The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation yesterday said the Japanese government should also apologize and compensate Taiwanese women who were forced to become “comfort women” for the Japanese army after Japan and South Korea yesterday reached a landmark agreement over the issue.
“Since Japan has resolved the comfort women issue with South Korea, other countries that are handling the same issue are likely to seek similar reparations from Japan as well,” foundation executive director Kang Shu-hua (康淑華) said.
The foundation has been seeking justice on behalf of Taiwanese comfort women since 1992, Kang said, adding that it is a long process filled with frustrations and failures.
As the number of elderly victims has begun to dwindle increasingly fast, Kang said the foundation hoped that the Japanese government would offer the group an official apology and compensation while they are still alive.
Historians estimate that there were about 2,000 Taiwanese women forced to become comfort women during the Japanese colonial era, Kang said.
The foundation opened a telephone line between 1992 and 1997 for former comfort women to come forward and tell their stories, but only 58 did so, as a majority choose to remain silent, Kang said.
Four of those 58 are still alive, and have an average age of 91.
Kang said the compensation that Japan had agreed to pay to the South Korean former comfort women exceeded expectations, which showed that Japan wanted a quick end to the issue that had poisoned relations between the two nations for decades.
“Both sides apparently made some compromises to reach a settlement,” she said.
The agreement is indeed “progress,” and the culmination of a series of actions undertaken by the Japanese government to address the comfort women issue after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recognized the existence of the comfort women in a speech in August to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, she said.
Whether the agreement is acceptable to South Korean human rights groups remains to be seen, she said.
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
RSS