Analysts say nostalgia for Japanese rule clouds past

A subconscious nostalgia for Japanese colonial rule could have twisted the understanding of the older generation about comfort women, analysts said yesterday.

"People have been trying to cover up the truth about how the Japanese government forced these women into prostitution as a way of dealing with the true horror of the issue," said Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), a professor of political science at the National Chengchi University.

Wu said the older generation educated under Japan's rule and that had little experience of Japanese atrocities tended to side with Japan.

"This generation lived very orderly lives when the Japanese ran Taiwan, and they came to miss Japanese rule, especially after the 228 Incident," Wu said.

The comic On Taiwan (台灣論), by Japanese author Yoshinori Kobayashi (小林善紀), first caught the public's attention last week when women's rights groups expressed outrage over a section dealing with comfort women.

At the center of the controversy is a quote by senior Taiwan businessman Shi Wen-lung (許文龍) in which he said the women voluntarily become Japanese sex slaves during World War II.

The 73-year-old Shi, chairman of the Chi Mei Corp and a senior adviser to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), spent the first 17 years of his life under colonial rule -- and received a Japanese education -- until the island was given to the KMT government in China following the end of World War II in 1945.

Shi yesterday still insisting that the Japanese government had not coerced any women into joining up as Japanese military sex slaves.

Shi said his understanding was that some parents facing financial difficulties had sold their daughters to brothels through agents, and a special zone was set up in the brothels for Japanese soldiers stationed in Taiwan.

Henry Chuang (莊國明), a lawyer and board director of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (婦女救援基金會), who has been helping surviving comfort women to claim compensation from the Japanese government, said Shi's accounts are in obvious conflict with findings of investigations conducted by his group, studies by international investigators and even recent admissions by Japan.

"The Japanese government has already said that women were forced into prostitution during World War II. Why should anybody wish to defend these actions?" Chuang said.

Chuang said while the situation mentioned by Shi referred to the period before the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese government started a "comprehensive conscription policy" during the war owing to the high demand for military prostitutes.

"People in Taiwan were highly submissive to the Japanese government. As long as the district or precinct governors issued an order, it was hard to resist," Chuang said.