Next up is San Francisco, where this autumn another comfort women memorial will be erected. There, too, local politicians were subjected to hardball pressure tactics and an orchestrated campaign against the memorial that reflect badly on brand Japan. Shouldn’t public diplomacy work toward improving Japan’s image? In the history wars now being waged by Tokyo, this goal is being sacrificed on the altar of revisionism.

"I think it is a problem for the issue of comfort women to be perceived only as a political, diplomatic issue between Korea and Japan," Yoon told The Korea Times in an interview last week. "The victims must be respected and they must regain their dignity." Marymond not only makes patterns symbolizing the comfort women, it is also involved in projects to highlight the issue.

A Japanese documentary released Saturday depicts the life of a Korean student who sacrificed himself to rescue a Japanese man in a subway station in Tokyo in 2001. [...] The film comes out at a tense time in Korean-Japanese relations after official protests from Tokyo over statues set up in Korea to honor the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army's drafting of Asian sex slaves in World War II. 
 

The rekindling of a row between Japan and South Korea over symbols of the “comfort women” could hinder efforts to strengthen security cooperation between Washington’s two key Asian allies, according to an American scholar versed in Tokyo-Seoul ties.

Young Chinese, including those in Hong Kong, must learn from history if they truly want to make the world a better place, says the founder of Shanghai’s first “comfort women” museum that opened at the weekend. “It’s always important to learn from history,” said Professor Su Zhiliang of Shanghai Normal University, who spent more than two decades researching the issue of comfort women 

The comfort women deal has been largely heralded by numerous experts as an example of successful diplomacy, but its success actually depends on how Park can reconcile disagreements within Korean society and effectively implement the deal.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, affirmed in Laos on Monday their intention to implement the landmark bilateral settlement on the “comfort women” forced into Japan’s military brothels during the war by setting up a foundation this week designed to help the surviving victims.

Japan and South Korea have very close alliances with the United States. They also have had diplomatic relations with each other for 50 years, not to mention considerable trade back and forth during that time. At a popular level, many Japanese are wild about Korean bulgogi and soap operas while many Koreans love Japanese sushi and anime. That doesn’t mean, however, that the two countries are particularly close.