Premier Li greets Japanese visitors
Print Edition
PREMIER Li Keqiang yesterday praised the former Japanese government official who issued a landmark apology over the wartime sexual slavery of Asian women, hailing his “bravery” in facing history.
Li greeted a trade delegation led by Yohei Kono, who as the country’s top government spokesman in 1993 issued an eponymous statement acknowledging the military’s involvement in a coercive “comfort women” brothel system during World War II.
He did not admit government complicity in it.
Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have plunged in recent years over territorial disputes and wartime history. They are trying to rebuild ties but Chinese leaders remain wary of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalist views.
“Mr Yohei Kono and this delegation have made great efforts toward improving Sino-Japanese relations, which especially makes me think of the Kono Statement that Mr Kono made that year, which showed a politician’s bravery in shouldering the question of history,” Li told the visitors.
Kono’s visit came ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and with China closely scrutinizing the comments of Japan, which invaded and occupied it in the 1930s and 1940s.
“It goes without saying that over the past two years Sino-Japanese ties have faced difficulties and both sides have the wish to improve things,” Li said.
The Kono Statement was followed by an official 1995 apology by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which said Japan “through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.” It added that the prime minister felt “deep remorse” and offered a “heartfelt apology.”
The two documents together were “a basic principle for the Japanese government to correctly recognize history,” Li said.
Kono said the visitors were “really very thankful” for the meeting with Li.
Abe is expected to issue a new statement this year, with regional attention — particularly in former Japanese colony South Korea, as well as China — focused on any sign of backpedaling on earlier proclamations.
Mainstream historians say up to 200,000 women, many from the Korean peninsula but also from China, Indonesia and the Philippines, served as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.
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