Condemn Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara all you want - yeah, he’s a racist (or at least it wants to appear as one), and quite possible a fascist, but he’s exciting and no one in East Asia provides more quality locker room material. Fresh from stirring up controversy for saying that Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka “deserved” a recent bomb threat because of the later’s soft attitudes toward North Korea, Ishihara just had to go out and say that Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910 was the choice of the Korean people (link via Oranckay). According to the Mainichi Shinbun:
“Korea was not invaded by force,” Ishihara reportedly told the meeting. “It (colonization) was instigated at their own will because they wanted the help of modernized Japanese people, who are of the same color, at a time when the Korean Peninsula was in confusion and people there needed to choose between Russia, China and Japan (for help).”
Ishihara admitted that Japan’s colonization was humiliating to Korean people and he didn’t intend to justify it.
But he added, “Their (Korean people) ancestors were responsible.”
But the odd thing is, no matter what The Human Quote Machine says - and at one point or the other, he’s managed to make derogatory statement about nearly everyone, with Chinese, Koreans, and foreigners in general coming in for particular abuse - his popularity never seems to take a hit. It’s like he’s the Japanese Teflon Man. Anyway, Ishihara’s comments, and his continued popularity among Japanese despite them, was the subject of the Chosun righteous fury today. Get a load of this:
It would be one thing if you could just write his comments off as those of a crazy #&^@ who has taken every opportunity to make statements glorifying Japan’s imperialist past and insult Korea and Japan’s other neighbors, a politician on the far-right who’ll do anything to agitate the masses for his own popularity.
At this point, however, we need to look the Japanese people straight in the face and ask if Ishihara’s thoughtless statements are to be taken as representative of their views. His popularity goes up with every little gaffe like this, and there’s no way for the Korean people to understand why in the world that is.
Ishihara’s extreme statements include, for example, that Koreans and other illegal aliens are turning Tokyo into a lawless place and could riot in times of unrest, that China’s more heinous crimes are the result of the DNA carried by Han Chinese and that China should be split into pieces. You would think this would bring his political life to an end, but he was re-elected in April for another four years as Tokyo’s governor, and with overwhelming support.
Add to this that he continues to rank as the top two politicians in opinion polls, meaning that he would already be prime minister if that position was elected through direct popular elections. He’s the Japanese Hitler, and what country other than Japan could have such a politician enjoy the highest levels of popularity?
One can imagine the boyz down at Da’ Chosun foaming at the mouth as they wrote that. Look, I’m not going to attempt to justify Ishihara’s comments, nor his attempts to apparently ethnically cleanse Tokyo, but apparently, the guy has done a pretty good job as governor of Tokyo, and much of his popularity may not necessarily be due to what he says as much as it is to the way he says it (or for that matter, the fact that unlike so many Japanese politicians, he has anything to say at all). Moreover, in an era when the Chinese Communist Party - bigger murderers than than Imperial Japan ever was - uses ultra-nationalism to justify its continued to grip on power, and Korean ultra-nationalism (in its North Korean “Army-First Policy” form) may soon lead to Korean nuclear weapons pointed at Japanese cities, it might even be argued that some of Ishihara’s popularity is the product of Japanese getting sick of these very same countries screaming like the Kwantung Army’s marching into Manchuria every time the Prime Minister visits the Yasukuni Shrine. Anyway, Ishihara’s a jerk, but there are times when I wish the Koreans and Chinese would spend a little less time working themselves into a rage over dumbass remarks be certain Japanese politicians, and a little more time ferreting out the ultra-nationalist xenophobes found in their own societies, because from where I’m standing, it’s those guys who are the real threat to peace in East Asia.
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Interestingly enough at the “history museum” attached to the Yasakuni Shrine the invasion of Korea by Japan is called a “liberation.” I unfortunately do not have a photo showing the map of the invasion described as a liberation because although photographs are permitted in the rest of the museum none are allowed in the areas that purport to teach history from the Meiji Restoration until the loss of World War II. They do report that, “With the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Korea achieved true independence, which Japan had long hoped for.”
Some other fun ‘facts’ that are written in the Shrine are: America started the war with Japan because an order had been issued to naval forces that said they could fire back at Japanese if fired upon, therefore with that “act of war” Pearl Harbor is an acceptable response. Another is that the Rape of Nanjing was because the Chinese Communist party ordered their members to fight to the death but once they were taken care of “residence could once again live their life in peace.” What do you think the Japanese response would be if an American president were to visit the Museum of the Atomic Bomb in Los Alamos every VJ-day and in the museum it said that dropping the bomb was for Japan’s own good? Or if the Japanese internment exhibit at the Smithsonian said that the internment was for Japanese Americans own safety? The most disturbing thing that I witnessed there though was a fellow American noting that the Chinese have really exagerated the Rape of Nanjing story for political gain. As a friend of my commented that is about as sensitive as saying that the Israeli government really has exaggerated the holocaust for political gain. Both of these are completely insensitive and ridiculous statements.
Finally, I too wish the xenophobes would be ferreted out and I spend alot of time here trying to convince Chinese people that Japanese people aren’t evil. It is a little hard though when high profile Japanese politicians continue to behave in their own idiotic xenophobic fashion.
Well, as you probably already know, the statement “With the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Korea achieved true independence, which Japan had long hoped for,” is technically true - Korea’s vassal relationship with China was officially terminated (Article 1 of that treaty reads, “China recognises definitively the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea, and, in consequence, the payment of tribute and the performance of ceremonies and formalities by Korea to China, in derogation of such independence and autonomy, shall wholly cease for the future.”), and Japan did, in fact, long hope for that, if for no other reason than separated from Chinese influence, the Japanese thought they would have a free hand in Korea (that free hand would have to wait until the Russians had been dealt with, however). Interesting to note is that Taiwanese nationalists generally cite the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki as the date when Chinese sovereignty over the island ceased, the Ching having agreed to cede it “in perpetuity” to Japan.
Look, I’m not saying the Japanese are blameless here - of course, they are not. What I AM saying is that they are hardly alone here in whitewashing and/or distorting their history, especially in East Asia. South Korea’s Independence Hall in Chonan is hardly the most culturally sensitive or historically accurate museum in the world, and Korean textbooks intentionally skirt issues of collaboration and the role of Koreans in both the War in the Pacific and Japan’s colonization of Manchuria. And China is the last country in the region that should be taking the Japanese to task for its expansionist history. Chinese histories of Tibet, for example, would be easily recognizable to those familiar with European historiography during the colonial era, and ironically enough, bears quite the resemblence to European histories of China written at the time of the unequal treaties. And to be blunt, when the Japanese PM visit the Yasakuni Shrine, it might be insensitive, but hardly threatening to regional peace and security. However, every time Beijing reminds the Taiwanese, the Mongolians, or Far Eastern Russians that they reside in “historically Chinese territories,” or the North Koreans decide to show the world “the power of the Korean race” by firing a multistage missile over Japan, that DOES represent a threat to regional peace and security. And that’s the point I was trying to make.
I know it doesn’t make your job any easier when Ishihara runs off his mouth, but ultimately, the nations of the region need to come to grips with their own histories without worrying about what politicians in traditional rivals are saying. And besides, with so much stupid shit being said from all corners, I find it difficult to single out Ishihara for abuse.
The most disturbing thing that I witnessed there though was a fellow American noting that the Chinese have really exagerated the Rape of Nanjing story for political gain.
Actually, the Chinese have exaggerated the Rape of Nanking story for political gain. Estimates are that Chinese civilian casualties were in the tens of thousands, not 800,000, which is the number cited by both Chinese Nationalists and Communists. The Holocaust is well-documented because of its systematic nature and meticulous German and other European records of Jewish citizens who never returned to their homes. The Chinese estimates were known, by Western sources, to have been blown out of proportion even during the war.
I can understand the blase Japanese attitude towards the rape of Nanking, especially vis-a-vis the Chinese - the Chinese also killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans during their invasion and subjugation of Tibet without suffering anywhere near the amount of criticism suffered by the Japanese. Note also that China has always been an empire built upon conquest and maintained by brute force - everything the Japanese did during the Sino-Japanese War has been carried out on a larger scale at some point in history by Chinese conquerors. In the mid-19th century, when China complains a few thousand of its troops were killed in battle by Western troops seeking to open the country to trade, China massacred about 100,000 Taiping rebels after they had surrendered. Take Chinese griping with a grain of salt - thousands of years of (expanding) Chinese empire have seen Chinese atrocities unimaginable to the Western mind.
The point here is that what Ishihara says is popular. He says what’s on the mind of the average Japanese person, but they won’t express those thoughts to foreigners. You could ask 100 Japanese on the streets of Tokyo if they ever voted for the guy and 99 will say no. However, someone’s putting him in office.
All over the world people distort history. In Paris, their war museum has ZERO mention of the Vichy goverment, the efficient rounding up of Jews by the gendarmes, or the fact that French troops killed 667 American soldiers landing in Morocco and Algiers, but has plenty of material devoted to le resistance. In Vietnam, the propaganda is thick at their war museums. In Vietiane, the French are evil imperialists and the Americans evil counterrevolutionaries. The War Memorial in Seoul depicts all Chinese troops as either wounded or dead and Koreans as untouched - every frigging one of them - in the old battles (check the big paintings). Anyway, it’s what makes it fun to visit these places - you learn more about the host country.
The Korean press and Korean politicians have a habit of yelling down anyone who questions the claims of the forced annexation of Korea or the brutality of Japanese occupation, but the Japanese are not the only ones questioning such claims.
In his book, “In Defense of the New Pro-Japanese,” Kim Wan-seob, a Korean born and raised in Korea and a former student of History and Political Economics at Seoul National University, makes claims almost identical to Isihara. According to Kim, a great many Koreans at the turn of the century believed that the only way Koreans could escape the political and economic backwardness of the Chosun Dynasty was to merge with Japan, a rising power at the time.
Kim says that Koreans believed so much in the hope that Japan offered that 170,000 Koreans volunteered to fight on the side of Japan against Russia during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. He also says that a pro-Japanese organization known as the Unity and Progress Society (”Iljinhoe”), which had as many as 1 million members at one time, advocated merging with Japan. Considering that at the time Korea had a male population of only about 5 million, half of which was probably under the age of twelve since Koreans only had an average life expectancy of 24 years, 1 million members was 40 percent of the adult male population. Then when you ask yourself how many of the remaining 60 percent were so busy just surviving from day to day to care one way or the other, 1 million members suddenly becomes a very large number.
The Korean government tried to ban Kim’s book in Korea, and when that failed, they had it labeled as “adult reading material,” which meant that it could not be sold to minors and had to be wrapped in plastic. I bought my plastic-wrapped copy in the Kyobo Book Store in Seoul in July, but when I went back to the store this October, I noticed that it was no longer wrapped in plastic. Maybe the Korean courts have ruled in Kim’s favor?
Gerry Bevers, just shut up. If you think such people are so accurate, then go join their ranks.
I have been studying Korean history for four years while in middle school, and I have no doubt that Korea was just as abused as it claimed. While the Japanese deny it, and several pro-Japanese Westerners support Japan, that is on of the greatest lies told by a nation defeated in World War II.
While the Japanese claim that the Koreans wanted the clonization of the peninsula, actually, they assassinated Empress Myeoung-Song of the Korean Empire, who was leading the opposition against the Japanese, in order to eliminate any kind of resistance. The Japanese also took control over the Korean emperor’s palace several times in order to force the emperor and his ministers to sign certain treaties needed to achieve the annexation of Korea. One of these was the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, which allowed Japan to take over the foreign relations department of Korea, and this was also the way Japan acquired Dokdo, which is historically Korean. By 1910, Japan forced the Korean emperor to abdicate and locked him up in the royal palace. From then to 1945, they often raided homes and took away property, took metal and metal items to make weapons for war, slaughtered independence troops in Manchuria and people who demonstrated for independence, locked all of the inhabitants of entire villages into churches and burned them, and put cultural reform programs into effect in all schools to degrade Korean history and eliminate the Korean spirit by changing Korean names into Japanese names, and by saying that Koreans were barbarians, that the Yamato court of Japan received tribute from Korean kingdoms, and that Japanese war heroes were gods, as well as threatening students by arming teachers.
Anyone claiming that these claims are bogus or exaggerated is either a retard or a Jap imperialist returning from a visit to Yasukuni Shrine. Gerry Bevers has also claimed, in another discussion, that Koreans supported the Japanese in the Pacific War. To Gerry Bevers about this comment, I would like to tell him to get some air holes drilled through his skull. Koreans had no choice but to pretend that they supported Japan, or they would live in much harsher conditions should they oppose or even stay quiet. Obviously, Gerry Bever doesn’t know the situation during the Japanese colonial period. He would surely change his opinion if he went back to Korea in 1941, and lived his life as a Korean citizen. When he comes back, he should be able to give an unbiased comment about Japan and Korea, should he survive, which I hope not.