Left Flank

It's not that I'm ignoring the comfort women issue, but rather I have too many questions even to form to write intelligibly. That is, until Gerald Curtis at FP broke the logjam. Living in South Korea, and just a few visits to Japan, have impressed upon me the dangers of stereotypical (extrapohating) reasoning, particularly about Japan. Because my wife is Korean, I at least have a handle on her reasoning, and that allows me a small window into other (South) Koreans' thinking and actions. I at least have the means and privilege of speaking with her, too. About Japan, I would not presume to speculate, except in the most general terms international relations theory can provide.

So, it's more important for me to consider how China, Japan, South Korea, and the US relate to each other as states, than speculate about how the average Japanese citizen thinks about comfort women or Shinzo Abe (TPR highlights those details). And, there's a problem, because even Curtis, but generally most pundits, reporters, and scholars, speculate about Japanese public opinion without much insight beyond suspect polling numbers. Even Curtis tossed some offhand percentages, and again I wish there was more interpretative research on those numbers available. When asked about how Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's approval ratings in Japan and how the comfort women issue plays into that, Curtis is vague:

FP: How does the comfort women issue play into that?

GC: I’m sure this issue with the comfort women is hurting him a lot, because there isn’t much sympathy among the Japanese public for his position. I think there’s some concern that it’s leading to a deterioration in relations with the United States, the most important relationship Japan has. As for Abe’s statements, I think he said what he believed without thinking very hard about either playing to his conservative base or what the consequences would be abroad. Before he became prime minister, he was one of the leaders of the group that wanted to revise the so-called Kono statement about Japan’s culpability for forcing those women into sex slavery. So he said what he believed. Yeah, it plays to his narrow base of hard-core right-wing support, but I think it cost him more broadly, both domestically and internationally. The Japanese conservative leadership has not come to grips with World War II, so there’s a politics of denial here. This is not majority sentiment in Japan, but it happens to be a very strong sentiment among the group that’s in power in Japan.

For me, this is the clincher, as far as the comfort women issue and Japanese voters is concerned. I want to know what a «majority' is, and how «strong» translates into Japanese domestic politics. I'm tired of pundits spinning whatever end of a plurality suits their conclusions. On the other hand, this is what I find informative in this interview:

FP: In 2005, China erupted in what looked like orchestrated anger over a controversial Japanese textbook that glossed the â€ūRape of Nanking.â€? It’s the same general topic, World War II historical wrongs, but China’s reaction has been muted this time. What’s changed?

GC: First of all, that’s a different issue. But what’s changed is that the Chinese strategy has changed. They’re trying to avoid this history issue getting in the way of the relationship. Plus, it’s difficult to have big problems with Japan and not, in some way or another, get caught up in problems with the United States. They want to focus on their internal development, not be distracted by problems in their external relations. They appreciate that [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe went to Beijing first thing as soon as he became prime minister. And as long as he doesn’t visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which was their big issue with [Abe’s predecessor Junichiro] Koizumi, they’re going to try to downplay these history issues. So they’re playing it very differently now than they did when Koizumi was in office. In any case, the comfort women issue is not such a big issue for China; it’s a bigger issue for the Koreans.

(...)

FP: Japan has a history of baffling foreign observers. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, for instance, once described the country as having â€ūintangibles of culture that America is ill-prepared to understand fully.â€? What do you think most outsiders still don’t get about Japan?

GC: It’s hard to find Japanese who can explain what Japan is thinking in a way that foreigners can understand. It’s very different when you interact with Chinese elites. They’re very articulate. They have a global vision. They have a worldview. They know what they think and they tell you. But the Japanese cultural tradition is quite different, so you have to be able to read between the lines. You have to be able to hear it in the Japanese language, and there aren’t very many people who can do that. So they’re not very good at articulating their views, and that leads to all kinds of guesswork about what they’re up to. The fact is, even with all the changes going on, and this right-wing leadership in power now, the Japanese defense budget is not increasing. They’re reaching out for a bigger role abroad, but in a pretty tentative and limited manner. They’ll probably continue to muddle through—take some tough positions like they have on the abductee issue with North Korea—but the idea that they’re on the march to become a great military power with power projection capabilities and challenge the Chinese and so on? I don’t buy it.

I think if Beijing is taking a calmer view of Japan and its relationship to the US, this is more significant than the comfort women issue, my apologies to those concerned. Again, until we know how the comfort women issue really plays in Japan, spinning the numbers of those supporting or opposing (or any combination of positions) the government is self-serving propaganda. The same goes for Seoul's interest. Why should we, by default, take Seoul's interest in the issue as valid, and Beijing's lack thereof as abnormal? I might live in South Korea and have a South Korean wife, but I don't believe that she or any South Korean has a monopoly on morality. That's an awful lot of faith to place in suppositions about a place even Curtis doesn't understand.