News Analysis: Japan's Hashimoto alienates party allies, citizens and neighbors over sex slave comments
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E-mail Xinhua, May 21, 2013
The Japan Restoration Party on Tuesday lost support from a small opposition party following highly controversial and insensitive comments made by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who also co-headed the Japan Restoration Party, on wartime sexual slavery.
The comments by the outspoken right-wing politician, who doubles as the city's mayor last week, stating that sexual slaves by women were "necessary" for Japanese soldiers during World War II, were deemed wholly inappropriate by Your Party, and a potential electoral collaboration with Hashimoto's party was canceled.
"Given differences in values, we have to totally review the relationship," Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe told a meeting of party executives, local media reported Tuesday.
The two parties had been in talks about boosting their clout by joining forces in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly election in June and the Upper House election pegged for July this year.
"We lost confidence in them," Watanabe added, following Hashimoto's refusal to retract his inflammatory comments.
"They are not a partner we will work with," Watanabe said Sunday. "We will sever ties."
The proposed alliance was aimed at chipping away the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's power, by jointly backing the same candidates in competing constituencies in which the LDP also has representation.
Hashimoto's comments also caused a backlash of public exasperation in Japan, with support for the Japan Restoration Party falling.
His wrong words were further punctuated by statements he made claiming U.S. personnel in Japan frequent brothels -- an assertion quickly dismissed and debunked by infuriated top U.S. spokespeople.
Hashimoto suggested to the commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture that the U.S. military take advantage of Japan's legal sex services to reduce sex crimes by servicemen, drawing the ire of Washington.
According to a survey taken by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper over the weekend, 75 percent of respondents said there is "a great deal of" or "some" problem with Hashimoto's remarks, while 20 percent said there is "little" or "no" problem.
A meager 7 percent said they would back the Japan Restoration Party in the proportional representation portion of the upcoming Upper House election if it were held now, down from 10 percent in the popular daily's previous survey in April, marking a sharp drop from 16 percent in January.
Hashimoto has yet to officially retract his statements further incensing the public and Japan's neighbors such as South Korea and China, who suffered at the hands of Japan during its brutal and well-documented wartime occupation of many parts of the two countries and others in East Asia.
He said of both domestic and international media reports regarding his comments that some of the reporting had been " grossly wrong" and was even quoted as saying that, "Japanese people lack basic reading comprehension."
Most recently, as Hashimoto continues to dig his own political grave, not just by alienating potential political allies like the main Liberal Democratic Party who has also said it will now "keep its distance" from the Japan Restoration Party, and the Japanese public, he seems intent on further vexing South Korea and derailing already rocky ties between Seoul and Tokyo.
Just one week after the improper words on "comfort women", Hashimoto was quoted by media here as saying that even the South Korean soldiers were also using women for sex during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s.
Hashimoto has stated that women were also used during that time to "keep the soldiers' frustrations in check."
These further insensitive, untimely and potentially erroneous comments will undoubtedly further fan the flames of discontent between Japan and its neighbors, as tensions continue to mount over territorial disputes and diplomatic ties further sour.
Hashimoto, adding yet more fuel to the fire, said on Monday that while Japan was wrong to do so, the other countries who also used sex slaves during times of conflict should admit their culpability.
The right-winger named the United States, Britain, France and Germany as among those who need to "face up to history."
These assertions will almost certainly backfire on Hashimoto and the politician will likely be admonished by the West, as according to leading historians there has been no hard evidence that any other modern military, except for Japan, has made use of any system of sexual slavery. Endi
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