[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 28, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             COOPERATION BETWEEN THE U.S., JAPAN, AND KOREA

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. LORETTA SANCHEZ

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 28, 2015

  Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, 2015 marks the 70th 
anniversary of the end of World War II. As we seek America's rebalance 
to Asia, I firmly believe that further cooperation between the U.S., 
Japan and Korea will play a pivotal role for peace and prosperity 
throughout the Asia-Pacific region as well as the globe. To this end, 
we are working hard to promote cooperative efforts through the House 
Armed Services Committee.
  Japan is a valued and trusted ally of the U.S. They have been a model 
world citizen for 70 years and is a leader in global foreign aid 
distribution. Japan and the U.S. have a bright future together and I 
welcome Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to address a Joint Session 
of Congress on April 29th.
  One thing stands between this day and that bright future and Prime 
Minister Abe can eliminate that obstacle during his address to the 
Joint Meeting of Congress: He can make a formal apology to, and say 
that his government takes legal responsibility for, the more than 
200,000 young women and girls from across Asia, but mainly from Korea, 
who were forced to become sex slaves during World War II by the 
Imperial Armed Forces of Japan. These are the euphemistically termed 
``comfort women.''
  The scholarship on this topic and the personal testimonies of the 
surviving women is voluminous and settled. Everywhere, that is, except 
in the mind of Prime Minister Abe and his government. Previous Japanese 
officials and governments have accepted the country's responsibility 
for creating and maintaining the comfort women system, as well as 
Japan's colonial and wartime aggression.
  He has denied that these women were coaxed, coerced and conscripted 
against their will to serve in ``comfort stations,'' forced into sex 
slavery. He says they were ordinary prostitutes of the time. He has 
denied documented evidence of coercion. He has called the personal 
testimonies of the women ``baseless, slanderous lies.'' He dispatched 
envoys to the United Nations, to ask it to overturn an exhaustive 
report affirming the coercion of the comfort women and recommending 
Japan take responsibility, and to McGraw-Hill Education publishers, to 
ask them to change textbook language about the comfort women. 
Thankfully, both bodies refused the Japanese attempts to whitewash the 
past.
  Not only do these efforts defame the women, they destabilize the 
entire East Asia region. And these are not just issues relegated to 
history. Violence against women in wartime and military sexual assault 
continues to occur to this day. For these reasons, I hope the Japanese 
Prime Minister Abe's visit and speech to the Joint Meeting of Congress 
will lay the foundation for healing and reconciliation, in particular 
in bringing closure to the pain and suffering endured by the Comfort 
Women who've waited with their very lives for an unequivocal apology.
  More specifically, Mr. Abe must seize the opportunity of his 
Washington visit to reaffirm the 1995 Murayama Statement and 1993 Kono 
Statement as they were issued, and also uphold the previous Japanese 
government's positions and views on aggression, colonial rule and 
coerced sexual slavery by using clear, unequivocal and specific 
language.
  This House has given a rare and special honor to the Prime Minister: 
An opportunity to address a critical ally on a grand stage. I hope Mr. 
Abe does the right thing.

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