뉴스레터

More than 70 years have passed since World War II ended. However, the war’s scars still exist. Even the resolution for the issue of the Japanese military comfort women system—the name given to the cruel systemic capture and rape of women at the hands of the Japanese government and soldiers—has yet to be found. There are victims’ testimonies and clear records, but Japan has been busy shifting and evading responsibility for the comfort women issue. Under these circumstances, however, there has been a continuous push towards looking back on the core of the comfort women issue and resolving it. China is no exception to this. We discussed the comfort station built in the Japanese Kwantung Army’s fortress in Dongning and the human rights violations committed there with Wang Zhongren, researcher at the Dongning Fortress Museum in Heilongjiang Province. 

Wang Zhongren (王宗仁)

Researcher of China’s Dongning Fortress Museum 

After working for the Wuhan Military District Strategic Research Department and Academy of Social Sciences in Jingmen, Hubei Province, Wang is currently a researcher at the Dongning Fortress Museum. He is also director of the Research Society of World War II History and deputy director of China’s Solidarity Research Center.

He studied modern Chinese history and authored “World War II’s Impact on Postwar Political, Economic and International Relations(第二次世界大战对战后政治,军事和国际关系的影响)”, “Post-World War II Contemplations(二战后探讨),” “Soviet Union’s Troop Dispatch to China’s Northeast Region and Surrender of the Japanese Kwantung Army(苏联出兵中国东北与日本关东军投降)” and “From Lushun to Dongning: Rise and Fall of Japanese Kwantung Army(从旅顺到东宁: 日本关东军 兴亡记实).” 

Q

As interest in the Japanese military comfort women issue increased, a documentary, co-produced by Korea and China, has been released. The film, “Twenty Two,” was a box office hit in China. “Twenty two (22)” is the number of confirmed surviving comfort women in China when the film began shooting in 2014, and three of them were elderly women who were forcibly taken from Joseon during Japan’s colonial rule. How many surviving comfort women are there in China now? And, are any of them those whom were taken from Joseon?

A 

The director of “Twenty Two” became associated with Korea due in part to the late Park Cha-soon, one of those elderly women in the film. The director hit it off with Asia Home Entertainment, which had been subsidizing the elderly woman’s treatment at a hospital and helped co-produce the documentary. The film was screened in China in time for the World Comfort Women Memorial Day on Aug. 14 2017, but simultaneous release in Korea and China was impossible. Except for Park Ok-seon who was held at the Dongning Fortress Comfort Station and is now in Korea’s House of Sharing, the comfort women who were forcibly relocated from Joseon have already passed away. At present, there are only 10 registered survivors. The organizations that provide education regarding the Japanese military’s comfort stations in Nanjing and those organizations’ volunteers contact these survivors regularly and gather data related to unregistered comfort women. 

Q

The task of resolving the comfort women issue, examining the actual conditions, and considering the damage is caused feels urgent. We heard that you are taking up the task at the Dongning Fortress Museum in China’s Heilongjiang Province. What kind of organization is the museum and what efforts have been made to resolve the issue so far? 

A

The museum, subsidized fully by the state, is an agency for organizing projects. Aside from research into Dongning Fortress itself, we carry out surveys and research into war history, forced labor, and comfort women. Excavating historical data and collecting war relics is also one of our jobs. The comfort women issue is one of our tasks and it is certainly the problem that carries with it the highest degree of urgency. Yet conducting surveys related to this issue is not easy. There are lot of difficulties. As I mentioned earlier, it is not easy to find the truth because survivors and their descendants hardly wish to discuss the matter.

Q

I know that you met Park Ok-seon, the surviving comfort woman, a long time ago. What was her conditions then? I also wonder why it is you are so interested in comfort women from the Korean Peninsula and what your investigative results have been.

A 

I interviewed Park Ok-seon 20 years ago. Back then she was very healthy. Chapter 3, “Sexual slavery in the fortress,” of my book “From Lushun to Dongning” records what she had the misfortune of experiencing. I provided the Northeast Asian History Foundation with a video of my interview with her that was recorded 20 years ago, after I arrived in Seoul.

The reason I am interested in the Korean comfort women is that women from China and Joseon suffered similar tragedies. After the Korean Peninsula was occupied, Joseon became a colony of Japan. In November 1905, the Japanese Empire unilaterally and forcibly signed the Protectorate Treaty. Based on this treaty, Japan deprived Joseon of its rights in diplomatic and domestic affairs and imposed “supervision politics” in Joseon. In August 1910, Japan annexed Joseon by force and then began its barbaric military rule. Joseon came under Japan’s brutal rule at the hands of Japanese fascists. As Japan put into place the government-general, people on the peninsula were driven into hunger and poverty. In this setting, the people of Joseon had to endure intolerable anguish. Women’s social position was disrupted by colonial rule. China suffered similar hardship. Japan founded Manchukuo in March 1932 in China’s northeastern region, and Chinese people began to fall under Japan’s colonial rule. Like in Joseon, women had a very low social position and some women were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers. This colonization agitated China and people struggled against hunger and poverty. It would be no exaggeration to say that China’s occupied northeastern region was like a second Joseon colonization.

Q

I heard that the Japanese military set up a number of comfort stations in the Dongning Fortress. How many did they set up and how many comfort women were confined there? 

A

Japan built four army fortresses along the 179-kilometer border in Dongning. They were called Dongning Fortress, Subunha Fortress, Nokmyeongdae Fortress, and Gwanwoldae Fortress. The soldiers stationed in Dongning numbered nearly 130,000. The number of comfort stations opened was 49 and our surveys indicate that there were approximately 2,000 comfort women in Dongning and the vicinity when the city was liberated. After the first Shanghai Incident, the Japanese military continued their war of aggression. As Japanese comfort women were in short supply, the military began recruiting young women locally. The Kwantung Army established a big company in Tianjin in 1934 and bringing in comfort women and laborers from China and the Korean Peninsula for a variety of tasks. If the two other unexcavated fortresses are excavated, we think, we will discover the remains of more comfort stations. 

Q

Most people are aware of comfort women to some extent. Yet they are hardly aware of why the comfort women system came into being. What was the reason for the comfort women system? 

A

An army doctor and second lieutenant, Aso Tetsuo, wrote “Aso’s Written Opinion” after examining the Japanese Army over the course of three years. The report raised the necessity of establishing “military comfort station” for the first time. The reason was that it was essential to remove unstable factors like rape and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases that were arising out of soldiers’ sexual desire. He clearly defined the function of the “military comfort station” as the “military’s hygienic public restroom for sex.” Because “Aso’s Written Opinion” was delivered to the military headquarters and accepted, the Japanese military began to conceive an apparatus aimed at satisfying soldiers’ sexual desire. 

The roles of the comfort women system stipulated by the military were threefold: First, it would serve the purpose of calming troops and boosting their morale. Japan instilled the “samurai spirit” into its soldiers. The military was unable to give them any political education or persuade them effectively and soldiers were not aware of what the war was about or what significance it held. A diary written at the time by Azuma Shiro, a soldier, reads: “Someone said, ‘If I die in the next battle, what would it meaning would there be to having money now? I had better spend all my money!’ This aroused a frenzy of madness. All the troops were riled up beyond description and began hedonistically enjoying physical pleasures.” Soldiers embraced comfort women was to prove to themselves they “were still alive” and “pray for their survival tomorrow.” So comfort stations filled quickly with “thirsty” soldiers. 

Second, the comfort women system was intended to “maintain military discipline and reinforce combat capabilities.” Japan built brothels to prevent the Kwantung Army from losing its dignity and to quell anti-Japan sentiment before it led to increased sexual assault. Furthermore, the Japanese military thought that soldiers would risk their lives to fight and women would dedicate themselves to these soldiers. Also, the soldiers thought that they could have good fortune and avoid injury if they have affairs with women before fighting. That is why sex was thought to be essential to Japanese troops. 

Third, the role of comfort women was to “prevent sexually transmitted diseases and raise confidence in victory.” After establishing comfort stations, the Kwantung Army conducted medical checkups on women regularly to stop the spread of venereal infections among soldiers. The Kwantung Army regarded it as a dishonor to have a sexually transmitted disease. This because of the class-system for diseases. The military defined injuries from war as the first class, diseases associated with internal organs were second class, and venereal diseases were third class. Soldiers having sexually transmitted diseases found it difficult to return to the barracks. According to documents on deaths in battle, when Japanese troops were dispatched to Siberia in 1917, deaths from sexually transmitted diseases far outnumbered those who died in battle. This was caused by Japanese soldiers’ rampant raping of local women as a result of their lack of discipline. 

A report sent to the Department of the Army by a surgeon named Matsumura from the 21^st division of the Japanese Army claims that “comfort women units must be established with the ratio of one woman for every 100 soldiers to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.” A booklet “Officers’ Order of Hygienic Education” distributed in February 1940 by the Japanese Army’s Huabei Strategic Force showed that venereal diseases affected Japanese soldiers’ combat capabilities. Condoms and ointments were used to prevent venereal diseases but such measures were found to be insufficient. In July 1941, Umezu Yoshijiro, commander of the Kwantung Army and chief of staff at Yoshimoto Teiichi set up a plan to conscript 20,000 Korean comfort women and send them to camps of the Kwantung Army and then to assign comfort women to army units according to the prescribed ratio. 

Japan’s Department of the Army created a “bill on rapes in war areas” in 1942 and formally attached military comfort women to military units; women in Joseon and China were recruited to make up for the shortage of Japanese women. The system was intended to console frustrated and disillusioned Japanese soldiers after long battles. Japan’s military authorities hoped that crestfallen soldiers after battlefield combat would feel like they had earned compensation and satisfaction from the Chinese comfort women and that they would gain the confidence to win future battles. Japan’s comfort women system continued through August 1945, when Japan surrendered. 

Q

The comfort women system was a crime infringing upon women’s human rights and exploiting women. What effort has the Japanese government made to resolve the Japanese military comfort women issue? What plans does the Dongning Fortress Museum have? 

A

I cannot comment on what effort the Chinese government made. But I will speak regarding what I do know. Chinese comfort women are aware, via TV broadcasts, that Korean comfort women sued the Japanese government to resolve the comfort women issue, but to no avail. Therefore, Chinese comfort women are reluctant to come forward. They think that lawsuits will be unwinnable and they will end up simply losing face in the end. The Dongning Fortress Museum will continue independently examining the comfort women issue in Dongning and the vicinity.

Q

Do you have any thoughts regarding surveys of Japanese military comfort women from the Korean Peninsula who were taken into China’s northeastern region, including Dongning? And, what topics could you investigate and study alongside Korean scholars? 

A

There are a lot of obstacles associated with researching or surveying comfort women. Despite these difficulties, research must continue. We must get to the bottom of history through the excavation of data and ruins and by interrogating the memories of Japan’s war veterans. If another fact is discovered, we will be able to investigate that fact alongside Korean scholars and share information for conducting joint research.