Go to contents

U.S. Undersecretary Wendy Sherman’s controversial remarks face criticism

U.S. Undersecretary Wendy Sherman’s controversial remarks face criticism

Posted March. 09, 2015 07:26,   

한국어

“If anyone was after `cheap applause,` it was Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of the U.S. state department for political affairs, whose cheap Kumbaya sentiments would blame both victims and aggressors in equal measure.”

Ethan Epstein, the associate editor of the U.S. magazine Weekly Standard, posted a column titled "Wendy Sherman vs. South Korea" on the magazine’s online version on March 4, offering a head-on critique of the undersecretary.

Epstein, a renowned American journalist whose columns are published by various influential dailies and magazines including the Wall Street Journal, said, “President Park has hardly been `exploiting` nationalist sentiment for `cheap applause` – she has, quite rightly, refused to kowtow to a leader of a foreign country who appears to celebrate the former subjugation of her country.”

Sherman caused a controversy in Korea and China by claiming that Korea, China and Japan have mutual responsibility over the matter of history at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Feb. 27. However, Sherman’s remarks even face with criticism in the U.S.

In his column, Epstein made his point by saying, “Japan’s subjugation of Korea, which lasted from 1910 to 1945, was unremittingly brutal. (A trip to Seodaemun Prison in Seoul, while grim, is a must for visitors to Korea.) Among those who suffered the most were the so-called “comfort women,” the tens of thousands of young Korean women who were forced into sex slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. The issue still burns bright hot among even the youngest generation of Koreans.”

On the reason behind the controversy over Japan’s wartime atrocities, Epstein pointed out that many Japanese leaders, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have deliberately minimized the crimes of their forbearers. The editor continued to list such examples including Abe’s praying at the Yasukuni Shrine and his attempt to revise the Kono Statement, Japan’s 1993 apology for its massive sex slave operation.



kyle@donga.com