ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY MUST READS!!!
First on our list of must reads is Plunge’s savaging of Mitsubishi–and the Japanese government–for its denial of its colonial past. Plunge’s critique is based on this piece over at History News Network.
Meanwhile, Matt of Gusts of Popular Feeling has contributed an well-written, well-linked refutation of some apologists’ arguments in defense of Japan’s colonization of Korea. Actually, it’s from March 13, but unfortunately, I missed it when it first came out.
64 Comments
I expect Chewie to get seriously bunchy that you put this up here.
well, sure the way the Koreans portray and hate Japan is ugly, but it’s 100% justified, because Japan pretty much deserve it. There are some foreign people living in Japan or South Korea like Mr. Bevers, who are happy to villify Korea and uphold Japan. Perhaps they have found the Japanese they know to be better people than these Koreans who dishonor contracts, show up late, seem to be ultra nationalistic, etc. However, Mr. Bever’s relatives didn’t have their boys march off to war and shoot guns at US, Chinese, or their own people, and their girls march off and have sex with Japanese soldiers, who treated them like beasts with human sexual organs. Even if the Japanese public in general has no interest or knowledge of what happenned in Korea, the Japanese deserve all the hate. That’s because the Japanese government failed to educate their people that their government did something that still angers the rest of East and Southeast Asia. Koreans can talk crap about Japan all they want. Let them be. They have to vent. In addition, did it slip anyone’s mind that many South Koreans feel that the country is divided because of foreign interests in the region? Such as, Japan, US, Russia, and China?
I was talking to a guy from Hong Kong, and he was saying something like,
“Wow, really? North Korea has 1 million active troops in that small country, and nukes? We [China] give them tons of free food and fuel. They better not use a nuke, because that would pollute China, too. I mean, hey, we saved their butts in the Korean War, we can also kick their butts.”
Now, I hate Kim Jong Il passionately, but at that moment I hated the Chinese guy more than Kim Jong Il. Korea would have been way, way, way better off if these damn Chinese people didn’t cross the Yalu river.
And blowing a nuke in Seoul would pollute China? Please. When I was in South Korea in the 1980’s, the Yellow Wind, Hwang Sa, didn’t exist yet, because China was underindustrialized. Now, that crap wind blows pretty regularly, polluting Korea. Irresponsible industrialization on China’s part.
Free food and fuel my ass. Kim Jong Il probably pays for whatever he gets. Even if it’s profits from selling heroine. China even blocked a Kim Jong Il move to make an economic hub, by arresting the Chinese citizen who was responsible for the economic move. China can eat crap.
I asked him what he thought of Hu Jin Tao. He said, “Oh, he’s a nice guy.”
He’s probably oblivious of human rights violations in China.
Even though I hate Kim Jong Il, I don’t like these foreign powers who don’t have the best interests of the Korean people in mind, screwing things up for Korea here and there. They can all eat crap. No one wanted Mao’s Army to save North Korea’s butt. No one. Maybe the Kim family. But no one else.
Did it slip anyone’s mind that the U.S. and its allies fought a war against Japan, during which they lost soldiers and civilians to torture and rape and bestial maltreatment, so that those nations too have a right to their own opinions about Japan?
Koreans understandably have good reasons to feel like victims, unlike many countless numbers of fellow Canadians who wallow in victimology (one thing I was glad to get away from in coming to Korea). But wallowing in victimhood status seems to me to be a waste of time and energy. What good does it do Korea for Roh and others to rile people up against the US or Japan? Not a damn bit of good whatsoever.
Better to channel that energy into something positive, such as making deals all over the place to get rich. Heck, beat the Japanese, Chinese and Americans at their own game by doing things better than they do (I’m thinking economically), and live the good life while ignoring victimhood status. Same for over the top nationalism. What a waste of time and energy (especially when it comes to a stupid baseball game). What’s most important? Me and my family. The rest of the world can go ahead and sink or swim on its victim status.
Snow–You’re right on target. To put it more succinctly: Success is the best revenge. Stop whingeing and start doing.
Yeah yeah, Choson Korea at the time was great, its government was not dysfunctional, Koreans did not make ALL the wrong policy decisions, both foreign and domestic, and far from Korea proving time and time again that it was incapable of reform, Korea was extremely dynamic with all people wearing colorful hanboks, not the lie of the drab white hanbok spread by the 쪽빨이.
Korea was like a prize boxer in the peak of his career. Why he threw the match before the bell rang is a total mystery to us all!
JYCE wrote:
well, sure the way the Koreans portray and hate Japan is ugly, but it’s 100% justified, because Japan pretty much deserve it.
100% justified? No. Maybe eighty or ninety something (95?) of the portrayal, but not 100%. And much less when it comes to the “hate.”
Dogbert wrote:
Did it slip anyone’s mind that the U.S. and its allies fought a war against Japan, during which they lost soldiers and civilians to torture and rape and bestial maltreatment, so that those nations too have a right to their own opinions about Japan?
Well, here’s one American’s opinion about how Japan deals with the past.
snow wrote:
Koreans understandably have good reasons to feel like victims, unlike many countless numbers of fellow Canadians who wallow in victimology (one thing I was glad to get away from in coming to Korea). But wallowing in victimhood status seems to me to be a waste of time and energy.
There are too many wallowers, but for quite a while Korea’s “victimhood” was used as a justification for trying to catch up with Japan. No, scratch that: Korea turned a victim mentality into an underdog mentality. Of course, lots of people bitch that so many Koreans are so one-track-minded toward that rivalry, but hey, you can’t please everyone.
And do Canadians really have that much of a victim mentality? I know they don’t like being called the 56th state, but I thought that was more of a chip on the shoulder.
What good does it do Korea for Roh and others to rile people up against the US or Japan? Not a damn bit of good whatsoever.
You mean Mr. Roh with the approval ratings in the teens or twenties? That Mr. Roh?
Better to channel that energy into something positive, such as making deals all over the place to get rich. Heck, beat the Japanese, Chinese and Americans at their own game by doing things better than they do (I’m thinking economically), and live the good life while ignoring victimhood status.
That’s what the FTAs are for.
Same for over the top nationalism. What a waste of time and energy (especially when it comes to a stupid baseball game).
Sometimes I think the English-speaking Korea blogosphere spends more time on Korean nationalism than the average Korean does. Quick: how many finger-choppers do we actually have in Korea?
Wedge wrote:
Snow–You’re right on target. To put it more succinctly: Success is the best revenge. Stop whingeing and start doing.
I think that’s what most Koreans are actually working on.
shakuhachi wrote:
Yeah yeah, Choson Korea at the time was great,
This is supposed to be the converse of the “Japanese colonial rule was beneficial to Korea” argument?
its government was not dysfunctional, Koreans did not make ALL the wrong policy decisions, both foreign and domestic, and far from Korea proving time and time again that it was incapable of reform, Korea was extremely dynamic with all people wearing colorful hanboks, not the lie of the drab white hanbok spread by the 쪽빨이.
Korea was like a prize boxer in the peak of his career. Why he threw the match before the bell rang is a total mystery to us all!
It’s really hard to argue any of these points with you, Shakuhachi, when you give credit to the Japanese colonial administration for things done by other people. The post that the Marmot linked does a good job of laying that out. In another post on another blog, Curzon asked me if you’re dishonest. I’m guessing you’re not deliberately trying to mislead, but you clearly have drunk the Kool-Aid, and you liked the taste so much you’ve opened up a franchise.
Okay, that’s my one-post quota for this post. Good day, gentleman and ladies.
shakuhachi, is that all you can do?
I suppose yes.
Wedge, yes Korean whining is annoying.
But at the same time, if there are people with an agenda deliberatly distoring history with biased information, ommitted information, and are devoted to spreading their agenda, and lot of people are buying it, then it’s time to counter punch.
And dobertt, yeah the allies fought against Japan. That’s why we shouldn’t forget the many POW’s who were terribly mistreated, starved, and tortured. It’s kinda pathetic to read someone spreading that Japan was some kind of a shining light of hope and freedom in Asia, when we know what type of people these Japanese were, back then.
I haphazardly found the original site on the japanese internet site.
It was clear that it was made by someone with a very “kyoku-u(ultra nationalist)” Ideology.
No need to pay serious attention. That site is (was) disgusting.
A recent global poll shows Japan is the country most widely
viewed as having a positive influence in the world.
http://www.globescan.com/news_.....l06-3.html
The reason is obvious. After WWⅡ, Japan turned its back on war as an instrument of national policy. Although not yet a “normal” country in the sense that it cannot project its military might beyond its borders, it has lived up to its national goal of being a force for good in the world. What is Korea doing to win respect from other countries? The blind nationalism of Korean people exposed to the world are diminishing the country’s reputation even further.
Hey that is the best post yet. No one can actually refute it yet. They are going for the diversion tactics. Nice.
genie201, United States is the second least positively views in the world, after Iran. Are you telling me that the United States have been a very negative influence in the world today? You know what that poll tells me? It’s just a popularity contest, nothing more, nothing less. People have bought lot of Sony’s and Toyota’s. Of course people who know nothing about the geopolitical situation in Asia and are not effected by it anyway, is going to think Japan is cool.
Kushibo Wrote “Quick: how many finger-choppers do we actually have in Korea?”
Gerry Writes: Twenty-two
Kushibo — it strikes me that YOU are the one who brings up finger chopping more than anyone else. And though I understand why you do it, you miss or discount the emblematic nature of that colorful act and you are wrong that it was only that mother/son chopping episode of last year. Google back to around Aug 2001 and you’ll find that about a dozen or so Korean right-wingers gathered at Independence Gate to do the chop in protest over textbooks or Yasukuni or some grievance. (I saw that myself, but don’t recall the fine details.)
On your broader point, I can’t understand how one can view the Korean media or national reaction to most international events, issues or incidents involving Korea and discount nationalism as the main driving force in Korea.
>>>Sometimes I think the English-speaking Korea blogosphere spends more time on Korean nationalism than the average Korean does. Quick: how many finger-choppers do we actually have in Korea?
In my post above, I did not mention the other 135 Koreans who chopped off their little finger in 1974 because their protest then was not against Japan’s so-called distortion of history or Dokdo.
In all sincerity, Gerry and Slim, thanks for bringing that up and getting me to look it up (here’s a picture of the act that I just found). I was away in California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada on a road trip at that time, and when I returned, someone had explained what had happened but from the conversation I had gathered that the people involved had cut their finger (to draw blood), not actually cut something off. With 9/11 happening shortly thereafter, it just never really came up again. So I learned something today, thanks.
it strikes me that YOU are the one who brings up finger chopping more than anyone else
Slim, I don’t think that’s a fair description at all, especially when a certain website has “finger chopping wacky” as a main category that includes about half (?) of what he writes.
At any rate, the finger choppers are, as I wrote here, are mentally disturbed people. Just as the Japanese man who chopped off his hand over Japan’s North Korea policy, the guy who killed himself to protest Bush’s win in 2004, or back in the early 1990s, the Korean activists who were burning themselves to death in protest, not against Japan but against their own government. It’s
On your broader point, I can’t understand how one can view the Korean media or national reaction to most international events, issues or incidents involving Korea and discount nationalism as the main driving force in Korea.
I am not discounting nationalism as a main driving force in Korea. But I don’t think Korea is particularly unique in this regard, and as far as the media is concerned, from my experience it is often more a reflection not of what the people think, but of what the people in media want the people to think.
>Of course people who know nothing about the geopolitical situation in Asia and are not effected by it anyway, is going to think Japan is cool.
Actually that poll shows some of the most positive countries are in Japan’s region of the world. Indonesians and Filipinos have the most overwhelmingly positive view of Japan.
Korea’s hate of Japan from elementry school to the working world is not severely halting progress in anyway. In fact, the reminder and the hate is absolutely necessary. History tends to remodel itself, you ever notice that? Without a Korean voice, people around the world will think that Nori is of Japanese origin (the fact that it is called Nori world wide makes Koreans pretty angry, by the way), that Dokdo is a Japanese island (why a rich country like Japan insists on having an island with rich sea life resources is pretty petty when there is a lack of history to back it up), Japan did more good during its occupation of Korea than bad, etc. Some to name a few that I can think of after eating lunch.
Why are people of all backgrounds in the US required to learn about the Holocaust, and watch unedited versions (there was no need to watch a Nazi officer having sex on national tv, to understand the story) of Schindler’s List? I mean, it was the white European Christians who did that to the European Jewish people for centuries. No one would call that whining, and unproductive, right? Then, don’t criticize the Koreans villifying Japan. Koreans are pretty productive, even with their whining. There are examples of nations that have been way more unproductive with similar outcrys.
Why do Americans value their independence from the British, as if it was the most honorable historical event in American history? I mean, the main reason was Taxation without Representation, right? You think Koreans had taxation with representation under Japan? I think Korean life under Japan was incomparably worser than American life under the British. It’s grossly insensitive to even suggest that Japan did more good to Korean than harm. Those people are either Japanese or misguided foreigners, who are looking at Japan in the present only. Blind Bevers.
It’s not as if Korea just kept talking about the past and did little to make itself better. In fact, South Korea (surely not North Korea), has made great productive gains even with all the “whining”.
and, by the way, personally I think that Europe would have done evil to the Jews even if they had no religion, based on what Europe has done to other people around the world in Africa, the Middle East, India, the Americas, and Asia.
And, if it weren’t for Koreans advocating for Korean history, China and Japan would have made Koreans look like a weak people with a smaller land than present. They would have claimed the good parts of Korean as their own, and claimed that the Koreans got it from them. Ultimately, Koreans are responsible for setting the Korean records straight. Otherwise, no one cares, and there will be jackasses out there who will claim that Japan did Korea a great favor by colonizing it.
Wjk,
Japan has much more historical claim to Dokdo than Korea does, and Japan’s history textbooks are much more objective than Korea’s. Korea’s textbooks do not give Japan any credit for changing a backward Chosun Korea into a modern Korea. Even today, Koreans still have a hard time giving Japan any credit. For example, they cannot even give Japan credit for winning the World Baseball Classic (WBC).
Japan is not the only country that Koreans fail to give any credit to. Koreans, in general, seem to have a hard time giving any credit to the United States. Korea’s history textbooks give hardly any credit to the US for giving Korea its independence, saving Korea from communist domination, and for helping Korea develop into an economic powerhouse. For some reason, Koreans seem to be very susceptible to an illness known as “selective amnesia,” when it comes to giving credit to Japan and the USA.
kushibo,
You imply that finger-chopping is a topic of wide discussion around the blogosphere, yet you bring up just one instance of a website with a category named “finger chopping wacky”. Sounds like a)you are doing what you accuse others of doing and b)you have an obsession with that one blog.
I agree that anyone who chops off their finger in protest is mentally disturbed. What is disturbing is the large number of Koreans that I’ve talked with who admire the finger choppers as heroes.
There are no ‘white devils’ on the Nation of Islam mothership orbiting the earth. Why dont you join them there?
GBevers, when I was going to school in South Korea, our school textbooks gave a lot of credit to the US for giving South Korea independence, General MacArthur was a Wie In or “great person to look up to” in many texts and books, autobiographies of MacArthur abounded, US was recognized as our good ally, our economic and military friend, etc. Back then, it was Jun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo who were Presidents. See? History tends to remodel itself, sometimes changing things completely. For example, now they say what happenned at Alamo ain’t the way it was. Don’t try to say that Japan’s texts are better than Korea’s or that Dokdo is Japan’s, Mr. Bevers. Not when most of the Japanese civilians are oblivious of what wrongs Japan did to Korea during the occupation.
I’m sorry, Shakuhachi, but I’m not Muslim. I do acknowledge that every race tends to regard its own race as the superior race (and this is clearly wrong), but Europeans have done the world a lot of wrong, giving religion an undeserved bad name. It’s just interesting that a lot of Europeans have lost their religious interests after having misused religion for their own political/economical/military ambitions. Europeans gave religion a bad name. Accept it. Because it’s true. It doesn’t mean religion is bad inherently.
I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to meet some white people who feel comfortable about speaking bad things about black people in the presence of yellow people like me. These were non religious, white people in the US.
Wjk,
I am not sure what Korea’s history textbooks were like twenty years ago, but the textbooks today do not give the US much credit at all. They are basically propaganda texts trying to convince Korean children that Koreans freed themselves and that Japan is evil.
As for Dokdo, Koreans seem to have blinders on because the evidence overwhelming supports Japan’s claims. Korea’s claim on Dokdo is all smoke and mirrors, which is why Korea refuses to take the dispute to the World Court. Instead, Korea claims there is no dispute, which is very strange since they are always criticizing Japan for disputing their claim on the islets. If there is no dispute, as Korea claims, why did President Roh declare diplomatic war on Japan for claiming Dokdo? Korea’s stance on the issue defies reason.
I believe that someday Koreans will eventually mature to the point where they will be able to accept the truth and look at their history more objectively, but they still have a long way to go.
Yeosu.be.there wrote:
You imply that finger-chopping is a topic of wide discussion around the blogosphere, yet you bring up just one instance of a website with a category named “finger chopping wacky”. Sounds like a)you are doing what you accuse others of doing and b)you have an obsession with that one blog.
Yeosu, that was just the most prominent one, since he has a an entire prominent category named for this meme, so it was easy to come up with that one off the top of my head late at night (really, if I were obsessed with that website, you’d know it).
Mutant Frog seems to think that Curzon addresses the finger-chopping notion from time to time. In his post about the Japanese man who chopped off his hand, MF wrote this:
So, no, chopped fingers is not something I just pulled out of my ass.
No more commenting for me on this post anymore; I’m way over-quota right now.
Cf. “Chewbacca Defense“.
Though to be fair, I don’t think this stems from a conscious rhetorical strategy so much as from generalized derangement.
Told you he’d get all bunchy.
The usual suspects with the usual drivel. Is there anywhere on the planet a place where people look back at a period of colonization and feel gratitude for having been colonized? Japan was a parasite on Korea at that time, and was aping the Europeans in expanding its territory. There’s nothing inherently altruistic about it, nor are Koreans out of line for regarding it as a dark period in their history.
Japan was forced to modernize by the Europeans and made a democracy by the Americans–where’s the love for that from the Japanese?
European nations have not made much effort for restitution of the people they colonized, so I wouldn’t hold Japan to any higher standard…on the other hand, I would never impute qualities to its history that don’t exist.
michael, I concur. But I don’t agree with the notion that “European nations have not made much effort for restitution of the people they colonized”.
For instance, Michael, from Plunge’s site:
And now compare that to what Japan has done (or not done, other then empty apologies) eloquently mentioned in Plunge’s site.
CM, all due respect, but the nazis weren’t colonizers so much as invaders. I was thinking more along the lines of England’s colonization of India or Belgium’s “adventures” in Africa, which were particularly brutal. (I’m not arguing that nothing was done, just that not much has been done to make restitution.)
Again, Michael, read Plunge’s site. Japanese did some of the same things as Germans did: forced labor, unpaid wages, horrendous deathly working conditions, unimaginable abuses that wiped out 20% of its workers at Mitsubishi.
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, I’m talking about long-term colonization, though, and people arguing how it benefitted the colonized.
Exactly. My point is not that the Japanese are good and do not need to atone, apologize, etc. I merely disagree with the oft-heard belief that only Korea and China suffered at the hands of Japan ergo others are not entitled to opinions in regard to Japan’s post-war conduct.
I suspect that at the heart of this attitude is a resentment that it was the U.S. and its allies that were overwhelmingly responsible for the defeat of Japan and not the colonized.
Michael, I hope you’re not forgetting the particularly brutal annexation of much of (what became) the United States after you kicked the British out. Yes, the US government has in recent times awarded compensation to native Americans, but by that time there were hardly any left anyway (”All other races” - i.e. excluding whites, blacks, hispanics and Asians - constituted just 2.5 percent of the U.S. population in the 2000 census). Britain and, especially, Belgium did many terrible things, but at least the Indians and Congolese still have their own countries.
I am generally pro-US, but I think America is no less guilty of putting a positive spin on its history than anywhere else.
Faced with stock accusations of America behaving like an empire (which I don’t think it does), George Bush said something like “We are the only country that could have been a colonial power but chose not to be” (if memory serves. Sorry, can’t find a link). What, then, was the Philipines?
Mum, you’re always right
But I wanted to keep the focus on the parallels in colonization…everybody was a rat bastard back in the day, I just find it bizarre that some here think colonization was some sort of beneficial act.
Michael Wrote:
I do not think the Japanese were trying to ape European colonizers; I think they were trying to imitate America’s colonization of the Philippines. The Japanese did not want China or Russia to control Korea, so if Chosun Korea had not been so pathetically backward and weak that it could not resist Chinese and Russian influence, then Japan would probably never have annexed Korea.
Another difference from European coloniers and the Japanese is that a large number of Koreans wanted Japan to annex Korea, fearing that it would be better to be annexed by Japan than Russia. They also believed that it would take forever for Korea to modernize under the Chosun government. More than 170,000 Koreans even fought on Japan’s side against Russia in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War.
Michael Wrote:
I do not know if the Japanese appreciate what the American occupation government did to help develop modern Japan, but, at least, the Japanese government is not trying to teach Japanese children to hate the United States as the Korean government is trying to teach Korean children to hate Japan.
Michael Wrote:
But, Michael, Japan did pay restitution to Korea in 1965, so that history does exist.
Koreans were taught to hate Japan after Japan’s defeat in World War II. Before Japan’s defeat, Koreans supported the Japanese Empire and their war effort, and many, many Koreans were satisfied with their lives under Japanese rule. However, whether than be considered an defeated ally of Japan, Koreans went along with the US plan to divide up the Japanese Empire by pretending to be Japan’s victim rather than her ally. The reason Koreans go overboard about claiming they were victims of Japan is to hide their collusion with Japan. Remember: the guilty man usually denies the loudest.
Mr. Bevers…christ on a bike, I was joking about Japan getting pulverized into accepting democracy and asking “where’s the love for that,” maybe it was too subtle.
Also, “I would never impute qualities to its history that don’t exist” refers to some people here imputing qualities to Japan’s historical actions and had nothing to do with restitution.
Good luck in your tireless endeavor to get the obstinate Korean nation to change their willful distortion of history to match your omniscient, unbiased, and no doubt exhaustively researched account
I dare GBevers to say what he just said in fluent or broken Korean, in the middle of Seoul, South Korea. I dare you to do just that, Mr. Bevers. Do it. You’re so sure that you’re right, why don’t you teach the masses that they were brain washed, and that Japan did nothing wrong but all good for Korea. President Park struck that token deal to milk economic and technological aid out of Japan. He didn’t accurately represent the Korean people’s wishes. He took over by a coup, and fixed every subsequent presidential election, remember? It was a good move for economic improvement, but it doesn’t come anywhere near acceptable reparations. What if you, GBevers were a given that 1965 compensation as a Korean, would you be happy and love Japan, like you do now? You’re pretty insensitive. What makes you so interested in Korea, anyway? Can you share that with all of us? Please?
Dogbertt, I think part of the resentment is that the US left the Japanese emperor un-hanged.
I wouldn’t recommend that approach
Mr. Bevers is entitled to his view, and I wouldn’t presume to speak for him, but the guy has lived in Korea for a long time and apparently speaks Korean quite well. In a way, he has a certain concern for Korea generally I gather.
I usually avoid the history disputes for the inherent pointlessness in arguing the “correct” perception of them, but I was bored this morning at work, what can I say.
While I was giving him some stick I admit, GB can make some well-reasoned points, and he’s not obsessed with denigrating Koreans like some other folks who check in here.
And Bevers, explain why the happy Koreans didn’t chose the route of Okinawa. Were Koreans even given the same citizenship rights as a Japanese person in Japan? Or were they treated as 2nd class colony citizens?
Kushibo wrote:
“Korea turned a victim mentality into an underdog mentality.”
Nothing wrong with doing that, turn anger into something positive. Just that the whining victim act gets tired real quick.
“You mean Mr. Roh with the approval ratings in the teens or twenties? That Mr. Roh?”
What do his low ratings have to do with anything? Do you deny that Roh has used anti-US and anti-Japanese sentiment to further his own agenda?
“Sometimes I think the English-speaking Korea blogosphere spends more time on Korean nationalism than the average Korean does. Quick: how many finger-choppers do we actually have in Korea?”
Finger-chompers are off-the-deep-end nationalists, not your every day garden variety-type. What I’m talking about is the routine, tedious, just under (or on) the surface nationalism, such as the controversy over Japan winning at baseball, the complaints of how foreign investors are draining the national wealth, and how its wrong to drink coffee at Starbucks cause the royalties go to a non-Korean company (a coworker just mentioned this), among the countless other examples of nationalism that are continually on display here.
To me, it’s like the beneath the surface beliefs in socialist, anti-corporate ideas that I often come across, not only in Korea, but elsewhere. They are tedious and stupid ideas. Such negative ways of looking at life are a waste of time.
While I usually find Gerry to be a crank and a conspiracy theorist, I do agree that the time has come for a reevaluation of the Japanese colonial period, though by real historians and not half deranged shut-ins with blogs.
That said, I’m curious as to why Gerry keeps going on and on like a broken record in this limited forum, if, as he’s suggested, he’s made a significant historiographic discovery either previously unknown to the world, or actively ignored and suppressed by some historians’ cabal. Surely such an important discovery deserves publication in a peer reviewed journal where it can be subject to scrutiny and review far more rigorous than what is possible here? Wouldn’t it make more sense to discuss issues of historiography with actual expert historians who can subject them to the rigor that they deserve?
Marmot has listed a Korean history blog on his blog roll, and i believe it does have people who are academics or becoming academics in this area. There are many journals that discuss the history of Northeast Asia. If Gerry is really confident that he knows what he’s talking about and has sources more authoritative than his mother in law, i’m baffled as to why he hasn’t participated in those sorts of discussions by now.
The nationalism in Korea really is tedious–the TV in our office is on all day, so we have to listen to “Daehanminguk” a dozen times in commercials, the most annoying one now being where the guy yells it through a bullhorn at some poor schoolkids. It wouldn’t be so irritating if there was some healthy skepticism about nationalism per se…and the (pseudo-)socialist, anti-corporate ideas, I’ve encountered them too. Really odd.
Well, I guess on a continuum GB is alright compared to somebody who actually sets up and pays money to host a Web site that goes to ridiculous extremes to denigrate people in a country they have no connection to–that’s inscrutably idiotic.
I’m sure GB is saving his evidence for the right occasion
And that’s a very good blog, BTW.
“And Bevers, explain why the happy Koreans didn’t chose the route of Okinawa.”
Are you implying that Okinawans are happy about the course of events since 1609?
YOU are THEM.
No one goes to work in the morning for their country. Nothing is achieved in the name of nationalism. The only reason there’s a Korea, a Japan, a USA…..is because there is also NOT a Korea, a Japan, a USA.
As to the statement…
“Japan did pay restitution to Korea in 1965″,
Except, Japan didn’t call it that.
“And, if it weren’t for Koreans advocating for Korean history, China and Japan would have made Koreans look like a weak people with a smaller land than present. They would have claimed the good parts of Korean as their own, and claimed that the Koreans got it from them. Ultimately, Koreans are responsible for setting the Korean records straight. Otherwise, no one cares, and there will be jackasses out there who will claim that Japan did Korea a great favor by colonizing it.”
I don’t think we can set anything straight. It has already been set. We’re fighting it. We’re arguing about nothing and we just keep doing it. I”M AMERICAN AND THAT GUY IS KOREAN! We’re so fucked up, ALL of us. The JAPANESE did this and that, the Americans did this and that. What are we doing? What do we want? Set what straight? There will ALWAYS be someone who is worse off. Stray cats do well in my apartment complex, but the mice, oh fuck, the mice? If someone doesn’t tell the story of the mice in my complex we will never know about what happened to the mice in my complex? What do we know of anything?
“Is there anywhere on the planet a place where people look back at a period of colonization and feel gratitude for having been colonized?”
Yes, of course, it is good for some natives at the time, and then later it is part of history and makes the general public think they have achieved independence and are special, and allows others to become powerful in native government.
Look at modern Korea for example. The Japanese colonization is a great political playground.
Michael, I hope you’re not forgetting the particularly brutal annexation of much of (what became) the United States after you kicked the British out. Yes, the US government has in recent times awarded compensation to native Americans, but by that time there were hardly any left anyway……….
The Spanish couldn’t pay.
Article 4(A) of the 1951 Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan provided that all “claims” of Korea and Koreans against Japan were to be resolved through bilateral negotiations between Korea and Japan.
In 1965, Korea completed negotiations and signed the Basic Agreement with Japan; and pursuant to the related Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation, Korean agreed with Japan that each of them:
– “Desiring to settle problems regarding the property of both countries and their peoples and the claims between both countries and between their peoples” [emphasis added]
and further agreed that, instead of the 364 million dollars demanded by Korea, Japan would pay Korea 300 million dollars in cash, goods or services and additionally provide Korea with 200 million dollars in long term, low interest loans. [When the diplomatic papers regarding the treaty recently were disclosed in Korea, it was reported that the total amount of loans was 800 million; but I havne;t been able to track down that number in the principal documents.)
Article II(1) of the Agreement goes on to say:
[emphasis added]
Settlement of claims IS “compensation”. Japan thus acknowledged liability and paid restitution. And with the publication of the diplomatic record, Korea has finally (been compelled to publicly) acknowledge(d) that in fact all claims of both the nation and its people were in fact completely and finally settled, notwithstanding that Korea itself choose to use the proceeds not to compensate individuals but to jump start its economic development program.
Korea made its deal and it was a good one - albeit for the nation, not necessarily the affected individuals. If Koreans have a beef on this score it’s with their own government. It would be refreshing if they concentrated on redressing the self-inflicted inequities of Korean society instead of trying to make everyone else responsible for them. But then that wouldn’t compute very well with the myth of ethnic solidarity would it?
‘as least bevers does not maintain a website…’
well, yes, he does and it’s just like shakuhachi’s with titles such as ‘korean sex’ and the like. i believe it’s called ‘korea media watch’.
‘they wanted to be colonized! korea was a major ally of japan! koreans supported japan’s wars!’ ejaculated bevers
a couple months ago, kushibo addressed bevers about the points he made above. ku’ destroyed every one of bevers arguments. all gerry could do was thank ku’ for his research since he could not counter the ‘bo.
the best thing to do with types like gerry is to simply ridicule them while the whine about knowing the truth.
Pawikirogi,
Yes, I have a Web site, but I do not pay for it, and it has been a while since I have maintained it. Here is the link. Maybe it is time for me to start updating it. As for “Ku’s” destruction of my arguments, maybe you could provide the link since I do not remember reading it?
In my opinion, Korea and the Korean media have a problem with honesty and fairness, especially when dealing with the following subjects:
1) The US and the US military
Foreign investment and trade
2) Japan
3) Isreal
4) Foreigners in general
5) Human rights in North Korea
6) Korean colonial history
7) Korean prostitution and sexual slavery
There may be some other subjects, but I cannot think of them at the moment.
On an individual basis, Koreans are some of the friendliest people I have ever met, and there is no friend more loyal than a Korean friend. Also, on an individual basis, they are open to reason, but there is a group mindset in Korea that the Korean media and the Korean education system has created over the decades that is almost impervious to reason. It is that mindset that I dislike.
When you have close to 50 million Koreans claiming the same thing, a foreigner unfamilar with Korea will assume there is truth in what they are saying, but that is not necessarily the case. North Korean and South Korean propaganda are different, but both countries have been very successful at creating a group mindset that can deflect bullets.
I note how that Gerry is always calm, never engages in personal attacks, and always puts forth points that have a solid rational underpinning.
The fact that nulji (and most of his fellow aggrieved comrades) can only counter this with ridicule speaks volumes.
Yes, he never resorts to Chewbacca Defense and for that he is only to be commended.
I’ve said it here before, but Taiwanese I’ve talked to (those who were there before the great KMT influx) think their colonization by the Japanese was a positive experience. You have to remember that in 1895 there was very little attachment to the emperor of China and very little sense of Chinese-ness on the island. The Japanese took the complete backwater that was Formosa and gave it modern institutions and infrastructure, all he while treating the locals with resonable respect. The result is a modern Taiwan with a higher per-capita GDP than Korea.
Also, people in the Philippines and India are self-confident enough to recognize the positives that came from their being colonized by the Spanish/Americans and Brits, although they may not say it was all sweetness and light.
‘i can’t remember the debate…’ gerry
of course you don’t, gerry. the guy made you look like a fricken fool. as for where the debate occured, somewhere at kushibo’s place. find it yourself.
‘my website…’gerry
you maintain a website that has a heading of ‘korean sex’. anytime you see that, you know you got a nut on your hands no matter how ‘rational’ he may come off.
***
1, koreans don’t have to thank the japanese for anything.
2, western understanding is not needed nor asked for.
3, though westerners did suffer under the japanese, their suffering is not germain.
4, japan must come to terms with it’s past on the same level as germany.
You failed even to get this right:
Overall, though Gerry’s been mostly a gentleman, much more so than me.
Oh, well, for some reason dog eating is the one thing that gets Gerry in a lather. I had forgotten that.
I would say, though, that in Gerry’s case it is the exception that proves the rule.
Article 4(A) of the 1951 Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan provided that all “claims” of Korea and Koreans against Japan were to be resolved through bilateral negotiations between Korea and Japan.
In 1965, Korea completed negotiations and signed the Basic Agreement with Japan; and pursuant to the related Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation, Korean agreed with Japan that each of them:
– “Desiring to settle problems regarding the property of both countries and their peoples and the claims between both countries and between their peoples” [emphasis added]
and further agreed that, instead of the 364 million dollars demanded by Korea, Japan would pay Korea 300 million dollars in cash, goods or services and additionally provide Korea with 200 million dollars in long term, low interest loans. [When the diplomatic papers regarding the treaty recently were disclosed in Korea, it was reported that the total amount of loans was 800 million; but I havne;t been able to track down that number in the principal documents.)
Article II(1) of the Agreement goes on to say:
The High Contracting Parties confirm that the problems concerning property, rights, and interests of the two High Contracting Parties and their peoples (including juridical persons) and the claims>/i> between the High Contracting Parties and between their peoples, including those stipulated in Article IV(a) of the Peace Treaty with Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on September 8, 1951, have been settled completely and finally.
[emphasis added]
Settlement of claims IS “compensation”. Japan thus acknowledged liability and paid restitution. And with the publication of the diplomatic record, Korea has finally (been compelled to publicly) acknowledge(d) that in fact all claims of both the nation and its people were in fact completely and finally settled, notwithstanding that Korea itself choose to use the proceeds not to compensate individuals but to jump start its economic development program.
This is where you go off and are wrong. A settlement of a claim is NOT compensation and Japan was quite specific on this point.
The archives also verified the existence of the so-called Kim-Ohira memo exchanged between then Japanese Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira and Kim Jong Pil, who was the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency under the late Park Chung Hee government.
The memo stipulated that Tokyo agreed to provide Seoul with $300 million in grants and $500 million in economic cooperation fund, not for compensation.
It also showed that Seoul pledged not to demand any further compensation for wartime victims, thereby depriving individuals of the right to seek reparations from Japan.
Notice the specific wording. The money was deemed to be for cooporation between the nations and Korea, for getting this cooperation says they won’t sue Japan. But it was specifically NOT compensation.
Now, as mentioned before, is South Korea bound by this treaty signed by a military dictator’s regime and not by elected officials?
Also, can you truly include in this issues that were unknown at the time such as the comfort women issue?
There is a lot that is wrong with the 1965 treaty and hiding behind it is disengenuous.
Plunge,
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese lost their property and investments in Korea when they were forced to leave Korea in 1945. Factories and infrastructure worth millions and millions of dollars were left behind without compensation. I have read that the $800 million Japan gave Korea in 1965 is equivalent to about $10 billion today. Korea was well compensated for a country that suffered no war damage.
The 1951 treaty between Japan and the Allies obliged Japan to settle claims with Korea, which the Allies essentially stole from Japan. The 1965 Treaty stated very clearly that it settled all the claims between Korea and Japan. It is Korea who is being disengenuos by asking Japan to pay more money today.
Plunge pontificates:
Like most pronouncements ex cathedra effusio, there’s a lot of nonsense here, so we’ll have to sort through it topically, but first a little primer in legal vocabulary and reasoning 101 - really not much more than a light gloss on ordinary usage.
“Compensation” is a benefit, usually the payment of money or money’s worth, conferred by one party on another. In particular, and having reference to the issue at hand, it is such a payment made to offset the “damages” suffered by one party as a result of the conduct of the other. Such damages generally arise as a result of the infliction of bodily harm, property damage or the violation by one party of some other established legal right of the other. Such rights give rise to “claims” for their enforcement, either through the domestic judicial system or some other legitimated forum or procedure.
As between Korea and Japan that procedure was bilateral negotiation as mandated by the Allies and acquiesced in by Japan pursuant to the Articles of Surrender and the Treaty of San Francisco.
That process of negotiation eventuated in several agreements, reference to which already has been made, in which Korea agreed to settle all “claims” of the nation and its people in exchange for a lot of money and money’s worth.
[Bevers also makes the valid point that the real scope of such payments is understated because it does not take account of all the Japanese assets that were effectively appropriated by Korea at the conclusion of the war, not including such of those assets that could be described as having been re-appropriated, e.g., land either taken outright or by illegitimately coercive measure during the colonial period. The NORKS of course got very little of this, since the Russians carted most of their portion away.]
Anyway, both as a matter of ordinary usage and ordinary legal usage, such payments in settlement of such claims is compensation.
Does it matter that the so-called Kim-Ohira Memo allegedly does not refer to compensation in so many words and characterizes the Japanese payments as economic cooperation?
No, for two principal reasons:
1. Assuming arguendo that such memo is properly characterized in such manner, which I cannot confirm, it is profoundly irrelevant to determining how Japan’s obligations under the relevant treaty agreements should be characterized. It shouldn’t need to be said that such treaty agreements take precedence over any such memo. And the language of those agreements is clear. The language of the title, the precatory recitals and Article II(1) all explicitly state that the purpose of the agreements is both to provide for economic cooperation and the settlement of claims. [In fact, the two shouldn't be seen as mutually contradictory, the method mutually agreed by the parties to effect settlement of claims was to engage in economic cooperation, viz., by providing for a substantial portion of Japanese claim compensation payments to be in the form of in-kind economic assistance and in the kncok-on provisions that required the proceeds of Japanese monetary compensation payments to be used for the purchase of additional Japanese goods and services.
2. Thus the import of the Kim-Ohira Memo seems to have been primarily to further clarify, quoting Plunge's language, that no "further compensation" would be due or payable. Apart from the fact that the reference to "further compensation" itself puts paid to the idea that what was beinng provided under the treaty was not compensation, the intent of the Memo seems to have been to further docuemrnt the parties mutual understanding and intentions that the treaty was meant to foreclose any Korean state or Korean private claims for individual compensation.
Now we come to the gumsmack portions of Plunge's pronunicamentos.
An easy one is his suggestion that the treaties can't be deemed to have settled claims like those of the comfort women (which, if you think about it really means all individual claims) because they weren't known at the time. Huh? This is prepesterous on its face. It may not have been known to John Q. Public back in DesMoines or Pembroke, Ontario, but it was certainly known to many, many Koreans and Japanese, including the negotiators, who were the only parties in interest. Hell, even my uncles and cousins who found themselves in Japan and shortly thereafter in Korea at the end of the War knew about it.
As unfair as it may have seemed to the individuals involved, and as unpalatable to Monday morning quaterbacks like Plunge, the plain fact is that the Korean and Japanese negotiators intended to foreclose such claims. [Moreover, it should be noted that it is not only common but pretty much standard practice in crafting legal settlements that the parties agree to resolve all outstanding issues, known and unknown, existing and contingent, etc., etc.]
Second, I fail to see what is disingenuous about pointing out what the treaty provides and how doing so constitutes hiding behind it. Unless of course, you mean to say that people shouldn’t be held to their freely assumed legal obligations.
Which brings us to the real crux of this matter, which is whether South Korea - and, I think, Olunge really wants to say individual South Koreans - should be bound by a “treaty signed by a military dictator’s regime and not by elected officials.”
That’s a pretty big question, about which I’ll just make two observations. First, I hope the answer is yes, since the alternative would mean that no treaty signed by a country whose government is not democratically elected is valid - a position, I’m sure, that would delight whoever may be left from Germany’s Nazi Party in South AMerica and die-hard Japanese partisans of Dai Nippon alike, as well as make a shambles of what passes for international law.
Second, it points up, as I have said, before, that a more fundamental issue for Korea than the moot one of Japanese compensation, is attending to its own laundry.