PM ABE, OTHERS HAVE NOW "GOT THE MESSAGE" ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L TOKYO 001412

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/29/2027
TAGS: PREL PHUM KS CH ID PH JA
SUBJECT: PM ABE, OTHERS HAVE NOW "GOT THE MESSAGE" ON
COMFORT WOMEN

Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer. Reasons:
1.4 (b)(d).


1. (C) Summary. PM Abe, DCCS Shimomura and other high-level
Japanese officials will not speak out on the comfort women
issue, at least until after the July Upper House election,
according to MOFA Asian Regional Policy Division Director
Aikawa. They will withhold comment for "tactical" domestic
political reasons, as well as a better understanding of the
diplomatic sensitivities, he claimed. Comments by the
Ambassador and other "foreign friends," even though
unpalatable, had been reluctantly received and helpful.
Aikawa was mildly hopeful that plans by conservative LDP
members to revisit the comfort women and Nanjing Incident
issues would be dropped. End Summary.


2. (C) The Prime Minister is surrounded by like-minded people
when it comes to the comfort women issue, MOFA's Asia
Regional Policy Director Kazutoshi Aikawa (strictly protect)
observed to us March 30. He pointed to Deputy Chief Cabinet
Secretary Hakubun Shimomura, Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu

SIPDIS
Matsuoka, Minister of Internal Affairs and Communication
Yoshihide Suga, Justice Minister Jinen Nagase, and State
Minister for Administrative Reform Yoshimi Watanabe as all
having been members of the Parliamentary League of Junior
Lawmakers to Consider Japan's Future and History Education.
The League was formed in 1997 during an earlier period of
textbook reevaluation over the comfort women. Abe was the
chief of the League's secretariat and Shimomura was deputy
chief of the secretariat. The secretary general then was
Seiichi Eto, whom Abe recently allowed back into the LDP
after Koizumi expelled him in 2005 as a postal rebel, Aikawa
noted.


3. (C) DCCS Shimomura, who has been outspoken in denying
government involvement in the comfort women issue, comes from
the education field and owns a chain of cram schools, Aikawa
explained. That is how he first got involved in the textbook
issue. Aikawa assured us that Shimomura, like PM Abe, has
now "gotten the message." Neither will speak out before the
Upper House election. Elaborating, Aikawa explained that the
LDP right-wing is under pressure from its coalition partner
New Komeito to stop talking about the issue, lest it become a
campaign issue prior to the July Upper House election. Even
the "true believers" understand that they need Komeito
support and so, for tactical reasons, if nothing else, they
will remain silent "for the time being." Aikawa also
believed that comments by Ambassador Schieffer and "old
friends" of Japan like former NSC Director Mike Green, had
been helpful. MOFA has been trying to explain the diplomatic
sensitivity of the issue, but the message had not been
getting through. He acknowledged that it was useful for
these people to get the message, however unpalatable, from
the Ambassador and others.


4. (C) The Prime Minister and the people around him are "true
believers" who will not change their position on the comfort
women issue, Aikawa observed. Half in jest, he said "The
Prime Minister knows too much." Abe literally knows more
about the issue than any other Diet member, having studied it
for the past ten years, Aikawa asserted. Abe believes what
he said about "coercion in the narrow sense" and "coercion in
the broader sense." The difference between Abe and Koizumi
is that Koizumi, who is not a detail-oriented person, would
just have gruffly said "I apologize, I apologize," Aikawa
suggested.

Kono Statement, Nanjing Incident Revisits Now Unlikely?
-------------- --------------


5. (C) Asked about plans by an informal group of lawmakers to
revise the Kono Statement and reexamine the Nanjing Incident,
Aikawa explained that Nariaki Nakayama, who heads the
informal group that wants to reexamine the Kono Statement,
may be censured by the LDP because he backed a DPJ candidate
in his native Miyazaki prefecture. Tooru Toita, who heads
the group that wants to reexamine the Nanjing Incident, is
considered "way out" even by conservatives. Many
conservative Diet members who are upset about the Honda
resolution and the comfort women issue, understand that the
Nanjing Incident happened and that arguing about the number
of victims is counterproductive. For those reasons, Aikawa
said he was hopeful that the proposed reexaminations would
not go forward at all.

Release of Diet Library Documents on Yasukuni
--------------


6. (C) Aikawa, who is also responsible at MOFA for the
Yasukuni issue, said he was totally surprised by the March 28
release by the Diet Library of documents showing involvement
by the former Ministry of Health and Welfare in the
enshrinement in Yasukuni Shrine of war criminals. No one,
not even the Kantei, had been informed in advance. He did
not believe there was any ulterior motive in the timing, but
lamented the fact that neither MOFA nor the Kantei had been
consulted prior to their release so that the issue of timing
could have been addressed. Abe's comments that the
government's involvement in the matter was "not a problem"
had -- so far -- not resonated much or become a diplomatic
issue, Aikawa observed. He was relieved that both the
Chinese and South Korean governments were taking a relatively
low-key approach to both the comfort women and Yasukuni
document issues.

Asian Women's Fund, Kono's Remarks to Critics
--------------


7. (C) The Asian Women's Fund, which was set up in 1995 as a
mechanism to compensate comfort women, will end on March 31
after 12 years, Aikawa observed. That date had been set
several years ago, long before the issue re-ignited. Aikawa
described at some length the difficulties of trying to assist
comfort women in South Korea, compared to in Indonesia and
the Philippines. China had "opted out" from the beginning
for domestic political reasons, even though, he claimed,
Japan had offered several times to provide assistance by
setting up "assistance homes" for elderly Chinese former
comfort women. After the Fund dissolves, several NGO's will
pick up its work.


8. (C) Asked about remarks attributed to Yohei Kono in a book
to be published shortly by the Asian Women's Fund that
castigated critics of the Kono Statement as "intellectually
insincere," Aikawa said he had been concerned that the
remarks were "rather inflammatory." Using such language in
Japanese is quite insulting, he said. Kono was apparently
asked if he really wanted the remarks included in the
article. He said it was fine with him, according to Aikawa.

Comment
--------------


9. (C) Aikawa appeared confident that PM Abe and those around
him would maintain a low-profile on the comfort women issue
through the July election. How much of his judgment is based
on knowledge of Kantei deliberations and how much is wishful
thinking is unclear. Even granting that a tactical decision
has been made to desist from comment for the time being, the
possibility always exists that someone can be goaded into
making remarks, particularly if the cast of characters feels
as strongly about the matter as Aikawa claims. Aikawa hoped
that, at this point, "foreign friends," too, would keep the
volume down.
SCHIEFFER