfort women were recruited mainly 
by brokers. However, the statement also noted "the role of 
government authorities, et al.," adding that women were "enticed" 
and "coerced" to serve as comfort women. Furthermore, it expressed 
the Japanese government's "heartfelt apology and remorse" for all 
 
TOKYO 00000971  004 OF 007 
 
 
former comfort women, saying the government pays "sufficient 
attention" to lawsuits instituted by former comfort women for 
compensation. 
 
However, Nobuo Ishihara, who was the then deputy chief cabinet 
secretary and took part in the making of the Kono statement, has 
 
SIPDIS 
testified that the government-despite thoroughgoing fact-finding 
surveys conducted in Japan and abroad by its ministries and agencies 
concerned-could not find out any documentation or evidence that may 
be taken as denoting government or military orders to cart off those 
women. 
 
In South Korea, 16 women claimed to have once served as comfort 
women. The Kono statement was only based on what they said. The 
Japanese government recognized them as forced comfort women, but 
that resulted from a political judgment made by then Chief Cabinet 
Secretary Kono and then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in compliance 
 
SIPDIS 
with the South Korean government's demand, Ishihara says. 
 
Japan has only to give in and apologize. If Japan does so, the 
overseas criticism of Japan would die down over time. Political 
leaders in those days might have thought in this way. However, it 
actually did not. On the contrary, the Japanese government was 
condemned even more bitterly. The US congressional resolution was 
also based on the Kono statement, according to US Representative 
Mike Honda, a sponsor of the resolution. We should say the makeshift 
political decision has come back to haunt the nation. 
 
On March 5, the House of Councillors Budget Committee met. Prime 
Minister Abe, sitting in on the chamber's committee, stated that his 
government would "basically follow" the Kono statement. The prime 
minister then replied: "There is no evidence to endorse coercion in 
the narrow sense of the word. Government authorities did not break 
into their houses to take them away like kidnappers." 
 
What if the prime minister now were to say he would undertake an 
overall review of the Kono statement? Anti-Japanese people overseas 
may exaggeratedly interpret and exploit his words for their 
anti-Japanese propaganda. The premier might have such a judgment. 
Japan needs time and perseverance to redeem its honor. At the same 
time, political leaders should also have the courage to say what is 
true on the comfort women issue, based on the facts of history. 
 
(4) Now is the time to rebut Japan-bashing by the US Congress over 
the "wartime comfort women" issue 
 
By Yoshiko Sakurai, journalist 
 
Shukan Bunshun (Pages 144-145) (Abridged) 
March 8, 2007 
 
On Feb. 25, 2007, US Representative (Democratic Party) Michael 
Honda, a third-generation Japanese-American, appeared on a Japanese 
television talk show (by satellite relay). When asked by the 
program's host, "How can you say that there was coercive recruitment 
of comfort women (by the Japanese Imperial Army during wartime)? 
Show us your proof?" Here is his reply: "Hasn't there actually 
already been a comment on that in the form of the (Kono) Statement? 
So if there had been no coerciveness, why then did the prime 
minister of Japan express his heartfelt apology?" Something we had 
long feared, the bill for the "Kono Statement," had finally come 
due. 
 
 
TOKYO 00000971  005 OF 007 
 
 
On Jan. 31, US Rep. Honda presented a resolution to the floor of the 
House of Representatives that contained the words: "The former 
Japanese Imperial Army during World War II forced young women to 
become sex slaves. We demand a formal apology from the Japanese 
government." In connection with the resolution, a hearing was held 
on Feb. 15, in which three former comfort women gave testimony. 
 
Since 1996, the same resolution has been submitted five times, but 
each time, the House rejected it. This time, however, there is a 
strong possibility that there resolution will be adopted. 
 
When the Kono Statement was first issued in 1003, I covered the 
event as a reporter, interviewing both Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei 
Kono and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobuo Ishihara. What was 
clear to me then was the lack of objective facts to support the 
statement that "the Japanese government coercively recruited comfort 
women (during the war)." At the time, the Japanese government had 
collected documents from all over the world to verify the truth, but 
it did not find even one document to indicate there had been 
coercive recruitment (by the government and military). 
 
In spite of that, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono on August 4, 1993, 
issued a statement that claimed there existed a large number of 
comfort women who "were assembled against their wills, lured by 
sweet words or coerced," and that "there were government authorities 
and others who directly took part in such." Moreover, at the press 
conference, Kono flatly stated that coercive recruitment (by the 
military) was a fact. But why did the government admit to something 
that never existed? 
 
At the time, the Republic of Korea was strongly pressuring Japan to 
admit that the coercive recruitment (of comfort women) was being 
intentionally carrying out (during the war) by the Japanese 
government. The government of South Korea was strongly demanding 
that if objective facts could not be found, the Japanese government 
should then listen to the testimony of the former comfort women 
themselves. An investigation took place, in which 16 former comfort 
women testified. However, in this investigation, only their singular 
statements were heard; neither rebuttals nor questioning was 
allowed. It was an investigation in name only, as such, it had no 
value. 
 
In that connection, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Ishihara said 
that he was convinced that since it was "an issue involving the 
moral dignity of women," by "wrapping up matters by having the 
government admit to coercion, the Republic of Korea government would 
not make this any more of an issue than is was now." 
 
Despite that, since there had been a promise to the women neither to 
release the contents of their testimonies nor their names, even 
today, the contents of what they had said have never been disclosed. 
It has become a black box, since the evidence was never made 
available. 
 
As expected, there was no coercion from the start 
 
Even at the House of Representatives hearing, in the testimony of 
two South Korean women, one had been an orphan, and her foster 
parents had kicked her out in order to make money for the family. 
She was led away to a comfort station by a Korean dressed in a 
military uniform. The other person was lured by a friend and left 
home without telling her parents. She was led away by a Japanese 
male dressed in civilian clothes. 
 
TOKYO 00000971  006 OF 007 
 
 
 
I feel deep sympathy toward the appeals of those women who had 
received horrible treatment in the comfort stations. Yet, their 
testimonies do not show that the Japanese government or military was 
"coercively recruiting" comfort women. 
 
This time, there was also the testimony of a Dutch woman (now living 
in Austria) who had been interned by the Japanese military in 
Indonesia and made into a comfort woman. It is true that in 
Indonesia, Japanese soldiers stationed there were merciless toward 
interned Dutch women and made them work as prostitutes. But the 
military unit that knew about such activities was ordered to close 
the comfort station, and after the war, the participants were 
executed as war criminals. The Indonesia incident is material that 
can be explained as a case in which the state was not the entity 
carrying out coercive acts. 
 
In addition, on March 4, 1938, the government issued guidance on 
tracking down the identities of dealers so that they would no longer 
pose as military officers when recruiting comfort women. There are 
documents dated June 27, 1944, that show the police being augmented 
on the Korean Peninsula in order to see that women were not being 
rounded up by force. However, the Japanese government did not at all 
rebut charges using such factual information. Instead, the Japanese 
government apologized without rebuttal. 
 
As a result, at present, voices are being raised in the US House of 
Representatives that the Kono Statement was an insufficient apology. 
In the hearing, Ms. Mindy Kotler, who is associated with a group 
working on the issue of postwar reparations, ranked Japan's 
comfort-women issue in the same category as the Holocaust in 
Germany. 
 
She said: "The Japanese government has never formally apologized. 
Until now, the apologies of prime ministers have all been personal 
views." She continued: "The chief cabinet secretary is like the 
press spokesman at the White House. Just like the apology of a press 
spokesman at the White House is not the US government's apology, 
neither is the chief cabinet secretary's apology the same as the 
Japanese government's apology."  She then went on: "Kono was a lame 
duck and held no responsibility toward anyone." She stressed: This 
issue is not just for today; it is an issue for tomorrow, as well." 
In other words, the problem will continue indefinitely into the 
future. 
 
Even the chairwoman of the Washington Alliance on the Comfort Women 
Issue, the group backing the adoption of the House resolution, 
stated: "In 2005, 42 million persons signed a petition against Japan 
obtaining a seat on the United Nations Security Council. They signed 
a petition that said Japan was not qualified to hold such a seat 
since the Japanese government has not formally apologized for the 
sex slavery." However, since the names on the petition were 
collected on the Internet in a way that anyone could sign up more as 
many times as they wished, the validity of the petition is 
questionable. 
 
Must break away from the Kono Statement 
 
Regarding the series of recent moves, Japanese Ambassador to the US 
Ryozo Kato has sent a letter to the House of Representatives 
stating: "Japan has already officially apologized"; and, "Letters of 
apology were sent to comfort women." He explained the contents of 
the Diet resolutions on the 50th and the 60th anniversaries of the 
 
TOKYO 00000971  007 OF 007 
 
 
end of the war. 
 
But the most important part was omitted: He did not rebut that there 
was no truth to the charge of coercive recruitment. In 1991, when 
the former comfort women filed a lawsuit against the Japanese 
government, the government said that the statute of limitations had 
run out, and it used technical legal issues to fight the lawsuit. 
The government never sought to verify the testimonies of the women. 
 
In addition, some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers have been 
making such easygoing remarks as, "The resolution is non-binding"; 
and, "No one in the United States is making a fuss." But the public 
hearing and its television transmission were reported all around the 
world, so most likely gave Japan a negative image. 
 
Japan should now be tackling the facts behind this case. Under 
today's sense of values, what happened in World War II and even in 
the Korean War that came just after are totally unacceptable. But 
systems similar to the comfort stations were established in other 
countries, as well. Among those countries, only Japan has been 
singled out for special criticism because of the point that the 
government and military authorities were regarded as the coercive 
force. That is indeed why the point is being made that Japan should 
apologize even though it has apologized. There needs to be a 
clarification of the facts as the main premise. 
 
This negative legacy all started with the Kono Statement. Someone 
must make a decision to break with the Kono Statement. I ask Mr. Abe 
as the prime minister to make such a decision. 
 
SCHIEFFER