KOREA FOCUS

Japan should have jettisoned its emperor system and established a republican democracy when it lost the war. However, the United States applied ambiguous terms in the surrender process and colluded with the Japanese ruling forces. The occupying power thus allowed Japan to maintain its monarchial system for its convenience in governing Japan as a bridgehead for its Cold War strategy in the Far East. It suppressed by force Korean residents and the Japanese Communist Party, who opposed the system most strongly, and revived the prewar elite forces including Nobusuke Kishi. Such a “reverse course” taken by postwar Japan exactly corresponded with a series of events that occurred in the southern half of the Korean peninsula under U.S. occupation, such as the annihilation of leftists, the civilian struggles in Daegu on October 1, 1946 and in Jeju Island on April 3, 1948, the bloody suppression of the uprising in Yeosu and Suncheon, and the taking of power by Rhee Syngman and pro-Japanese forces. A broad scope of cross-examination simultaneously delving into these crucial events in Japan and Korea is the biggest strength of this book. Perhaps it has an effect of triple vision expansion.

 

Korea`s biggest ideological challenge is building a unified country. This aborted task is closely linked to Japan`s original sin of colonial occupation leading to Korea`s territorial division and the U.S.-Japan alliance, which the postwar Japanese intellectuals thoroughly ignored. Shigeru Nanbara who led the “democratization” of postwar Japan and even Masao Maruyama who is known as “a leader and victor of postwar democracy” turned a blind eye to the problems of Korea and Koreans. Yoshimi Takeuchi, who was sympathetic to jainichi issues, talked only about Japan`s invasion of China and evaded the issues of Korea and Korean residents in Japan. Their self-centered “great power chauvinism” is apparent in taking issue with the so-called 15-year war from Japan`s invasion of Manchuria to its defeat but brushing aside its reckless assault upon Korea since the Sino-Japanese War. Yun points out that even Professor Haruki Wada whom he highly regards reveals his limitations by failing to criticize the emperor system straightforwardly.

 

From the Japanese intellectuals who simply define nation and nation state as “fallacy” and emphasize non-violence, tolerance, coexistence and reconciliation, Yun peeps at “an effort to free themselves from pressures of colonialism and nationalist issues” and also finds “the common illusion to shelve their responsibility as the wrongdoers.” Progressive intellectuals of the two countries once achieved a happy alliance during the democracy movement in Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. However, as reaffirmed afterwards through the history textbook controversies, comfort women issues, the rise of Korean “new rightists” and rapport by Japanese conservatives, “Japan basically has neither apologized nor compensated for its invasion and rule over Korea and the division of Korea, so the past history remains little liquidated.” Still worse, there seems to be little hope that this state of affairs will ever change in the future.

 

As for the argument by Park Yu-ha who has drawn applause from Japanese conservative intellectuals for her book “For Reconciliation,” Yun criticized it as “pseudo-rightist sentimentalism” showing no sympathy toward the national division of Korea and consequent sufferings. “Her logic is rough and shows a great deal of misunderstanding and distortion of historical facts,” he said.  

 

[ July 25, 2009 ]