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The issue of Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea is complex and multi-faceted. Anti-Japanese attitudes in the Korean Peninsula can be traced far back to the Japanese pirates raids and the Japanese invasion of 1592, but are largely a product of the period of Japanese rule in Korea from 1910-1945.

Effect of Japanese rule in Korea

Korea was ruled by the Japanese Empire from 1910 to 1945. Japan's involvement began with the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa during the Joseon Dynasty of Korea and increased with the subsequent assassination of Empress Myeongseong at the hands of Japanese agents in 1895. It culminated with the 1905 Eulsa Treaty, removing Korea's governmental rights, and the 1910 Annexation Treaty, both of which were eventually declared null and void in 1965.

Cultural Assimilation

The Japanese colonization of Korea has been mentioned as the case in point of "cultural genocide" by the Comparative Genocide Studies group of the University of Tokyo. The colonial government put into practice the suppression of Korean culture and language in an "attempt to root out all elements of Korean culture from society".

"Focus was heavily and intentionally placed upon the psychological and cultural element in Japan's colonial policy, and the unification strategies adopted in the fields of culture and education were designed to eradicate the individual ethnicity of the Korean race."

After the annexation of Korea, Japan enforced a cultural assimilation policy. Koreans were forced to learn and speak Japanese, adopt the Japanese family name system and Shinto religion, and forbidden to write or speak the Korean language in schools, businesses, or public places. In addition, the Japanese altered or destroyed various Korean monuments including Gyeongbok Palace (경복궁, Gyeongbokgung) and documents which portrayed the Japanese in a negative light were revised. This methodical alteration process was done by the Editing Agency of Korean History (조선사편수회, Joseonsa Pyeonsuhoe).

Independence Movement

On March 1, 1919, anti-Japanese rule protests were held all across the country to demand independence. About 2 million Koreans actively participated in what is now known as the March 1st Movement. A Declaration of Independence, patterned after the American version, was read by teachers and civic leaders in tens of thousands of villages throughout Korea: “Today marks the declaration of Korean independence. There will be peaceful demonstrations all over Korea. If our meetings are orderly and peaceful, we shall receive the help of President Wilson and the great powers at Versailles, and Korea will be a free nation.” The Japanese suppressed the movement with brutal force. Christian leaders were nailed to wooden crosses and were left to die a slow death – "so that they can go to heaven". Mounted police beheaded young school children. The police burned down churches. The official Japanese count of casualties include 553 killed, 1,409 injured, and 12,522 arrested, but the Korean and neutral estimates are much higher: over 7,500 killed, about 15,000 injured, and 45,000 arrested.

Comfort Women

Approximately 200,000 girls and women, mostly from Korea and China, were recruited as sex slaves, euphemistically called "comfort women" (위안부, wianbu). Some Japanese historians, using the diaries and testimony of military officials as well as official documents from the United States and other countries, have argued that the Imperial Japanese military was either directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring, and sometimes kidnapping young women throughout Japan’s Asian colonies and occupied territories.

Contemporary Issues

In South Korea, Pro-Japanese Koreans (친일파, chinilpa) and pro-Japanese activists and collaborators during the period of Japanese colonization and the Empire of Korea are recognized as national traitors. In 2006, The National Assembly of South Korea formed a Committee for the Inspection of Property of Japan Collaborators. The aim was to reclaim property inappropriately gained by cooperation with the Japanese government during colonialization. The project was expected to satisfy Koreans' demands that property acquired by collaborators under the Japanese colonial authorities be returned.

Japanese Textbook Revisionism

Anti-Japanese sentiment is also due to the Japanese government's textbook revisionism. In 1982 the screening process in Japan became a diplomatic issue when the media of Japan and neighboring countries gave extensive coverage to changes required by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry ordered Japanese historian Saburo Ienaga to remove critical language in his history textbook, insisting on writing of the Japanese army's "advance into" China instead of its "aggression in" China, and of "uprising among the Korean people" instead of the "March First Independence Movement." Pressure applied by China and Korea succeeded in getting the Ministry to back down and resulted in the Ministry's adding a new authorization criterion: that textbooks must show understanding and international harmony in their treatment of modern and contemporary historical events involving neighboring Asian countries.

National Relations

Since normalizing relations at the urging of the United States in 1965, Seoul and Tokyo have held annual foreign ministerial conferences. The usual issues discussed have been trade, the status of the Korean minority population in Japan, the content of textbooks dealing with mutual history, and Tokyo's equidistant policy between Pyongyang and Seoul.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has often been noted for his controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, starting on August 13, 2001. He visited the shrine six times as prime minister. Because the shrine honors many convicted Japanese war criminals, including 14 executed Class A war criminals, these visits drew strong condemnation and protests from Japan's neighbors, mainly China and South Korea. As a result, China and South Korea refused to meet Koizumi in Japan or their countries, and there were no mutual visits between Chinese and Japanese leaders after October 2001, and between South Korean and Japanese leaders after June 2005. The standstill ended when the newly elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited China and South Korea in October 2006.

Appearance in South Korean popular culture

• The General's Son (장군의 아들; Janggun eui Adeul) - 1990 movie set in Korea under Japanese rule, in which Kim Du-han (then a gangster) attacks Japanese yakuza. Two sequels were released in 1991 and 1992.

• The Mugunghwa Have Bloomed (무궁화 꽃이 피었습니다; Mugunghwa ggoti pieotseubnida) - Gim Jinmyeong wrote this novel in 1993. North and South Korea together develop a nuclear weapon and attack Japan. Became a bestseller, and was made into a film in 1995.()

• Phantom: The Submarine - A movie in which a South Korean nuclear submarine attempts to attack Japan with a nuclear weapon. This movie won six "Academy Awards" in South Korea in 1999.()

• There Is No Japan (일본은 없다; Ilboneun Eopta) - Travelogue written by Grand National Party spokeswoman Jeon Yeook in 1994, based upon her experiences in Japan as a KBS correspondent. She compares South Korea with Japan, praises South Korean excellence, and describes the Japanese as an incapable people.

• The Hate Japan Wave (혐일류; Hyeomillyu) - Korean cartoonist Yang Byeong-seol's (양병설) response to the book Manga Kenkanryu (The Hating Korea Wave).

References

1. ^ ""Cultural Genocide" and the Japanese Occupation of Korea". Retrieved 2007-02-19.
2. Cumings, Bruce G. "The Rise of Korean Nationalism and Communism". A Country Study: North Korea. Library of Congress. Call number DS932 .N662 1994.
3. http://www.kimsoft.com/2004/Samil-2004.htm
4. http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1624.html
5. Yoshimi Yoshiaki, 従軍慰安婦 (Comfort Women). Translated by Suzanne O'Brien. Columbia University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-231-12032-X
6. Onishi, Norimitsu (2007-03-08). "Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan's Ex-Sex Slaves". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
7. "Assets of Japan Collaborators to Be Seized", The Korea Times, August 13, 2006.
8. Murai Atsushi, "Abolish the Textbook Authorization System," Japan Echo, (Aug. 2001): 28.

See Also

List of Korea-related topics

• Korea
• Japanese-Korean relations