Ikuhiko Hata - Political and Academic Activities

Political and Academic Activities

He often writes for conservative-leaning publications but distinguishes himself from other political pundits by having substantial academic publications under his name. Some of his controversial claims include a lower death toll for the Nanking massacre (at max 40,000 civilians, based on his argument that the execution of plain clothes guerrilla soldiers is legal under international law and that both Chinese and Japanese violated Geneva convention making the applicability of the convention moot), and the claim that there was no organized effort by the Japanese military to forcibly recruit comfort women and that any abduction which took place was done either by renegade front line commanders (especially in South East Asia) who violated military directive or by civilian recruiters that were not part of Japanese military or government. He first came to public prominence when he outed Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have abducted Korean women as Japanese officer, as having forged his claims. He was one of the leading participants in the historical debate over Japanese war time atrocities, which took place mainly during 1980s and 1990s in Japan.

While admitting that some individual incidents of atrocities did indeed occur, Hata claims that there was no organized forced recruitment of comfort women by Japanese government or military, and one of his long term goals is to revise or completely retract the Kono statement.

“There were at most 20,000 comfort women. None of them were forcibly recruited (by Japanese military). Forty percent of them were from Japan, the most heavily represented nation. Many were sold to brokers by their parents. Some responded willingly to brokers’ offers; others were deceived.” I would add that, on the average, living conditions in the comfort stations were practically identical to those in brothels set up for American troops during the Vietnam War".