Japan's `On Taiwan' comic attacked

Kobayashi Yoshinori, author of the popular Japanese comic On Taiwan (台灣論), is under attack in Taiwan for his controversial writings about Taiwanese comfort women.

At a press conference yesterday, the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (婦女救援基金會), a non-governmental organization long dedicated to fact-finding on Taiwanese comfort women, lambasted Kobayshi's "twisted" presentation of the issue in interviews with two Taiwanese business leaders -- Hsu Wen-lung (許文龍) and Tsai Kuan-tsan (蔡焜燦).

"It's nothing but an outrageous distortion of a painful history, which over 1,000 Taiwanese women had to go through at the cost of their youth and lives," said Lin Feng-hao (林方皓), chairperson of the foundation.

"To ignore this kind of distortion today is like rubbing salt into old wounds. And to be silent about the author's male-chauvinistic views is to encourage the idea that women's bodies are a tradable commodity," Lin said.

In his comic On Taiwan, which has been available in Chinese in Taiwan since early February, Kobayashi cited Hsu, president of Chi Mei Electronics Corp (奇美電子) and senior advisor to the president, as saying that "All the comfort women were voluntary. It is impossible that they were forced to perform sex services for the [Japanese] army."

In contrast to accounts of the issue in Taiwan, Hsu was further quoted as saying that "The Japanese military was very concerned about human rights and it was an advancement for these women to be able to become comfort women."

Kobayashi also quoted the close friend of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as saying the comfort women were treated better than public prostitutes with hygienic procedures (such as the use of condoms) strictly enforced in military brothels.

Chu Te-lan (朱德蘭), an associate history research fellow at Academia Sinica, refuted Kobayashi's statements on the basis of her research on Taiwanese history during the Japanese colonial period from 1895 to 1945.

Chu indicated that while the recruited comfort women indeed included a few public prostitutes, the majority of them were recruited against their will, either by means of coercion, force or deception.

Kobayashi's previous book On War (戰爭論), which discussed the Nanking Massacre, also prompted strong protests. The author has the reputation of being one of Japan's most controversial cartoonists and political commentators and is widely labeled as a right-winger.

According to Avant Garde Publishing (前衛出版社), which published the controversial comic, Kobayashi is aware of the controversy triggered by his book.

He will visit Taiwan in March to have face-to-face debates with the opponents of his accounts of colonial Taiwan.

The publisher also revealed the second edition of the book is now at the printers.

According to the Womens Rescue Foundation research, demand for sexual slaves increased dramatically after 1932 when Taiwan became a primary location for the recruitment of comfort women.

The files of the Taiwan Colonial Trade Corp (台灣拓殖株式會社檔案) have an abundance of documented evidence showing that part of the recruitment of Taiwan women and teenage girls into the sexual slavery system was carried out through government sponsored corporations, notably the Taiwan Colonial Trade Corporation, at the request and with the assistance of the Japanese military forces.

Aside from the Taiwan Colonial Trade Corporation, the Japanese government also used prefectural officers and local police to recruit comfort women by forcible means. Moreover, many young women were recruited by deceptive means, being offered housemaid or laundry jobs.