2015.6.27 KIP Seminar by Mr. Yoshibumi Wakamiya

KIP Summer Seminer took placed. Yoshibumi Wakamiya, a former chief editor of Asahi Shinbun and also a guest professor in some Japanese and Korean universities, gave us lectures for three times in the seminer corses. The main theme of his lectures was “Think the relation between Japan, China and South-Korea, on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWⅡ.”

In the first lecture, he spoke about the relationship between Japan and Korea after WWⅡ, from different points, such as Annexation of Korea, Japan‐Republic of Korea Basic Relations Treaty, military comfort women, and the issue of Takeshima. The negative legacies left after WWⅡ, the conflict between two countries and the history from restoring relations were all interesting, talked by Mr. Wakamiya, who is familiar with the reality of the relation between Japan and Korea as a journalist and a scholor. Especially regarding the problem of military comfort women, Japan tries to solve it by Asian women’s fund, but on the other hand, Korea requires Japan to take official responsibility. Both opinions have a point, and we realized how difficult it is to solve the problem about the differences of historical understanding.

There are many Japanese people who believe that Korea is also to blame for the problem of military comfort women, influenced by the media. I wonder how many people have enough information to say that? We learned many things from the lecture, and it was a good opportunity for us to reconsider many issues between Japan and Korea. It was the precious experience to know that it is important to take many aspects in consideration and listen to others from different situations when thinking of the historical problems. (Tomoki Murakami)

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