Free Republic

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman cited "some bilateral differences" between the two Asian allies of the U.S. "that are continuing to be resolved, unrelated to today's meeting" as the reason she appeared alone in front of reporters. Historical grievances between Japan and South Korea resurfaced in September, when a South Korean court ordered assets seized from Japanese industrial group Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to be sold as compensation for women forced to work for the company during World War II. Sherman and her counterparts, Choi Jong-kun of South Korea and Mori Takeo of Japan, discussed North Korea's nuclear program and...

(barf) Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on Saturday attended a protest outside the White House as violent unrest rages across the United States over the death of George Floyd, the man who died after a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed. A masked Harris shared a video of herself attending a protest alongside hundreds of other demonstrators chanting “Hands up. Don’t shoot.”

VIDEO: Ocasio-Cortez Describes Herself As ‘Therapist’ For Her ‘Traumatized’ District

Mayor of Japanese city says memorial for women used as sex slaves in Japan is not historically accurate The city of Osaka has ended its 60-year “sister city” relationship with San Francisco to protest against the presence in the US city of a statue symbolising Japan’s wartime use of sex slaves. Osaka’s mayor, Hirofumi Yoshimura, terminated official ties this week after the US city agreed to recognise the “comfort women” statue, which was erected by a private group last year in San Francisco’s Chinatown district, as public property. In his 10-page letter to San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, Yoshimura noted...

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia. Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan's education system responsible for a number of the country's foreign relations difficulties. "Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities because they are not...

Japan has conveyed its concern to the U.S. government that a statement made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could contradict an agreement with South Korea over the “comfort women,” sources close to the matter said. “It’s one that only they can resolve,” Tillerson told reporters this month after a 20-nation ministerial meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. “And we know that there’s more that needs to be done,” he said, referring to the issue of the Korean girls and women who were forced into Japan’s military brothels before and during the war. Tokyo has told Washington that Tillerson’s words could...

A woman with revisionist views of World War II history was named Japan’s defense minister in a Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, a move that could unsettle relations with Asian neighbors with bitter memories of wartime atrocities. Tomomi Inada, who had served as reform minister and most recently held one of the top posts in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will replace Gen Nakatani as defense minister. She’s the second female to fill the post. […] Inada, a lawyer-turned-lawmaker and one of Abe’s favorite cronies, is a regular at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war dead including convicted war criminals, a...

Just days after the Japanese and South Korean governments announced a surprise agreement to resolve a decades-old dispute over war-time sex slaves, opposition on both sides is threatening to derail it. In Tokyo, government officials were saying that the $8.3 million it agreed to put into a fund for the remaining 46 South Korean "comfort women," who were forced into sexual servitude during World War II, would not be paid until a statue to the women was removed from outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Meanwhile in Seoul, supporters of the women said they would put up other statues if...

SEOUL – Although the leaders of Japan and South Korea agreed this week to take prompt action on the issue of Korean women and girls forced into wartime Japanese brothels, it remains uncertain whether they will settle the dispute by year’s end.

A group of 187 scholars of Japanese and East Asian studies have called on Japan to accurately address its history of colonial rule and wartime actions, particularly the so-called “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels. In a letter sent Monday to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the group, including Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower and Ezra Vogel, professor emeritus of history at Harvard University and author of the 1979 best-seller “Japan As No. 1: Lessons for America,” said the ability to celebrate 70 years of peace between Japan and its neighbors was being undermined by...

An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military's forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to "maintain discipline" in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle. The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan's wartime aggression and that have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities. Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is also co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also told reporters that there wasn't clear evidence that the...

A GROUP of Asian women forced to work as sex slaves for Japan's soldiers during World War II urged the country's lawmakers on Tuesday to pass a resolution demanding an official apology. 'Survivors are quickly ageing, still suffering from pain and complications from damage in the days of sexual slavery,' said a statement from a committee representing the so-called 'comfort women' and their families. 'Due to the delay to an apology and compensation by the Japanese government, the situation has become even more painful for the survivors,' it said. The group is calling for a fact-finding body, an official apology...