Month: May 2025

Reviewed by Miyamoto Fujiko, Guest Fellow, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories

During the Moon Jae-in administration amid storming anti-Japan sentiment and the crisis looming that the Federal Democratic Republic of Korea may arise, the South Korean people kept holding large-scale rallies at Gwanghwamun in Seoul every weekend to oust the Moon Jae-in administration during his term of office. Intellectuals held lectures across the country to wipe out the anti-Japan frame of mind that penetrated deeply the minds of the South Koreans. At universities, the Truth Forum was held to recognize the true historical facts. And to overcome the crisis of the Japan-South Korea relationships, in 2019, the book Anti-Japan Tribalism was published (2019, Miraesa) in South Korea. It revealed the root of the Japan-South Korea crisis and became a best seller with roughly 100,000 copies sold. Six scholars stood up for the publication. It was an epoch-making book, closely analyzing how astoundingly untrue the South Korean anti-Japan thinking was, based on historical facts from the respective perspectives of the scholars’ expertise. The book became a sensation in South Korea. Did the book change the South Korean people’s anti-Japan sentiment? In school education, textbooks still teach that Japan is a villain and anti-Japan education is going on, the same as ever. Nothing has changed. I myself feel that South Korean people’s deep-routed anti-Japan thinking is not easy to change at all. This is my impression after I have lived with my South Korean husband in the South Korean society for more than thirty years.

I always felt it puzzling why it is that while Japan ruled Taiwan longer than it did Korea and invested far larger amounts of money in Korea than in Taiwan, Taiwan is Japan-friendly, and Korea is anti-Japan. What made it so? Ms. Oh Sonfa’s book Why Anti-Japan South Korea Has No Future gave a perfect answer to my question. The analysis, composed of six chapters, is profound, precise and perfect. The view held by most Japanese intellectuals is that “Korean people who lived through the period of Japan’s Annexation of Korea are Japan-friendly, but from the postwar Syngman Rhee administration up to the present, through the anti-Japan policy and education implemented by consecutive Presidents, South Korea became an anti-Japan state.” However, Ms. Oh Sonfa pointed out, “South Korean anti-Japan principle is not a mere political policy. Importantly, South Korea started as a state, upholding anti-Japan principle as its just cause. The preamble to the South Korean Constitution itself is false and therefore, it distorted historical facts and chose to thoroughly teach and propagandize the distorted history to the people.”

This book was published in 2013, six years prior to Anti-Japan Tribalism. Anti-Japan Tribalism explains how the distorted contexts and facts differ in terms of the six typical anti-Japan themes. Ms. Oh Sonfa’s analysis of anti-Japan sentiment is done, by deeper exploration of the South Korean DNA, close tribal ties and the roots of the Korean way of thinking. What I have felt for many years while living in the Korean society was clearly explained in printed form. “This is it!” I fully sympathized with the book and felt truly great. I was profoundly amazed at Ms. Oh Sonfa’s analyzing power. It is superbly described in Chapter IV “Why anti-Japan sentiment cannot be wiped out.” “The bitter feeling toward the period of Japan’s rule is not the basis of anti-Japan but the fact that the despicable tribe (Japan) ruled the Koreans is unforgivable, which brews anti-Japan tribalism.”(p.137) Thus, Chapter IV unravels in an excellent way South Koreans’ deep psychology, something that no other scholar has done before.

There is a sentence on page 142: “The Japanese tribe with natural savagery and aggressive traits humiliated the integrity of our sacred tribal blood.” Anti-Japan is a sentiment born out of anger which is almost a physiological response. I understand that this sentiment is used as a motive, in many newly made dramas, movies and musicals, and the people believe that they are true. This negative spiral aggravated South Koreans’ anti-Japan sentiment. Even if a decent scholar appears with the appeal, “That historical view is false and fabricated, and the truth is this!” The deep-rooted sense of value permeated to the bone will not change immediately. This is the reality.

However, even in South Korea as it is, it’s been five years since National Action to Abolish the Comfort Women Act led by Mr. Kim Byungheon started working to remove comfort woman statues and delete descriptions related to comfort women from the South Korean history textbooks. Things improved significantly compared to the early time of the movement and sea change was accomplished and the movement of the Korean Council for Justice was reduced in scale. Although President Yoon Suk-yeol was to face the peril of impeachment at the time when this book review was written, it is a great change in South Korea in recent years that President Yoon did not implement anti-Japan policy at the start of his administration. As mentioned earlier, all the consecutive Presidents carried out anti-Japan policy, but President Yoon did not do so for the national interest.

I am appalled by the totally outrageous anti-Japan policies of the consecutive Korean Presidents , who used every possible means to act against Japan. Ms. Oh Sonfa points out that the South Korean anti-Japan sentiment is much more extreme than the Chinese people’s.

I presume the author Oh wrote this book, worrying about the serious Korean situation in 2013. The details of her concerns are discussed in Chapter VI, covering many fields. However, I cannot help thinking that it is rather Japan that is plagued with violent crimes and serious social problems.

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, while the root of anti-Japan sentiments is deep and grave, on the other hand, if you go to bookstores in South Korea, there are many Japanese novels and manga translated into the Korean language, on TV, Japanese animations are broadcast almost endlessly and Japanese restaurants are everywhere. Through the recent expansion of the Internet, everyone can easily enjoy Japanese culture, songs and dramas and Japanese actors and talents are getting popular in South Korea. Among young people, there are many Japanese-friendly Youtubers and they attract many viewers. Even if the truth about the period of Japan’s Annexation of Korea is not taught at school, they can learn it on the Internet.

Especially at present, some say that J-POP has become more popular than K-POP. Acting in a Japan-friendly way used to be thought as evil, but this concept will gradually change through the Internet in a natural manner. Ms. Oh Sonfa was taught anti-Japan education and was anti-Japan just like other South Koreans. After she came to Japan, she had doubts about the Korean historical interpretations and devoured one book after another on Japan and South Korea histories and was gradually freed from the anti-Japan magic spell.

Ms. Oh Sonfa points out in this book that in the modern South Korean society “South Koreans do not try to view past Japan’s rule in the objective international circumstance and there are no books covering this topic.”. What will happen if this book Why Anti-Japan South Korea Has No Future is translated and published in South Korea? This book provides the most excellent analysis of South Korea and I personally wish that the book is published in South Korea some day soon. If that happens, South Korea will have future. And on the part of Japan, the self-deprecating view of history will be immediately abandoned.

Among many expressions that I truly sympathize with and feel appropriate in this book, I would like to introduce the following paragraph:

The Confucianist idea that the morally superior must always teach, educate and inspire the morally inferior forms the degrading-Japan view, which lies at the base of the Korean sense of tribal superiority tribe over Japan. Moreover, in South Korea, there is a concept of the superior tribe born out of the lesser Chinese principle that South Korea is the very authentic successor of the Sino-centrist idea. Therefore, the sense of tribal superiority over Japan is made all the more consolidated.

Such a sense seems to apply to those aged fifties and older. Young people seem to be less influenced by this sense. In either case, there is an urgent task to revise the biased South Korean history textbooks as soon as possible.    

Revieed Book: Historical Sources Unravel the Issue of “Mobilized Korean Workers,” published by Soshi-sha, 2024
Author: Nagatani Ryosuke
Reviewer: Tomoko Hifumi, Senior Reseacher, International Research Institute of Historical Controversies

This book is an epoch-making academic book, dealing with the disputed issue of Korean “mobilized workers.” Based on closely examined primary historical sources, it completely refutes the alleged “forced mobilization and forced labor” theory that during the war, Korean people were compulsorily mobilized from the Korean Peninsula and forced to work at Japanese coal and other mines.

Its author, Mr. Nagatani Ryosuke, is a researcher at the Historical Awareness Research Committee and a visiting researcher at the Reitaku University Study Center of International Issues. Mr. Nagatani was born in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1986 and graduated from the Department of Culture and History of Kumamoto University. He completed the doctoral course of Japan Study Institute at the graduate school of Hosei University and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. After graduating from the graduate school of Hosei University, he joined the Historical Awareness Research Committee (President: Nishioka Tsutomu) and is actively engaged in studying mainly the issue of wartime Korean workers. He co-authored The True Nature of Wartime Korean Workers (published by the General Incorporated Foundation National Congress of Industrial Heritage).

The theory of “forced mobilization” and “forced labor” was ignited by the publication of a book titled The Record of Forced Mobilization of Koreans written by a person named Park Kyon-sik in 1965. At present, the historical examination on Park Kyon-sik’s arguments has proved to be largely problematic. Nevertheless, the theory of forced mobilization and forced labor has never been abandoned, but is still smoldering, often being used politically and is about to simmer at any moment. This has not remained an academic issue limited to the historical circles. In fact, in 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court ordered Shin-Nittetsu Sumi Kin (a Japanese steel company) to compensate former South Korean workers for the alleged forced labor during the war. After the Supreme Court decision, the number of lawsuits demanding compensation from Japanese companies increased and in all the lawsuits, the plaintiffs have won. It goes without saying that all of these court rulings are against the Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Properties and Claims and on Economic Co-operation between Japan and the Republic of Korea, concluded in 1965. Thus, historical issues tend to be used politically.

This book is composed of two parts.

The first part contains the refutation of the narrative of “forced mobilization” and “forced labor” of wartime Korean workers. Chapter One refutes the concept of “forced mobilization,” through the detailed explanation of the recruiting process based on historical sources and proves that most of the workers came to Japan voluntarily. Chapter Two refutes “forced labor.” Here, historical sources are concretely analyzed in terms of wages, meals and working hours.

The second part vividly describes how Korean workers worked and lived, based on the primary historical sources. Chapter Three shows the life and work of Korean workers based on “Tokko Geppo” (Special Higher Police Monthly Report), which was compiled by the Security Section of Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior. The entire picture of labor conflicts by Korean workers is shown. Chapter Four deals with Nisso Teshio Coal Mine in Hokkaido, Chapter Five describes Sado Gold Mine and Chapter Six takes up Mitsui Miike Coal Mines. Through these studies, it is verified that the idea of “forced labor” is not factual and historical facts are revealed from objective viewpoints.

This book clearly portrays this author’s scholarly attitudes totally focusing on the principles as a history scholar. He has been steadily unearthing primary sources and strictly analyzing and examining them—theories and views induced through such steady and reliable work prove to be certainly objective and irrefutable.

Those who support “forced mobilization” and “forced labor” theories mainly depend on statements made by South Koreans as grounds for their conviction. Their testimonies alone are made much of and they are celebrated as “surviving witnesses.” Once objection or doubt is cast on their statements, they get so emotional and upset that they fiercely fight back, totally out of control, saying that their honor is damaged. Such tendency became more significant after the comfort women issue came up. Moreover, although the testimonies are primary sources, they are arbitrarily used or based on arbitrary interpretations. Among primary sources, they pick up only convenient ones that support their view and do not refer to what is inconvenient. They go even further, adding distorted interpretations in favor of their own view.

This author bravely challenges these ill trends in the history study society and strongly warns readers of the wrong and dangerous trend that influences history studies. Those who study history should not have prejudice or preoccupation. I would like to have those “forced mobilization” advocates pick up this book and sincerely look through all the primary sources and then try to refute it in an academic manner. Such an attitude will surely contribute to the sound development of learning. At the same time, this book will provide a good opportunity to start solving the deep-rooted and never-ending (because the South Korean side repeatedly brings back what has been once resolved to the table) historical issue.

In addition, to promote the true friendship between Japan and South Korea, I ardently hope that South Koreans soaked in anti-Japan thinking will read this book as a wake-up call. In a sense, South Koreans dyed with anti-Japan thinking can be called victims of the South Korean Government. On the other hand, I want Japanese people who have been made the perpetrators of “forced mobilization and forced labor” to read this book, by all means. Even if they don’t read through pages, just take up this book in hand and read the table of contents and feel the dubious claim of the “forced mobilization and forced labor.” Not to refute at the right time means a defeat in historical issue warfare and leaves far bigger regrets than armed forces and military wars. Knowing the truth is the stronger foundation of national strength, more important than the possession of armed or military forces.