China becomes Japan's No.1 trade partner

This is why China and Japan HAVE TO work together to improve ties.

OhMyNews - China became Japan's largest trading partner in fiscal 2006, which ended on March 31, replacing the United States for the first time since the end of the Second World War, according to preliminary figures released on Wednesday by Japan's Finance Ministry.

Japan's trade with China, excluding Hong Kong, rose 16.5% in fiscal 2006 from a year earlier, totaling 25.42 trillion yen (about US$213.6b), while that with the U.S. increased 10.3% to 25.16 trillion yen (US$211.4b). The trade data are measured on a customs-cleared basis before adjustment for seasonal factors and given on a yen-denominated basis.

The rising trend of Sino-Japanese trade is expected to continue amid a thaw in bilateral relations since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office last September. Under his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who angered China -- and South Korea -- by repeatedly visiting the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, Sino-Japanese relations were said to be "hot in business" but "cold in politics."

Japan's overall trade surplus with the rest of the world widened 16.4% in fiscal 2006 from the previous year to 9.05 trillion yen following a 31.4% fall in fiscal 2005. Both exports and imports hit record highs for five years running. Exports grew 13.4% to 77.46 trillion yen, led by robust shipments of automobiles and electronic parts, including semiconductors, while imports gained 13% to 68.40 trillion yen, led by strong purchases of crude oil and nonferrous metals from abroad, according to the ministry figures.

Since fiscal 2004, Japan's trade with China, including Hong Kong, a special administrative region that returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997, has already been bigger than that with the U.S. The fiscal 2006 figures show further deepening economic interdependence between Japan and China.

Japan's exports to China soared 21.2% to a record 11.31 trillion yen in fiscal 2006, while imports from the country increased 13.0% to a record 14.11 trillion yen. As a result, Japan registered a trade deficit of about 2.8 trillion yen, down 11.2% from the previous year. Japan’s trade with Hong Kong totaled 4.53 trillion yen in fiscal 2006.

Meanwhile, Japan's trade surplus with the U.S. rose for the third year running, increasing 13.5% to 9.09 trillion yen in fiscal 2006, the second-largest ever level. The largest surplus, 9.66 trillion yen, was logged in fiscal 1985.

In fiscal 2006, Japan's exports to the U.S. totaled 17.12 trillion yen, up 11.1%, while imports amounted to 8.03 trillion, up 8.6%.

But a Finance Ministry official brushed aside some concerns that the nation's huge trade surplus could become a fresh source of friction between Tokyo and Washington. "The United States' trade deficit with Japan is the third largest after that with China and the European Union, while Japan's surplus (with the United States) was the largest in fiscal 1985," the official said. "So, we assume that our trade surplus would not be so outstanding and would not have much repercussions," the official added.

Among other major trading partners, Japan's trade with the 27-nation European Union (EU) amounted to 18.38 trillion yen in fiscal 2006. Japan logged a trade surplus of 4.21 trillion yen with the EU.

Japan's trade with the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) totaled 18.62 trillion yen. Japan posted a trade deficit of about 359 billion yen with ASEAN.

Japan's trade with South Korea totaled 9.17 trillion yen, with exports rising 11.9% to 6.01 trillion yen while imports increasing 10.0% to 3.16 trillion yen. As a result, Japan’s trade surplus with South Korea came to 2.85 trillion yen.

In March alone, Japan's overall trade surplus with the rest of the world surged 73.9% from a year earlier to about 1.63 trillion yen. Exports in the month climbed 10.2% to 7.51 trillion yen, while imports were flat at 5.87 trillion yen.

Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economy.

Tags: china, japan, trade, USA

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Film about building of the CPR an 'apology to China,' producer says

CP - The Okanagan will be used to shoot key scenes for the $10-million Chinese-Canadian movie Iron Road.

Vancouver-based Network Entertainment is producing the movie and two-part miniseries to air on CBC-TV next year.

Network is familiar with the Okanagan because it is close to its Vancouver base, but also because it shot two reality TV series about hockey in Vernon - Making the Cut in 2004 and Making the Cut 2 in 2006.

Iron Road is a love story set against the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad through the Rocky Mountains by Chinese labourers, who were treated little better than slaves.

''It's a chapter of Canadian history that hasn't been told and, in a way, it's our apology to China for what happened,'' said Iron Road producer Raymond Massey.

Young Canadian actor Luke MacFarlane plays James, a white man supervising the labourers, and Chinese actress Sun Li (孫儷, picture) is Little Tiger, the beautiful woman who disguises herself as a man to work on the railway.

She reveals her true identity to James, and they begin a forbidden affair.

The movie also stars Irish actor Peter OToole, who's been nominated for eight Oscars, and Sam Neill, from the Jurassic Park movies.

Five weeks of filming will be done in China and two weeks in British Columbia, most of it in the Okanagan, but also in the Thompson and Nicola regions.

Specific location information and the shooting timetable have not been released by the Okanagan Film Commission.

The Okanagan is on a roll as a location for movies, TV shows, commercials and music videos

Last year, the valley was featured in three feature films and eight other productions.

Wind Chill has the highest profile.

It's a thriller staring Emily Blunt and is just being released in the United States. A snowy road off the Okanagan Connector highway was used for filming of that movie for 30 days in February 2006.

Tags: chinese canadian, railroad, iron road, canadian pacific railway, racism, discrimination, movie

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Abe's 'carefully scripted' comments not acknowledge coercion: expert

NYT — In his first visit to the United States as Japan's leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly got on a first-name basis with President Bush and secured an invitation to the ranch in Crawford, Tex., for the next time.

If Abe succeeded in building a bond with Bush, another major goal of his trip — heading off a resolution on Japan's wartime sex slavery in the House of Representatives — yielded mixed results. In both his meeting with House leaders and in his news conference with the president, Abe offered an apology but used pointedly vague language to sidestep the issue of Japan's responsibility toward the sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women.

Standing next to Bush, Abe said he had "deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as comfort women were placed in extreme hardships" and expressed his "apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance."

Bush called Japan's wartime sex slavery a "regrettable chapter in the history of the world," adding: "I accept the prime minister's apology."

Mike M. Mochizuki, a Japanese politics expert at George Washington University, said that Abe's comments reflected both the vagueness of the Japanese language and a carefully worded script.

"If he wanted to be clear in his response, he could have phrased it differently," Mochizuki said. "What Abe said does not acknowledge the issue of coercion, so those insisting on a clear admission of responsibility won't be satisfied with that. I don't think he's changed anyone's mind with his remarks."

On Friday, in two landmark rulings, Japan's Supreme Court rejected compensation claims filed by former sex slaves and forced laborers from China, but acknowledged that they had been coerced by the Japanese military or industry. The judgment was handed down as Abe wrapped up his tour of the United States and headed to Saudi Arabia, the first stop in a tour of the Middle East.

Last month, Abe caused a furor in Asia and the United States when he said there was no evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women into sex slavery in World War II, in keeping with longstanding assertions by Japanese nationalists that the women were volunteers or were coerced by third-party private brokers. On March 16, Abe's comments were endorsed by his cabinet as the official government position.

More recently, Abe's remarks have softened, though they have yet to extinguish the initial anger.

"He's not taking any responsibility for the military putting us there — he makes it seem as if we just happened to be there," said Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, a Dutch woman who was forced to serve as a sex slave in Indonesia and testified about her experiences at a House panel recently.

"He hasn't changed his tune at all," Mrs. Ruff said of Abe's Friday remarks in a phone interview from her home in Adelaide, Australia. "He used his words very carefully. He's getting away with it, he thinks."

Kent Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins, said Abe was "finessing his response to try to head off the resolution" in the House while not alienating his nationalist base in Japan.

"He could be caught in a real cross-fire," Calder said.

The House resolution calls on Japan to unequivocally acknowledge its wartime sex slavery and officially apologize for it.

Representative Mike Honda, the California Democrat who is spearheading the legislation, said he hopes the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will vote on the resolution next month.

"We would like the Japanese government to offer the victims of sex slavery an official apology endorsed by the cabinet and passed by parliament," Honda said in a telephone interview. "Why should the president of the United States accept prime minister's apology? He wasn't a victim of sex slavery."

The attention on sex slavery has raised some concerns in the United States about linking American policy in Asia to Japan's current leadership, which is dominated by nationalists who have long argued that historical facts like wartime sex slavery or the Rape of Nanjing were exaggerations or fabrications.

In recent years, the United States and Japan have asserted that their alliance in Asia was based on "common values, especially our commitment to freedom and democracy," as Bush said Friday. The countries are strengthening their military alliance even as Japan's revisionist views on history have deepened distrust in the rest of Asia.

"The notion of Japan as a robust democracy and a beacon of human rights in East Asia is something that Prime Minister Abe has been pushing," Mochizuki said. "But the more he pushes on that, while leaving the comfort women hanging, it raises questions among American intellectuals about how truly democratic Japan is and how truly committed it is to human rights."

Mochizuki pointed out that Abe had assigned a new investigation into Japan's wartime sex slavery to a group of nationalist lawmakers from the right wing of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, who have long argued that the so-called comfort women were volunteers.

"If Prime Minister Abe was serious about getting at the historical truth," he added, "rather than relegating this investigation to a group of like-minded revisionists inside the L.D.P., he could have called for a cross-party study in the Diet and made available all sorts of government documents for a thorough government investigation."

Tags: japan, war crimes, USA, history, comfort women, sex slaves

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East Timor former sex slaves start speaking out

Japan Times - Human rights groups in Japan and East Timor have launched a program to donate teaching materials to the newly independent nation about the wartime brothels the Imperial Japanese Army ran there during their occupation of the former Dutch colony.

Based on interviews with 15 former "comfort women," as Japan euphemistically called the sex slaves, and others in East Timor, the groups have set up an exhibition of 50 panels bearing their pictures and testimonies for an exhibition at the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo through May 27.

The groups plan to translate the explanations on the panels into the local East Timorese language, Tetum, so the people can learn about this dark period of their history.

"People in East Timor do not have enough materials to learn their own history," said Akihisa Matsuno, a member of the East Timor Japan Coalition. "We hope we can raise 2 million yen in order to complete the translation and creation of the panels by the summer."

The groups plan to hold seminars for junior high and high school teachers in East Timor and show the panels, which the teachers will be able to use in their history classes, according to Matsuno, who is also a professor at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

To help promote the program, the human rights groups recently brought Angelina de Araujo from East Timor, a member of the HAK Association (Association for Law, Human Rights and Justice), to Japan so she could talk to people here about her interviews with the former sex slaves. She spoke in five cities, including Tokyo, Osaka and Sendai.

"I did not know anything about the wartime sex slavery before the interviews, and I felt sad, as a woman, about what they told me," de Araujo, 27, said. "Sometimes I was unwilling to listen to their stories, but I continued the interviews as I believed their history would be terminated if we did not record them."

According to the East Timor study, the Japanese military established brothels for its soldiers all over East Timor after invading the Dutch East Indies in 1942 and intimidated the local people into providing young women to work in them.

Some of the women said they were not old enough to have started menstruating, yet they were repeatedly raped by the soldiers. One women said the younger girls were afraid of using condoms and did not want to let them enter their bodies as they didn't know what they were.

Another woman told of how she was kept at the house of a high-ranking officer.

"My parents sometimes brought me food, but they never entered the house," the woman said in the report. "They just stood at the door and stared at me while I was inside the house."

"Some of them were initially hesitant to speak out as they felt embarrassed with their past hardships, while some started crying while telling me their stories," de Araujo said.

"But now they have allowed us to display the panels on their testimonies. Now that I have come to know their tough lives, I expect the Japanese government to compensate them."

Interviews were also done with 85 other people who lived through the Japanese occupation and saw the damage the brothels caused.

A former village chief said he had been ordered to find young girls for the brothels.

Another local man made the women, called "sweet girls" in the local language, bathe every day to ensure they would not become dirty.

"The women were unpaid, and they were given neither food nor clothes, so their parents brought them food," the man said in the report. "As for me, I was ordered at the end of every day to clean up the women's rooms, in which condoms were scattered over the floor."

"Many high-ranking Japanese government officials have visited East Timor so far, but none of them has apologized for Japan's wartime acts or referred to compensation," said Kiyoko Furusawa, a member of the East Timor Japan Coalition.

Furusawa, also an associate professor at Tokyo Woman's Christian University, said the government must be sincere in acknowledging its wartime history in East Timor.

East Timor became an independent nation in 2002.

Tags: japan, history, comfort women, sex slaves, east timor, human rights

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Bush satisfied with Abe's 'apology' over comfort women

Bush called the issue a "regrettable chapter in the history of the world" and then closed it, saying, "And I accept the prime minister's apology."

Abe's repeated "commitments" to Japan's previous positions in various war crimes (here, here) seem to have satisfied for US president George W. Bush. Alas, hope for passing Olivia Chow's comfort women motion in Canada is getting dimmer.

The following is an excerpt from the Yonhap News:

The Japanese prime minister repeated much of what he has been saying, that he feels sympathy and that he expresses his apologies.

Comfort women refers to tens of thousands of young girls, mostly Koreans, who were lured or kidnapped and taken to frontline brothels during World War II to serve sex to Japanese soldiers.

Bush called the issue a "regrettable chapter in the history of the world" and then closed it, saying, "And I accept the prime minister's apology."

"I am sure that the president knows this will continue to be a challenge for Japan that they are going to have to address in a variety of ways. But I think the president's point was that this was not a political issue for him or for U.S.- Japanese relations anymore," said Michael Green, former director for Asia at the National Security Council.

Bush's remarks do not end the issue for South Koreans, who don't see Abe's words as an apology or an acknowledgement of responsibility.

"There is nothing more today than what (Abe) has been saying," Soh Ok-cha, president of Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, said in her reaction.

A South Korean official said Abe's words cannot be construed as a formal apology.

"He didn't clarify exactly what he was apologizing about. He didn't admit to coercing the women," he said.

Tags: japan, USA, history, war crimes, comfort women, politics

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ALPHA's reactions to Japanese court denying Chinese war slaves' claim

Open Statement in Response to the Ruling Made by Supreme Court of Japan Denying Chinese Victims’ Right to Claim Compensation

by Canada Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (ALPHA)

On the morning of April 27, the Supreme Court of Japan handed down the final verdict on the appeal by the Japanese corporation, Nishimatsu Construction who refused to accept the judgment by Hiroshima High Court which ordered Nishimatsu to compensate the Chinese forced labour victims. The ruling of the Supreme Court unjustly overturned the earlier decision by Hiroshima High Court and absolved Nishimatsu Company from legal liabilities for its wartime practice of enslaving Chinese labourers.

On the afternoon of the same day, the Supreme Court handed down another final judgment on the appeal by former Chinese “comfort women”, GUO Xicui, etc. regarding Tokyo High Court’s verdict which absolved the responsibility of the Japanese government in its military’s wartime “comfort women” system. The Tokyo High Court’s original verdict was unjustly upheld.

The decision of using Chinese forced labourers was made by the Japanese government. Coercing women from China and many other countries to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army was another grave crime also systematically organized and committed by the Japanese military. All these atrocities committed by the Japanese government and its military were for the purpose of supporting its war of aggression. These crimes against humanity turned more than ten million Chinese people into slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army and those Japanese corporations involved. Among these people, nearly 40,000 were abducted and forcibly sent to Japan where they suffered humiliation and abuses at the hands of the Japanese corporations and their overseers. Within a short period of less than two years, about 7000 of them died miserably in Japan. The Japanese military’s unspeakable crimes against the “comfort women” devastated the lives and ruined the body and mind of hundreds of thousands of women. Their dignity was destroyed. Many women died a violent death. The few survivors have been living in destitution accompanied by pain and humiliation for the rest of their lives.

However, to this day the Japanese government has been covering up the facts, putting off and delaying redress, deliberately misinterpret the law and stubbornly shirking its responsibility. The Japanese corporations involved in enslaving Chinese labourers adopt the same immoral position as the Japanese government. The Supreme Court of Japan is supposed to uphold judicial justice. However, in the final ruling of the Nishimatsu forced labour case, the chief justice of the Second Petty Bench of the Supreme Court Ryoji Nakagawa stated that according to the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the People’s Republic of China (1972), Chinese individuals’ right to seek compensation had already been abandoned and that as far as court trial was concerned, there was no legal basis (for the victims) to claim compensation. Because the Chinese victims’ rights to claim have been denied by the Supreme Court, all other Chinese victims’ lawsuits seeking postwar compensation including the case of the Chinese “comfort women” have been deprived of any chance in seeking justice in the Japanese judiciary system.

It is absurd that the Supreme Court of Japan unilaterally interpreted the 1972 Joint Communique and denied completely the right of individual Chinese to judicially claim war compensations. Such ruling is against the legal principle of justice and fairness. Canada ALPHA strongly condemns and protests against this unjust ruling.

To this day the Japanese government and the Japanese corporations involved have still not offered any sincere apology or compensation to the Chinese war victims. Some Japanese judges take advantage of their position to collude with the Japanese government and the Japanese corporations involved in shirking responsibility.

Once again we solemnly urge the Japanese government and the parties involved to honestly face this dark chapter of Japan’s history and shoulder their war crimes responsibilities. We also demand the Japanese government to waste no time in passing an apology and compensation resolution for war victims of Japanese atrocities in their parliament, thus preventing Japanese politicians and officials from repeated denials of atrocities committed.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, “The unilateral interpretation of the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the People’s Republic of China by the Supreme Court of Japan is both illegal and invalid. We have already requested the Japanese government to seriously consider the Chinese concerns and to handle this matter properly.” Canada ALPHA urges that the Chinese government should take concrete measures to protect the victims’ rights to claim for compensation in addition to the verbal protest expressed. One of the feasible actions is to immediately proceed with trials of the compensation lawsuits against the Japanese corporations filed in Chinese courts. In cases where a Japanese corporation refuses to fulfill its compensation obligations as ordered by the Chinese court, its assets in China should be frozen until its liability to the victims is resolved.

Canada ALPHA also urges the Chinese government to adopt effective measures to provide humanitarian supports to the elderly and fragile survivors which are rapidly dwindling in number.

See also:
China WW2 forced labourers lose Japan court battle

Tags: war, japan, wwii, war crimes, forced labour, slaves

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Canada disappointed for not being included in Beijing Olympic torch route

Vancouver Sun - The Canadian Olympic Committee said Friday it is "disappointed" that China excluded Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and former Olympic host cities Montreal and Calgary from its elaborate torch relay route.

But COC chief executive Chris Rudge said he doesn't believe Canada is being snubbed as a result of ongoing tensions between Beijing and the Canadian government.

"Disappointed? Yes. But I don't think it's a snub and I'm absolutely not going to lose any sleep over it," Rudge said.

Rudge said there's no tradition or protocol dictating that future or past host cities should be included in the torch relay, though he noted that the torch for the 2004 Games in Athens made a stop in Montreal, site of the 1976 Games.

"Clearly, one would have hoped that the next Games on the schedule, Vancouver 2010, would have been a priority for them. But that wasn't the case," Rudge said.

But he noted that San Francisco, the only U.S. stop, has never hosted the Games.

"The reality is, in the geopolitical nature of the world, Canada is in fact a very small country with not a strong position in the world and probably not a high priority when the people putting together this plan had some decisions to make.

"I don't think it speaks poorly of us, I don't think we should be overly upset about it. It is what it is, and let's get on with the fact we're still going to win more medals than anybody else in 2010."

However, one China-watcher said frosty Beijing-Ottawa relations may have been a factor resulting in Vancouver's omission.

Vancouver, like San Francisco, has a huge ethnic Chinese population and would be a logical choice if Canada-China relations were strong, noted Wenran Jiang, a political scientist and acting director of the University of Alberta's China Institute.

"But I'm not surprised that no Canadians cities were included," Jiang said.

"I think the colder relationship definitely is a factor which might have contributed to Canadian cities not being included."

But Paul Evans, chairman of the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Games appear to be "isolated" from bilateral tensions.

"It strikes me as unlikely" that China would deliberately snub Canada on the torch route, he said.

Spokesmen for Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Trade Minister David Emerson, minister responsible for the 2010 games, referred media questions Friday to Canadian Heritage.

But a spokeswoman in that department also dodged the issue.

"It's Beijing that decides the route. I cannot comment on this," said Josianne Jalbert.

Officials in China's embassy here didn't return phone calls. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Games refused to comment.

China's torch relay will be the longest in Olympic history since the event became a formal part of the program in Berlin in 1936.

It begins in Greece next March, will continue to Beijing, and will wind across Asia, Europe, North America, Africa, and then back to Asia and China before the torch lights the cauldron at the Aug. 8, 2008 opening ceremony in Beijing's National Stadium.

The relay route includes stops in Istanbul, Saint Petersburg, London, Paris, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Dar Es Salaam, Muscat, Islamabad, Mumbai, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Canberra, Nagano, Seoul, Pyongyang, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Macau and more than 100 cities across China -- including Guangzhou and Xiamen in the south, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou in the east, the Tibetan capital Lhasa, the northwest region of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

Rudge said the COC didn't lobby China to be included in the route, and he said he'd be "shocked" if the federal government made a diplomatic push to get Vancouver, Calgary or Montreal on the itinerary.

He said it would be an enormous stretch to suggest that China excluded Canada because of Beijing's publicly-declared anger over Prime Minister Stephen Harper raising China's grim human rights record.

Tags: china, canada, olympic torch

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Sex slave issue unlikely to mar Abe's U.S. visit

I'm 100% sure that this position of the US will be adopted by our Kenney-Harper faction.

Reuters - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cleared up misunderstandings over his views about women forced to be wartime sex slaves for Japan's soldiers, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday, indicating the issue would not mar Abe's first official visit to America.

Abe's visit to Washington follows months of controversy in Asia after he made comments that appeared to distance him from Japan's 1993 apology for state involvement in a system that coerced women into sexual servitude.

Abe, who arrives in Washington on Thursday for a two-day stay, said last month there was no proof that the women were forced into brothels by Japan's military. He since apologized for the suffering of the "comfort women," as they are known in Japan and has said he stands by the 1993 apology.

The sex slaves issue -- which entered U.S. political debate this year when a congressman introduced a resolution demanding Japan apologize -- is unlikely to be an issue when Abe meets President George W. Bush, said senior Bush aide Dennis Wilder.

"The President believes that Prime Minister Abe has done a lot to clear up the misunderstandings in the last couple of weeks on this issue," said Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council.

"Mr. Abe, in interviews and in statements, has indicated that the Japanese position, the official position of Japan has not changed, and that he personally apologizes for the horrible things that happened to those women," he told reporters.

A senior Japanese official in Washington briefing reporters on Abe's two-day visit said the prime minister raised the issue with Bush in an April 3 telephone call "because he felt that his true feelings were not being represented and his statements were not being accurately conveyed."

"GESTURE OF RESPECT"

"The prime minister reiterated that he stands by the Kono Statement, which expresses an official apology to the comfort women on behalf of the Japanese government," said the Japanese official, who declined to be named.

The Kono Statement is the 1993 apology that acknowledged official involvement in the military brothel system.

The Japanese official said Abe would hold talks with U.S. congressional leaders, but that he would not meet the author of a U.S. House of Representatives resolution seeking a formal Japanese apology for the women.

Rep. Michael Honda, a California Democrat who introduced the nonbinding apology resolution in February, said he has held off pushing the measure as a "gesture of respect" and to give Abe a chance to weigh in on the debate.

"When I knew Abe was coming I decided to, instead of moving forward with the bill, just hold it until he comes, and offer him the opportunity to lobby it if he wants to with our members or our leadership," he said in a telephone interview.

"After he leaves we pick up and move forward again and get that thing passed through the committee," said Honda, one of a handful of U.S. lawmakers of Japanese descent.

Abe and other Japanese officials have said Tokyo would not apologize again, even if Honda's resolution is adopted.

Amnesty International said it plans to hold a rally near the White House after Abe arrives on Thursday to urge Japan to take responsibility and apologize for the sex slaves issue.

Tags: japan, US, comfort women, history, war crimes, diplomacy, china, foreign policy

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China WW2 forced labourers lose Japan court battle

Japanese court rejects labourers' claims

AP - Japan's top court scrapped appeals Friday by five Chinese wartime forced laborers who demanded compensation from a Japanese construction company, saying they have no right to seek reparation from Japan, officials said.

The Supreme Court ruled that the company does not have to pay the money because Chinese individuals have no right to seek war compensation from Japan under a bilateral agreement.

The plaintiffs wanted Nishimatsu Construction Co. to pay a total of $230,300 in compensation for their suffering.

A Japanese high court ruling in 2004 ordered Nishimatsu to pay the money to the plaintiffs, but the company appealed the decision.

Friday's decision scraps the Hiroshima High Court's decision and was expected to set a precedent for pending lawsuits by Chinese individuals seeking wartime compensation.

Supreme Court chief justice Ryoji Nakagawa said the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique, in which Beijing abandoned its right to claim war reparations from Japan, makes it impossible for Chinese individuals to seek wartime compensation from Japan, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.

The court, however, acknowledged that the plaintiffs had to work under severe conditions that caused them illnesses and injuries and urged the construction company to voluntarily take atonement measures.

The five plaintiffs -- three survivors and two family members representing men who have since died -- said they were brought over by Japan's military in July 1944 and forced to work for Nishimatsu as virtual slaves at a power plant construction site until the war ended a year later.

The men said they were barely fed and forced to work more than 12 hours a day without pay or medical care.

Some 40,000 Chinese were taken to Japan in the early 1940s to work as slave laborers, mostly in coal mines and ports, including about 360 at Nishimatsu. Tens of thousands of others from Asian countries also were brought here as wartime slave laborers.

Japan's government also has faced dozens of pending lawsuits filed by other Asian victims of Japan's wartime atrocities, including former sex slaves, but maintained it settled all compensation issues in postwar treaties.

Some Japanese courts have in recent years acknowledged that the government and Japanese companies broke the law by using forced labor. But they rarely rule in favor of plaintiffs seeking compensation, often citing the expiration of the deadline for filing such claims, which is usually 20 years under Japanese law.

The courts also have said the current government is not responsible for crimes committed under the wartime constitution.



China WW2 forced laborers lose Japan court battle

Reuters - Chinese slave laborers who were forced to work in Japan during World War Two lost their bid for compensation on Friday when the Supreme Court overturned a landmark ruling that had ordered a Japanese company to pay them.

The Japanese top court's verdict -- its first in such a case -- coincides with a push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is currently in Washington for a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush, to restore Japanese pride in the past. Critics call the campaign an attempt to whitewash wartime atrocities.

In 2004, the Hiroshima High Court ordered Japanese construction firm Nishimatsu Construction Co. Ltd. to pay a total of 27.5 million yen ($230,000) to a group of five Chinese in compensation for forcing them to work in Japan during World War Two.

"The ruling is disgraceful in light of friendly relations between Japan and China," said Shinzo Tsuchiya, a supporter of the former laborers.

Nishimatsu had argued that the statute of limitations had expired on violations of obligations to ensure safe working conditions for the workers.

"We have not yet seen the judgment so we cannot comment in detail," a Nishimatsu official said. "But it is a victory for our company, so from that point of view we think it is an appropriate verdict."

The plaintiffs are among 360 Chinese forcibly brought from China to work in Japan in July 1944. Most of them worked at a Nishimatsu hydroelectric power plant construction site in western Japan until the end of the war in 1945.

"We've lost. But we will continue to struggle with Nishimatsu to the bitter end," said Song Jiyao, 78, who lost his eyes in an accident while doing forced labor.

Acknowledging that the Chinese laborers had gone through "extremely grave mental and physical sufferings", presiding judge Ryoji Nakagawa suggested that Nishimatsu work to provide relief to the plaintiffs.

SINO-JAPANESE THAW

The ruling comes amid a thaw in ties between Japan and China, started by Abe's trip to Beijing last October and continuing with a return visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao earlier this month.

Dozens of wartime compensation suits have been filed against the Japanese government and companies associated with its aggression in the first half of the 20th century, but almost all have been rejected by Japanese courts.

Tens of thousands of Chinese and Koreans were brought to Japan before and during the war to work in factories and mines for little or no pay to help support Japan's war machine.

The Japanese government has acknowledged that many people suffered as forced laborers, but it insists that war reparations have been settled by postwar treaties.

Later on Friday, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a damages suit filed by two Chinese women who said they were kidnapped and forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers during the war.

The issue of so-called "comfort women" has attracted renewed interest after Abe sparked international outrage by denying in March that the military or the government had forced the women, most of them Asian, into sexual slavery.

Abe has since apologized for the suffering of the victims and has repeatedly said he stands by a 1993 government statement that acknowledged official involvement in managing the brothels.

Tags: china, japan, forced labour, wwii, slave, war crime, history

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By 2031, half of Greater Vancouver's residents will be immigrants

Vancouver Sun - If you think Greater Vancouver is ethnically diverse now, wait until 2031, when about one out of two people in the region will have been born outside of Canada.

This is the region's demographic future if current trends -- strong immigration flows from Asia and a low Canadian birth rate -- continue over the next two decades, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

"In 2031, about 50% of the population in the census area of Vancouver will be immigrants," said Eric Caron Malenfant, one of the authors of the Statistics Canada report, called Demographic Changes in Canada from 1971 to 2001 Across an Urban-to-Rural Gradient.

Immigrants will also make up 50% of people in Toronto by 2031, said the report. And 25% of Montreal's population will have been born abroad.

In 2001, immigrants accounted for 38% of Greater Vancouver's population and 18% of Canada's, said Malenfant in an interview.

Immigration, which has remained high since the end of the '80s, has been the main driver of population growth in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

He said that about two-thirds of Canada’s population growth is due to immigration, with natural population increase accounting for the remaining quarter.

The fertility rate in Canada declined significantly between 1971 and 2001, dropping from slightly over 2.1 children per woman in 1971 to approximately 1.5 in the early part of 2000.

In fact, 1971 was the last year Canada's fertility rate exceeded the replacement level, which is the fertility rate required for the population to replace itself in the long term, without migration. The replacement level is considered to be 2.1 births per woman.

And fertility rates are lowest in Canada's three largest urban areas.

"If these trends in immigration and fertility continue," said Malenfant, "then the increase in the diversity of Vancouver and Toronto will continue until 2031."

Three out of four immigrants to Canada during the '90s settled in the three cities, he added.

Malenfant said the latest projection is based on 2001 Census figures.

China is the top source country for immigration to B.C., followed by India and the Philippines.

The prediction of more diversity in the Lower Mainland isn't surprising to Andrew Ramlo, director of the Urban Futures Institute. He noted that the former visible-minority population in Richmond has become a "visible-majority," according to the 2001 Census figures.

Given the strong immigration flows and the low birth rate, it's a "no-brainer" to project that immigrants will eventually make up 50% of Greater Vancouver's population, he added.

Canada's natural population increase will decline even further over the next three to four decades as baby boomers die, he added.

Immigration accounted for 205,000 new arrivals in Canada last year.

Eleanor Yuen, head of the Asian Library at the University of B.C., said the 2031 projection makes sense given current demographic trends.

But she said there are many variables that could change the rate of immigration, including geopolitical changes in Asia. She noted that immigration from Hong Kong to Canada peaked in 1995 and tapered off in the late '90s as the Asian city's investment climate and job market improved.

Yuen, who came to Canada 20 years ago from Hong Kong, said Canada's attraction for Asian immigrants is about more than economics.

"Canada is seen as a neutral country that is friendly to immigrants. Canada is a country of immigrants and it projects an image that makes immigrants feel very comfortable."

Tags: vancouver, population, chinese, india, china, immigration, immigrant

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Forecast: Vancouver home prices to rise 7% in 2007, 7% in 2008

	Unit Sales						Average MLS® Prices ($)
	2006		2007F		2008F		2006		2007F		2008F
Gr. Van.	36,479	-14%	35,100	-4%	33,000	-6%	509,876	20%	545,000	7%	582,000	7%
Victoria	7,480	-6%	7,600	2%	7,350	-3%	426,722	11%	458,000	7%	485,000	6%
Van. Isl.	8,860	-7%	8,530	-4%	8,275	-3%	281,874	20%	295,000	5%	312,000	6%
Powell R.	293	-30%	310	6%	325	5%	204,786	22%	230,000	12%	245,000	7%
Fraser V.	18,093	-10%	17,100	-6%	16,250	-5%	393,047	20%	428,000	9%	455,000	6%
Chilliwack	3,211	7%	3,325	4%	3,375	2%	269,327	7%	305,000	13%	325,000	7%
Kamloops	3,302	5%	3,250	-2%	3,140	-3%	221,359	25%	255,000	15%	275,000	8%
Okanagan	7,780	-7%	7,550	-3%	7,400	-2%	324,963	20%	365,000	12%	390,000	7%
S. Ok.	2,199	-7%	2,080	-5%	2,010	-3%	272,521	19%	295,000	8%	315,000	7%
Kootenay	2,847	-17%	2,900	2%	2,850	-2%	209,895	21%	235,000	12%	248,00	6%
N. Lights	502	-17%	440	-12%	425	-3%	148,694	24%	172,000	16%	185,000	8%
BC N.	5,605	9%	5,400	-4%	5,290	-2%	165,380	20%	189,000	14%	197,000	4%
BC Total	96,671	-9%	93,600	-3%	89,700	-4%	390,963	18%	422,000	8%	450,000	7%

Home sales to decline, home prices to keep rising

BCREA press release – The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its first semi-annual Housing Forecast report today. The report contains forecasts and analysis of the British Columbia economy and housing markets, including detailed forecasts by home type of the province’s twelve real estate board areas.

"Market forces have realigned," said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. "Some potential home buyers are now finding themselves at the wrong end of a price-led affordability squeeze, and home sales are forecast to edge down as a result." MLS® residential sales are forecasted to dip 3% to 93,600 units in the province in 2007, and a further 4% to 89,500 units in 2008. The ten-year average is 77,811 units.

"A more balanced market is emerging in the aftermath of less frenetic buying activity and an increase in residential listings," added Muir. The supply of active listings in the province increased 27% to 32,879 units in March compared to the same month last year.

"More balance between supply and demand will mean less upward pressure on home prices," said Muir. The average MLS® residential price in the province climbed 18% to $390,963 in 2006. This year, the average MLS® residential price is forecast increase a more modest 8% to $422,000, and a further 7% to $450,000 in 2008.

"Strong economic fundamentals will underpin housing demand through 2008," noted Muir. "Robust labour demand is forecasted to keep job growth high and unemployment low. In addition, wages and salaries, and personal disposable income are forecast to rise well above the inflation rate."

BC housing starts are forecasted to decline 7% to 33,900 units in this year and a further 6% to 32,000 units in 2008. While new home inventories remain at low levels, capacity constraints are inhibiting the ability of many BC home builders to increase production.

Full report here.

GREATER VANCOUVER

MLS® sales dipped 14% in 2006, after a record 42,222 sales in 2005. While local economic conditions remained strong, the asking prices of many sellers were no longer being immediately realized. For the first time in four years, homebuyers began to show some resistance to rapidly escalating home prices. A price-led affordability squeeze began to impact sales during the last half of 2006, resulting in less upward pressure on home prices.

More balance between homebuyers and sellers is forecast over the next two years. The market has shifted away from strong sellers’ conditions and is expected to operate in a band between a strong balanced and weak sellers’ market over the forecast horizon. These conditions will produce an increase in the average home price of 7% this year and 7% in 2008.

The Lower Mainland economy is in the midst of a robust growth phase. More than $47 billion worth of major projects are either under construction or proposed for the region. A tight labour market is producing strong upward pressure on wages and pushing the unemployment rate down to an unprecedented level. While housing affordability is a serious challenge in Greater Vancouver, the robust economy is expected to continue underpinning demand.

Housing starts in the Vancouver CMA are forecast to edge down 2% this year and a further 2% in 2008. Production increased from 8,203 units in 2000 to 19,430 units in 2004, a 137% increase. Despite strong demand and low inventories, home builders have been unable to increase production since 2004.

Supply-side constraints in the residential construction sector have limited growth in the housing stock, contributing to escalating home prices. Strong upward pressure on new home prices will continue until the demand for new homes more evenly matches the available supply. This adjustment is now underway and, by 2008, the increase in new home prices should more closely reflect those in the resale market.


PROVINCE-WIDE

HOUSING STARTS EDGE DOWN

Home builders are facing capacity constraints in the large urban areas of the province. The combination of a diminishing land supply, high land costs, more complicated mixed use developments and near full employment of skilled trades workers is inhibiting their ability to increase production. As a result, BC housing starts will fall short of last year’s performance. Total housing starts in the province are forecast to dip 7% to 33,900 units this year, and a further 5.5% to 32,00 units in 2008.

After increasing 13% last year, single detached housing starts are forecast to decline 16% to 12,900 units in 2007. The inventory of new units that are complete and unoccupied have begun to moderately increase, totaling 1,113 at the beginning of March. In addition, affordability constraints are starting to impact consumer demand for these higher priced units. However, a drawing down of inventory this year will set the stage for single detached housing starts to rebound in 2008, climbing 5% to 13,500 units.

Housing starts of multiple units are forecast to continue at the pace of 21,000 units per year in 2007. Driven by affordability, land use planning imperatives and consumer acceptance of the condominium lifestyle, multiple units now comprise 60% of all BC housing starts. Housing starts of multiple units are forecast to edge down 7% to 19,500 units in 2008. Capacity constraints in the home building industry will limit production next year, keeping new condominium inventories from markedly rising.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

The provincial economy is forecast to continue expanding through 2008. Real GDP growth is forecast to outpace the Canadian average, rising 3.2% in 2007 and 3.0% in 2008. The robust economy will continue to entice migrants, adding to population growth and the overall number of households. More than 750 major projects totaling over $110 billion are either proposed or already under construction in BC.

The demand for labour is expected to pull up the labour participation rate in BC. However, employment growth will exceed the overall increase in the labour force and push the unemployment rate down to 4.3% this year and 4.2% in 2008. Tight labour markets limit employment growth as firms find it increasingly difficult to hire workers with the requisite skills. As a result, BC employment growth is forecast to fall below last year’s pace of 3%, increasing 2.6% this year and 2.4% in 2008.

One benefit to BC households that stems from strong labour demand is rising incomes. Wages and salaries per employee climbed 5% last year to just over $36,000, and is forecast to grow a further 4% this year and in 2008. Personal disposable income in the province increased 7% in 2006 and is forecast to rise close to 6% annually through 2008.

Total net migration, backed by BC’s economic performance, reached 44,047 individuals in 2006, an increase of 1%. A total of 47,400 net migrants are forecast this year, and 51,400 in 2008, an increase of 7.6 and 8.4% respectively.

Typically, inter-provincial migration ebbs and flows according to the relative strength of the provincial economy.

Despite BC’s robust economy, net migration from other provinces is being tempered by Alberta’s position as Canada’s fastest growing economy. With four out of every five net migrants to BC originating from outside of Canada, international migration will continue to have a greater economic impact than any other component of population growth.

Almost 75% of provincial economic activity flows from the service sector, with nearly 50% stemming from finance, insurance and real estate and community, business and personal services. Continued strong activity in these sectors is expected, as they are closely tied to the province’s current economic expansion, and the number of transactions that are accrued. Retail and wholesale trade has been riding a wave of consumer confidence over the last two years. Rising wages, strong job growth and low unemployment is expected to continue driving growth in this sector by 5-7% annually through 2008.

The goods sector has some bright and not-so-bright areas. While construction, non-forestry related manufacturing, and mine exploration are expected to grow at faster rates than the aggregate economy, oil and gas has flattened and the forest sector is suffering from less US demand and falling prices. Lumber production has the potential to increase marginally due to the pine beetle infestation and the associated increase in the annual allowable cut. However, profits are being negatively impacted by lower prices and the invocation of the surge limit based export tax. These factors operate to limit production as the least profitable mills cut back production or temporarily shut down.

More CIV real estate articles here.

Tags: vancouver, BC, house prices, home prices, housing, real estate, property market

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Worker program review urged following death of 2 Chinese labours

Government Should Review Temporary Worker Program

CCNC press release - The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) today urged the federal Government to review its temporary workers program in response to news of the workplace deaths of two Chinese workers at an oil-sands construction site in Alberta on April 24, 2007. There are various reports that suggest unsafe workplace procedures and weather conditions may have led to this accident.

“We are mindful that Canada historically, has exploited foreign labour as demonstrated in the building of the CPR,” Colleen Hua said today. “The Government must ensure that there are adequate safety protocols in place for this group of workers.”


In a letter to the company, CCNC has called on the employer to:

1. Provide culturally-sensitive counselling services to the foreign workers at the construction site;

2. Ensure that the families of the workers are contacted and to facilitate their visit to Canada if needed, and to make up any gaps in salaries and benefits (ie. life insurance, extended health benefits) to the surviving family members and injured workers; and

3. Remind authorities to notify the Chinese embassy to provide consular services if needed.


Two Chinese workers killed at Canadian oilsands project

Xinhua - The two workers that were killed Tuesday at an oilsands construction site in Canada's Alberta were Chinese citizens, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the energy company involved in the accident has confirmed.

Two workers were killed and four others injured in an accident Tuesday afternoon at the company's Horizon oilsands construction site in northern Alberta. All the six workers were from China, Real Doucet, senior vice president of Oilsand, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., told Xinhua in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The accident occurred when the roof collapsed on a massive oil container being built as part of the company's oilsands project north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, he said.

The four injured are non-critical and two have been released and the other two have been transferred to a hospital in provincial capital Edmonton, Doucet said.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has started an investigation and a team is in place to determine the root cause of the accident,he said. Work at the tank has stopped and the area around the accident has been isolated.

Tags: chinese labour, chinese workers, temporary workers, work permit, canada, oilsands

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US helped Japan annex Korea, fight Russians: scholar

So in just two days, we learn that the US has been involved in harbouring Japan's military ambitions even before WWI.

Firstly, we heard yesterday that the US troops had used the comfort women after WWII. Today we learnt that the US had helped Japan to colonize Korea, and to fight the Russo-Japanese war in the early 1900s.

Unlike the Axis of Evil in Europe which was destroyed completely after WWII, this Axis of Evil of the US and Japan, allowed to exist for so long, has made - and is still making - detrimental damages to Asia and has brought disastrous sufferings for Asians. And now they want to expand that axis again? They should be damned.

The Marmot’s Hole - American historian Carole Cameron Shaw has just published a book through Seoul National University Press that claims the United States actively intervened in Japan’s annexation of Korea [Kukmin Ilbo, Korean] and provided astronomical amount of financial support to Tokyo during the process, reports the Kukmin Ilbo.

The book, The Foreign Destruction of Korean Independence, describes in detail how the administration of Theodore Roosevelt gave tacit consent to Japan’s occupation of Korea. It provides materials found in Harvard University Library and the Library of Congress, including letters between U.S. consuls in Korea, China and Japan and Roosevelt and Secretary of State discussing Korea policy, documents and new reports.

In particular, it reveals for the first time (?) that Japan received loans—through the good offices of Roosevelt—from large U.S. and British corporations just prior to the 1904 Russo-Japanese War to finance its war budget. Citing a letter by Andrew Carnegie, Shaw said through major U.S. businessmen like Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, Roosevelt provided Japan with some 700 million yen to pay its war costs. She also showed that the United States employed a strategy to exclude Korea and China from the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, which ended the Russo-Japanese War, citing the personal documents of those who participated in the treaty.

Academics say Shaw’s work is the first to use original materials from the United States to show how the U.S. government was deeply involved in Japan’s annexation of Korea. Japan has been claiming that the United States and Great Britain OK’s Japanese control of the Korean Peninsula. Thanks to Shaw’s research results, it is now possible to refute those claims by showing that Japanese control of the peninsula, acknowledged by the United States, was immoral and illegal.

Or so the Kukmin Ilbo says.

Lee Tae-jin, the dean of SNU’s liberal arts school and the leader of a team re-examining the historical and legal circumstances surrounding Japan’s annexation of Japan, said that since they found it difficult to get a hold of U.S. materials, Korean scholars have till now been unable to formulate a proper response to Japanese claims. He said Shaw’s research would go a long way in resolving the history battles between Korea and Japan.

Shaw, who majored in Korean Language and Modern Chinese History at Harvard University, came to Korea in 1959 with her missionary parents. She finished high school in Seoul. She said (and I’m translating), “Think about what the United States did to the sovereignty of a small nation 100 years ago in the name of the ‘public good’… I wrote this book because I wanted to express my apologies as an American.”

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Hirohito quit Yasukuni Shrine visits over concerns about war criminals: diary

AP - Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting a Tokyo war shrine at the center of Japan's diplomatic dispute with neighboring nations because of displeasure over its 1978 enshrinement of top war criminals, according to new documents published Thursday.

The insights, provided in the diary of a former imperial chamberlain, reinforce earlier findings from private memorandums that shed light on why the wartime emperor stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine after his eighth trip in 1975.

In a July 31, 2001, entry of his diary, published by the Asahi newspaper, the chamberlain, Ryogo Urabe, wrote that "the direct cause" was that the emperor was "displeased about the inclusion of Class A war criminals."

Hirohito, under whose name Japan marched across most of Asia in the first half of the 20th century, died in 1989. His son, Akihito, is Japan's current emperor and has never made a pilgrimage to Yasukuni.

The shrine honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead. Visits by Japanese leaders and lawmakers to Yasukuni have long been a source of friction between Japan and its neighbors because the shrine is seen by many as a symbol of Japan's pre-1945 militarism.

In an entry dated April 28, 1988, Urabe said he had been summoned to meet the emperor and that the topic of discussion was the inclusion of war criminals at Yasukuni and China's opposition to the move, the Asahi said.

That passage exactly matches an entry in a diary kept by the Imperial Household Agency chief, Tomohiko Tomita, who had met the emperor before Urabe that day. That passage was made public last year in a report by the Nikkei newspaper.

In Tomita's memo, he quoted the emperor as saying he had stopped his visits after the chief priest at Yasukuni, Nagayoshi Matsudaira, decided to include top war criminals among those commemorated at the shrine, the Nikkei said.

Hirohito said he wondered what the priest was thinking, according to Tomita's account, given the pro-peace views held by the priest's father, Yoshitami Matsudaira, who had been head of the Imperial Household Agency after the war.

"Matsudaira had a strong wish for peace, but the child didn't know the parent's heart," Tomita quoted the emperor as saying, the Nikkei reported. "That's why I have not visited the shrine since. This is my heart."

The diary of Urabe, who died in 2002, will be published in a series of books, the Asahi said. Tomita died in 2003.

Tags: hirohito, war, war crime, war criminals, yasukuni shrine, war shrine, japan, emperor

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Nanjing's only known comfort women dies

Shanghai Daily - Doctors yesterday reported the death of Nanjing's only known surviving World War II sex slave who had been in a critical condition after suffering a brain haemorrhage earlier this week.

Lei Guiying, 79, was the only surviving victim from Nanjing who stepped forward to testify about the Japanese invaders' "comfort women" atrocity.

China News Services said that the Lei's ward was filled with flowers and good wish cards sent by local residents and organizations.

The memorial services for Lei, who is a Christian, will be held this afternoon in her neighborhood in Nanjing's Jiangning District, her adopted son Tang Jiaguo said. "As a Christian, she will rest in her favorite Tangshan Church."

Lei was sent to the Jiangsu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Sunday when she began vomiting and she later fell unconscious.

Lei was forced to be a comfort woman when she was 13 years old during the invasion of China by Japanese troops in World War II.

About 200,000 Chinese women were forced into sexual slavery nationwide during the invasion by Japanese troops. Most women have died, and have not come forth for fear of prejudice. Only 84 comfort women have been identified on the Chinese mainland.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly apologized for the wartime sex slavery recently amid some Japanese activists' attempt to whitewash this history.

Tags: china, comfort women, sex slaves, japan, war crimes, wwii

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