78th Anniversary of Liberation Day..."Only 9 former comfort women survivors left in Korea"

Ahead of Liberation Day (the anniversary of Japan's liberation from Japanese colonial rule), the Chinese media has turned its attention to former comfort women survivors in South Korea. On August 14th, marking the day of honoring former comfort women, he addressed the issue of former comfort women victims in his own country and also mentioned survivors in South Korea.

On the 14th (local time), China's state-run Global Times English version of the Global Times (GT) published an editorial titled, "Commemoration of less than 20 survivors from China, international former comfort women. In May this year, one former comfort woman survivor died in South Korea."

The editorial introduced a rally held on August 14th last year in South Korea to honor former comfort women. At the time, Koreans held protest rallies in Seoul with portraits of "former comfort women." The day was marked as World Day at the 11th Asian Solidarity Conference for the Resolution of the Comfort Women Issue held in Taiwan in 2012, according to GT.

Honoring Former Comfort Women Day, the day the late Kim Hak-soon first publicly testified in 1991 that she was a former comfort woman, was designated a national day in 2018.

"GT" states that "the former comfort women system was indeed an organized and planned action carried out by the Japanese military under the direct command of the Japanese militarist government during World War II." strongly criticized the government. Victims of the former comfort women system spanned a wide range of races and borders. About 400,000 Asian women from China, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States were forcibly recruited by the Japanese government as former comfort women, the editorial said.

The reactions of Chinese netizens who agree with this were also introduced. One netizen said, “This kind of history will not disappear as time goes by, and no matter how fluently the [Japanese government] denies it, the damage will never disappear.” Another netizen said, "The war [which ended on August 15] will serve as a mirror that better informs the whole world about the importance of peace."

On the other hand, the Japanese government announced at a press conference on the 3rd that it would carry on the so-called "Kono Statement," which expresses apology and remorse for the former comfort women issue during the Japanese colonial period. At the time, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said, "There is no change in the Kishida Cabinet (in terms of taking over the statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary on August 4, 1993)." However, in the process of recent textbook approval, the term "comfort women", which was used in the Kono statement, has been replaced by the term "comfort women", which is attracting attention because it is less coercive.