Denying Japan’s Responsibility for WWII Sex Slaves Only Makes Japan Look Worse

The Allied Reoccupation of the Andaman Islands, 1945

Chinese and Malayan girls forcibly taken from Penang by the Japanese to work as ‘ianfu’ (military sex slaves) for Japanese troops. Public domain

In World War II, women from more than ten countries were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. These women were euphemistically called ‘ianfu’ (comfort women) in Japanese, and have long been a source of political controversy.

In an effort to protect Japan's self-esteem, Japanese historical revisionists refuse to admit the misdeeds of the Imperial Japanese army in spite of a mountain of proof that suggest sexual slavery in World War II was organized and methodical.

A recent discussion among Twitter users offers a glimpse of the arguments used to defend the wartime practice. 

User @dragoner_jp articulates a common mistake when discussing sexual slavery in World War II:

Japanese conservatives often claim “they were never forced” and make individual choice the focus of comfort women discussion. 

However, Koreans attach little importance as to whether or not women were forced to work in brothels servicing troops during the war, so it makes no sense for Japan to insist passionately on it.

This makes this debate meaningless.

The treatment of comfort women has long strained ties between Korea and Japan. Japan colonized Korea between 1905 and 1945, and the Japanese occupation of the country could be quite brutal.

During the Second World War Japanese colonial authorities conscripted tens of thousands of women from the Korean Peninsula and other parts of Asia to serve as comfort women.

Perceptions that the Japanese government refuses to acknowledge the issue or even deny the existence of comfort women continues to provoke protests in South Korea.

To put it very simply, people in other countries feel even more disgusted when they hear the argument that, in an attempt to defend the Imperial Japanese army, “Yeah, the Japanese army had comfort women for sure, but it was by mutual consent, and nobody was ever forced into it. [As Japanese citizens] we bear no responsibility because our government and army had nothing to do with it.”

The response by other countries is, “Why do you assume we will be convinced [that the Japanese army did nothing wrong] by using that logic?” The sense of disgust towards Japan intensifies every time Japan apologists make this argument!

@boreford agrees and summarizes the discussion:

The more you argue “No problem, because they were prostitutes. And it was private contractors who brought them, not the Japanese army,” the worse you look.

@raise9393 disagrees, and in the process provides a perfect example of wrong-headed thinking:

In other words, you mean comfort women were exploited just like employers of sweatshops and used as “sex slaves?”

Prostitution was legal at the time, and the comfort women made big money. Moreover, the army paid special attention to their treatment such as making sure they worked in sanitary conditions. The treatment of employers of sweatshops are far worse than [the Japanese army ever was].

@dragoner_jp fired back: 

The arguments [you are making in your tweet here] are exactly what I have am talking about, and are exactly the sorts of arguments that make people in other countries disgusted [with Japan]:

RT@raise9393 @dragoner_JP @tsuyup Prostitution was legal at the time, and the comfort women made big money. Moreover, the army paid special attention to their treatment such as making sure they worked in sanitary conditions. The treatment of employers of sweatshops are far worse than [the Japanese army ever was].

26 comments

  • Jerome Besson

    Why all the fuss?

    These whores, like shark-suckers (remoras), were feeding off the mouth of a legendary, awe-inspiring swordfish. Period.

    The IJA was top dog in Asia. Those whores lived it, And they and their Korean and Chinese pimps behaved accordingly. Once the IJA had been defeated, they kept selling their wares. They were now servicing the victors (allied powers) in every corner of Asia.

    Why are ever-whining Chinese and Koreans allowed to stir up preposterous territorial claims and that obscene exposition of a past that no self-respecting grandma would allow divulged?

    Is it not because, ultimately, it serves the interests of the principal victor of the Empire of Japan?

    That Japan could muster the gumption and the wherewithals to fulfill her own “Manifest Destiny” used to be abhorrent. America poured all its vengeful wrath, all its ressources in destroying the Empire of Japan to smithereens and impose its own order (Pax Americana) on the Asia-Pacific area. Incidentally, it also displaced also the British and other European imperial powers.

    But in the new world order it has imposed, America remains atavistically wary of a Japan that could rekindle the spirit under which she once threatened rearranging Asia in ways harmful to western interests. America needs keeping Japan on a tight leash under the guise of the US-Japan security alliance. And Chinese and Koreans slavishly create issues and incidents aimed at perpetuating the post-WWII status quo.

    The motto of the New Rome remains “Carthago delenda est.” That is why.

    • Janita Poe

      “Whores?”
      By using that word men like you divert attention from the only whores who have ever existed—> the men who, throughout history, have had so little character that they would dehumanized poor human beings good money to sleep with them (though they do not desire to do so).

    • MoreBombs

      And let us hope that Japan never rises again and if she does and plans to unleash the same brutality she did in WW2, America nukes her again. This time with 20 nukes rather then just 2.

      • Jerome Besson

        @reply with more bombs:

        insensitive, misinformed, thoughtless

        Midget Han’s thought process, perhaps?

        • MoreBombs

          Insensitive only to those who threaten the peace.
          Misinformed only to those who cover the ears and think America would not use every weapon to crush it’s enemies to smithereens.
          Thoughtless only in the sense that perhaps nukes are not proportionate. Drowning Japanese Fascists in Drone fire sounds better. They won’t even have the satisfaction of mutilating the poor captured soul.

          The thought process is that of a student who has studied history. The history is not good for any fascist who threatens the peace. Let that be a warning.

          • MoreBombs

            Remember when a tiny Empire called Imperial Japan thought it could bully it’s way to power and take down the World’s largest industrial power, the World’s largest country and the World’s largest Empire at the same time?

            How did that end?
            Their entire navy sunk
            Their Empire ripped to shreds
            Thousands of their men dead because they liked running into machine gun fire.
            Cities burned to a crisp

            An admirable example. Now all those fascist admirers can do is baww about their lost Empire and how they were ‘provoked.’ In their spare time, they enjoy cosplaying in front of the Russian Embassy and jerking off to shipwrecks or target practice for the American Navy. Funny enough, they would get along quite well with the poor ex-commies. They can all have a big cry about how big bad America hurt them.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            Has the pseudo-ROC (Nationalist China) already melted into the Zhongnanhai-controlled, true ROC (according to UN resolution 2758)?

            The question is worth asking since, in its attempt at striking a deal with the US over a shared hegemony of the Pacific basin, the PROC is coopting the self-aggrandizing, skewed view of its role in WWII that the pseudo-ROC used to hold when maintained on life support (1945-1978) on US-occupied Japanese Taiwan.

            That puppet regime of the US since 1937 or about had been supported early on by Leninist Russia and by Nazi Germany. Fight lasted for eight years across the Chinese theater of war only because of the American involvement. All told, the territory not already occupied by the IJA was occupied by the US army through their proxy in Chungking.

            The gist of Sino-American relations since the American Revolution onward rests on the opportunities the Chinese market offers to America’s predatory instincts. And a united China will remain on the world chessboard as long as America deems Japan a hazard to its interests in the Asia-Pacific area.

            And this trend results in America running time after time on a colliding course with a smaller but resilient Japan. Seventy years after the dastardly war that led to its victory against Japan, America is still in awe of Japan and of her resilience. In the end, the motto of the New Rome in dealing with Japan remains, “Carthago delenda est.”

            Nationalist China could not claim victory over Japan in WWII with a straight face. Next, PROC saw the light of day in 1949. They took control of the territory known as China four years after the guns of WWII had been silenced on the Chinese theater of war.

            Sino-Japanese relations will remain frosty for as long as subjective memory obfuscates factual history in China. China’s perception of its role in WWII is devoid of objective historical analysis supported by hard facts.

            China ought to quit behaving the surely AQ it has grown into since the Jiang Ze-Min era. Chinese elites ought to learn from the history of a contemporary Japan that tackled the hegemonic intents of the west up to 1945.

            But if you want to chuck off the shackles of American hegemony, learn first to give respect where respect is due. And make nice with Japan in admitting that most of the bloodshed that occurred in the Chinese theater of WWII was Chinese-on-Chinese violence perpetrated to placate the American protector. The Chiang/Song gang lived off American aid to such a degree that President Truman branded all of them scoundrels.

            Meanwhile, as long as Chinese propaganda will spew its obscene whining and empty bombast, the weaknesses of a spineless, slavish breed will remain a great source of fun for the discerning observer.

             
          • EvenMoreBombs

            Respect?

            What respect does a peasant army comprised of suicidal maniacs better at killing peasants and loved suicide so much they ran into Browning Machine Guns with sword raised? BANZAI! What respect do the clueless generals and admirals deserve that thought it was a good idea to start a War with three of the world’s greatest powers and baw about how their lost later? What respect does a Imperial aggressor deserve who lost their Entire Empire in three years? Absolutely none.

            And exactly how much respect do the fools bawwing about China and jerking off to a defeated and forgotten Fascist regime deserve? None at all. Exactly how much do the retards bawwing about ‘American hegemony’ and then jerking off to their own delusions of empire deserve?

            The only respect Imperial Japan deserves is more nukes. You on the other hand can keep whining about those shackles. Gosh, it sure feels shackled that America didn’t just leave Japan forever flattened and burned down forever. When the day comes when ‘New China’ does fall. You and the Chinese might want to meet up at a bar. You’ll quickly find you have much more in common then you think like the common hobby of bawwing about big, bad America.

            As for China, one hopes she isn’t as stupid to seriously challenge America like a certain small island did.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            @MoreBombs

            Who are the insensitive war-mongers?
            An arms race is occurring and new defense alliances revolving around the US-Japan security treaty are feverishly plotted in the western Pacific area. What rising power is throwing its weight around in the western Pacific in such a ludicrous way that it raises so many hackles?

            Thoughtless because the Chinese military brass brags about once again stooping so low as sacrificing a large chunk of their civilian population would America contemplate using every weapon to crush it’s enemies.

            That was done before. Remember the death toll incurred by CKS decision to blow up the levees of the Yellow River at Huayuankou.

            Your thought process is basically arrested once your perceptions of history are informed by the propaganda that a pseudo-ROC used to force-feed you on Taiwan and that the very real, one and only Zhongnanhai-controlled ROC (according to UN resolution 2758) is now harnessing to better harass Japan.

            Here’s my bomb:
            Addressing the Legal Rights of Japanese Nationals in Taiwan
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_nfPeRiuwY
            Lin vs. US and Republic of China seeks invalidation of the 1946 Nationality Decrees
            http://www.press.org/events/lin-vs-us-and-republic-china-seeks-invalidation-1946-nationality-decrees
            Lin v. USA/ROC (2015): http://www.taiwandocuments.net/lin/lin-v-usa2.htm
            Lin_v_USA-ROC_2-27-2015.pdf

            And on its shell embossed with both a Chrysanthemum Seal and a Bald Eagle holding lightning bolts in its talons one can read:
            偽中華民國,滾出去我的皇土
            大日本帝国臣民、米国の法廷で偽中華民國をその戦争犯罪で起訴すべし
            大日本帝国領土である台湾を我が天皇に返すべし

             
          • EvenMoreBombs

            China, China, China. They bad so now Imperial Japan is good. Boo yah. Have you ejaculated to enough Zeros yet? Or does it give you the ultimate pleasure to become a suicide bomber in a Zero?

            Oh dang, these people weren’t burned alive as well? What a Shame. General LeMay missed a spot.

            After all, your pathetic Empire would welcome it. Fight to the last man! Yamato Damashii! Even with bamboo sticks and starvation and the other side has machine guns.

            One wonders when the Japanese arrested the thought process when they decided it was a good idea to fight America without surrendering immediately.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            Your wallowing in historical grievances has Chinazi (Chinese Nationalist) brainwashing stamped all over it. The root of your twisted views on the history of Japan-China relations stems from way back, when the USA used its soft power to worm its way into China.

            In dealing with China, the USA tried a three-pronged approach. One was the gun-boat policy favored by the British and other European powers along the Yangtze and the Huang He. The staging station for that military push was based in their colonial holding of the Philipines.

            Next, their attempt at investing in infrastructure proved disappointing when other powers already involved in China put obstacles to it. Father of American diplomat W. Averell Harriman, railroad baron Edward H. “Nell” Harriman’s grand design to pour American capital into a Trans-Eurasian railway network building on the railway system the Russians had developed in Manchuria was spurned by the Russians.

            Ditto from the Japanese when attempting to invest in the mining industry the Japanese were developing in Manchuria relying on the work force provided by millions of Chinese coolies who swarmed from nearby Chinese provinces. Those failures will have severe repercussions once Japan recognizes the independent State of Manchuria as sister state. A hard nosed America never throws in the towel.

            The third approach proved in the long run far more rewarding and far-reaching in spearheading the influence America craved in China. Let us call it America’s soft power. It had two sources of funding. US congress approved US government investments and missions-backed private charity funding of the medical and education infrastructures a poor, mainly agrarian Chinese society was in dire need of.

            The hallmark of the remarkable progresses the US government fostered in education remains Tsinghai University in Beijing, while the funding of Nankai U. in Tienjin owes entirely to the latter form of investment. A large portion of their curricula involved the teaching and use of English. Their colleges were staffed with American missionary workers hailing primarily from the American heartland, those “Bible Belt” states of Midwestern America.

            Early American missionary effort in Asia had earlier aimed for Meiji Japan. But a thriving Japanese society where faith was not an issue, the preferred means of satisfying spiritual needs kept relying on the unobtrusive local traditional faiths, Shinto and Buddhism. That explains how American missionary endeavors wound up a disappointment. But the good missionaries would remember. And that will have implications for Japan-China relations from the end of WWI to this day.

            Flustered by their missionary failure in Japan, they poured their proselytizing zeal into China. Aware of how backward China was and how constant feuding between warlord faction deprived the mostly agrarian Chinese society of education and medical infrastructure, the American missionaries thrived in both fields.

            Chinese villagers marveled at the dedication the Americans showed them in healing their bodies in the medical centers they had established all over China. Eager to also heal their soul, in return they flocked to hear the gospel in the attached chapels.

            In their institution of education, American missionaries not only prepared the Chinese elites to pursue higher learning in American colleges States-side, they also evinced their own wariness and resentment of a rising, Shintoist Japan. And in the minds of impressionable Chinese youth, who, specially following the Qing Court defeat in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, had pursued higher learning in Japan, those crafty American missionaries planted the seed of hatred.

            That is how the American made, now deeply entrenched Japan-hating Chinese nationalism first prevailed among China’s American-educated young elites of the 1920s and 1930. That is how the history-blind, all puffed up Chinese Nazi you appear to be through your rants ended up in a Chinatown somewhere States-side, via the (de jure) US-occupied Japanese Taiwan that a racist America provided you as its Angel island across the Pacific, the stepping stone your father bid his time on while preparing to the ultimate flight to that Chinese paradise, the Golden Gate harbor.

            Quit wallowing in your Japanese porn-induced body liquids. Yes, it shows through the filthy language and bombastic overtone of the trash you have been ladling out at me . Such language does not make us, your American educators proud the least.

            If interested in soldiers and camp-followers romances, see review of “軍中樂園 “: ‘Paradise in Service’ Review: Busan Film Festival Opens on …
            http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/busan-film-review-paradise-in-service-1201318199/

            See how grunts the world over need their sexual impulses attended to. Please be mindful that the story is based on factoids that are damning to the Chinese Nationalist military occupying Taiwan. They not only forced Formosan natives into prostitution, they also forcibly conscripted young Formosan Japanese like the hero here. Conscription of the occupied in the occupier’s armed forces in punishable war crime. War crimes are not subject to statute of limitation, nor prescription.

            On a final note that strikes at the heart of the issues prevailing in a country you really show scant knowledge of, why not try and devote your surfeit of anger in your all too expectable response to dissecting for us the following slogan? A trendy one in Chairman Xi’s China.
            哪怕吃尽毒奶粉,也要杀光日本人.
            Nǎpà chī jǐn dú nǎifěn, yěyào shā guāng Rìběnrén.
            Even though we drink nothing but tainted milk powder, we still must kill all the Japanese.

             
          • BiggerBombsForFascism

            Better America then an Asia dominated by Japanese Fascists and their ilk.

            You lot are nothing more then worthless thugs better for ranting angrily on the internet and waving flags in front of the embassy hoping that maybe, just maybe Russia and China will give your empire back. NOPE!

            Prostitution? Splendid. Americans did a lot of that in a completely burned out Japan. Japanese women really enjoyed bending over for the Marines. A job well done after wiping out a disgraceful Empire bit by bit.

            I don’t even need to laddle you with trash when you are already trash in the first place. The scum of Japanese society, Taiwanese or wherever you come from. You are a loser who can’t get a job, can’t get laid, probably has a prostitute for a mother and spends every waking hour jerking off to fascism. The day Japan really finally does ‘assert itself’, I hope you’re on the frontline and forced to walk into a minefield because that is all trash is worth in their minds. Don’t worry though, it’ll be a dream come true. I’ve met hard-working, decent Japanese. You on the other hand are a spiteful Fascist waste of life and I can almost see the spittle rolling down your shirt onto your fatty stomach.

            You can keep wallowing in your rage because Militarist Japan is not coming back and neither is your Empire. America and all it represents will remain for a long, long time well after Communism and Fascism is gone. If China loses Tibet and Xinjiang and whatever else, you can join your fellow Fascists in crying over your pathetic Empires.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            哪怕喝遍地沟油,也要挥刀斩倭寇.
            Nǎpà hē biàndì gōuyóu, yěyào huī dāo zhǎn Wōkòu.
            Even though we consume gutter oil everywhere, we still must brandish our knives and slay the dwarf pirates.

             
          • EvenMoreBombsForJapan

            Even though you are still alive, you ought to have be burned alive along with the other worthless fascists in 1945

             
          • Jerome Besson

            哪怕顿顿瘦肉精,也要出兵灭东瀛.
            Nǎpà dùndùn shòu ròu jīng, yěyào chūbīng miè Dōngyíng.
            Keep eating clenbuterol-laced meat. Our expeditionary forces will destroy Japan.

             
          • EvenMoreBombsForJapan

            Oh hello Jerome. How many cocks did you take today from aging, senile fascists? 1? 2? 20?

            Your expeditionary force was destroyed once by America. If you try again, it’ll be an encore! I hope you take up the offer on being the frontline of the banzai charge.

             
          • EvenMoreBombsForJapan

            And yes I am very aware of China’s dodgy food record. Hilarious really.

            I suggest you take up your own offer of sampling it so a worthless abortion like you goes to the grave faster. Your parents will be relieved when a stupid retard like you finally drops dead.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            the chunk of stinky doufu ( 臭豆腐 ) you’ve grown instead of a noodle has been fried too deep. Ugh! Here goes to the refuse bin, whoopee. . .

             
          • EvenMoreBombsForJapan

            Frying? Sounds exactly where you should belong. Afterwards, you might make a good snack for the Cannibal Japanese soldiers you love so much. Or maybe they’ll spit you right back out the worthless piece of trash that you are.

            I feel sorry for your parents. Raising you as a well to do member of society but all they are left with is a lazy, inbred retard sucking off wrinkled fascist cock. Keep sucking maybe one day you’ll get paid.

             
          • Jerome Besson

            Way too much Japanese porn on your resume.

             
          • BombTheFascists

            On your resume is
            -I am a son of a prostitute screwed by an American.
            -I please wrinkled old fascists everyday.
            -Have drunk over 20L of Fascist Semen
            -I am a loser with nothing more to do then masturbate to a failed Empire.

             
    • Eunjoo

      It was a very stupid thing to say. These women could not even become grandmothers because the Japanese made these men and women sterile by eating poison or using old methods of sterilization such as burning the womb.

  • Jerome Besson

    Mongrels bark as the caravan plods on under the moon.

    Mind your inner jihad. Get a life, for Heaven’s sake.

  • Eunjoo

    There is something more fascist. I am Iranian and I know that all of China, Japan and Korea were part of the great empire of my country. The only thing Japan did was cooperate with America. A foolish collaboration that resulted in Hiroshima. If the Korean people want to follow the path of old Japan, let them go so that they will taste defeat like Japan did during World War II. You have no right to talk about China like that, and be sure that the Chinese will never forget that they are Iranians, and worst of all, they will not forget that this great empire needs to be reunited. Japan should apologize and this is a very simple issue. We and the Chinese have many financial issues and even if you check the history, we have done many injustices to each other, but in the end, it ended with an apology from one of the parties. There is a big problem in Asia. Iran and Japan have tasted the results of their cooperation and if I want to consider our countries as family members, they are father and son. A father and son who got a bitter result but still did not reform. This time, you have fallen in love with Russia, as if you forgot that they were the ones who forced you to prostitute your women or burn Turks and Jews alive. Why does Japan not want to wake up? We don’t need to follow Russia or America, we just need to apologize to each other and the great Aryan Empire will be reunited. An empire in which all of East Asia is connected to Iran, the cradle of Middle Eastern civilization. What I Iranians want is this, and Koreans have the right to be upset, but if you look at the historical roots, why the Korean Peninsula when it was ceded, why was Bahrain sold, and in the end it would end up with an Iranian king, so end this ridiculous quarrel and Let’s apologize and be friends again. We are all the children of Genghis, so why should some brothers fight with each other?

  • Eunjoo

    Whether you are Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Iranian, if you take a DNA test, you will realize that we are all children of the same parents. Historical lines between us have made these boundaries and sibling fights are ridiculous.

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