¹ A related critique from the left asserted that the letter had misrepresented postwar Japan as peaceful toward its neighbors when in fact, as a U.S. ally, Japan was complicit in the violence of American imperialism. Writer Tsuneno Yujiro expressed this position forcefully in a response to the letter in the Asia-Pacific Journal. Tsuneno also questioned the letter's citing Korean and Chinese nationalism alongside the revisionism of the Japanese right as impediments to resolution. These criticisms speak to the difficult compromises we made in order to include a wide range of scholars and persuade a wide public. Speaking for myself, however, there may also be a substantive difference of political views. As compromised as they have been, I believe that postwar Japan's pacifism and domestic police restraint are significant achievements when viewed in world historical perspective. With regard to contemporary memory politics, I also believe that nationalism in Korea and China represent impediments as serious as Japanese denial. Acknowledging this political problem in the present in no way equates the three nations in the past or diminishes Japanese responsibility for the country's history of aggression.

² Significant statements included the so-called “16 Organizations Statement” on the comfort women issue published collectively by major historical and pedagogical groups on May 25; the statement on Japanese-Korean relations issued by Japanese intellectuals on June 8; and the statement issued by international relations scholars on July 17 concerning the upcoming seventieth-anniversary address of the Prime Minister. The English translation of the Prime Minister's address is here.

³ Inoguchi's mailing and its context are discussed in David McNeill, “Nippon Kaigi and the Radical Conservative Project to Take Back Japan” Asia-Pacific Journal, December 14, 2015. The contents of the package are analyzed in detail by Yamaguchi Tomomi in “Inoguchi Kuniko giin kara ikinari hon ga okurarete kita: ‘rekishisen’ to jimintō no ‘taigai hatsugen‘” Synodos, October 21, 2015.

⁴ “Digital Museum: The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund.”

⁵ Sakurauchi was challenging the label “sexual slavery” when he referred to Yoshimi's work as a “fabrication” but it is important to note that neither the validity of the label nor Yoshimi's use of it was adjudicated in the ruling. The case was further muddied by the fact that Sakurauchi's comment was made at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in response to a statement in English. The judge's conclusion that it was not libelous relied partly on the fact that the interpreter at the event had mistranslated the word netsuzō as “incorrect” rather than “fabricated.” The full text of the verdict can be found in pdf form through the website of Yoshimi's support group here.

⁶ This was a civil case. Criminal charges were also brought against Park. The criminal case is ongoing at the time of writing.