Neo-Nationalist Interpretations of Japan’s Annexation of Korea

Japan did not want to annex Korea. Koreans came to Japan and asked to be annexed.  This was expressed in the Korean Emperor [Sunjong]’s last Imperial Rescript, where it is written, “From now we have no choice but to request the Emperor of Imperial Japan’s protection.”  Also, in 1910 a demonstration took place in Seoul, the capital.  Those leading this demonstration were from the Advance in Unity Society (J. Isshinkai, K. Ilchinhoe).  Do you know what kind of demonstration this was?  It was one that requested Japan to merge with (J. gappei), or annex (J. heigō) Korea.

Why Murata Haruki, a salaryman active in a number of conservative causes, chose August 7, 2009 and the offices of Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakushō) as the time and place to deliver his speech is not clear.  His posting of a recording of his monologue on YouTube, however, has drawn him an audience—as of October 28, 2010, close to 17,300 viewers—that far exceeds that of his live presentation.  The Internet, and particularly YouTube, is one of a number of popular venues that neo-conservative groups have used to more efficiently disseminate their messages, which frequently address such Japan-Korea issues as the Dokto/Takeshima controversy, North Korea-Japan relations, and Japan-based Koreans.  Their agenda is consistent: to “correct” interpretations of recent Japanese history that they deem to be unpatriotic.  These presentations thus supplement other efforts by Japanese determined to write a “new history” that instills national pride to replace the shame-ridden interpretations of Japan’s colonial and wartime history.

Murata’s presentation, which on this occasion targeted Japan’s annexation of the Korean peninsula, is simple, low cost, and easily accessed.  Unlike his other YouTube uploads that capture him lecturing before an audience, neither he nor anyone else appears in this presentation.  Instead, viewers are offered only the audio portion of Murata’s speech, with his key points summarized in white Japanese text against a black background.  Choruses of gruff jeers from his cohort enliven his rather bland diatribe.  His message on this particular day, centering on the nature of Japan’s occupation of Korea, was first that it represented a case of annexation (as opposed to colonization), and that it was the Koreans who requested a reluctant Japanese to annex their country.

Close geographic proximity, a history of checkered diplomatic relations, and an active Korean voice that protests attempts by Japanese to revise this history have encouraged neo-conservatives.  Japan’s incorporation of the Korean peninsula in 1910 occupies a central part of its agenda. Arguments such as those put forth by Murata demonstrate that differences of opinion stubbornly persist even after six decades of Korean liberation from Japanese rule.  These differences exist primarily, but not exclusively, between Japanese and Koreans.  Murata’s choice of venue—a Japanese rather than a Korean government building—suggests such differences also exist among Japanese groups.  His views on Japan’s occupation closely resemble those frequently expressed in Japan’s conservative circles:  1)  the equal status of Koreans and Japanese within the empire; 2)  Japanese benevolent contributions to Korea and the Korean people; and 3)  Korean support for Japan’s annexation of their country.  Additionally, Murata joins others in rejecting charges that Japan committed crimes against the Korean people, such as its campaign to encourage Koreans to adopt Japanese names, its labor mobilization policies (including comfort women and forced laborers), and its ambition to “erase” Korean identity.

The existence of a strong conservative voice is hardly unique to Japan, as witnessed at the gathering of European and Japanese extremist groups held in Tokyo this past August.  The existence of groups jealously seeking to guard and guide the national narrative, particularly to repulse external or internal criticism of it, can be found in all modern nations.  The United States, Germany and China, for example, illustrate some of the different ways in which this is manifest.  Japan’s case is interesting in that outside forces have joined internal pressures to criticize its attempts to “revise” its colonial and wartime history.  This criticism has encouraged conservative groups to address areas of its imperial past that the histories of other former colonial powers have either omitted or glossed over.  If, for example, Filipinos actively protest United States interpretations of its pre-World War II colonial occupation of their country, their demands hardly receive the attention that Koreans and Chinese gain by attacking Japan’s attempts to “normalize” its historical interpretations of the less attractive areas of their past relations.  Criticism of Japan’s perceptions of this past, in turn, has reawakened a conservative voice in Japan that believes sovereign states reserve the right to script a national narrative that elicits pride rather than shame among its people.  The resulting conflict creates a divide at a time when China, South Korea, and Japan grope for ways to promote closer ties.  Questions that Murata raises in his diatribe strike at the heart of Japan’s thirty-six-year occupation of the Korean peninsula, and thus are too important to leave unattended.  They leave us wondering why Japan finds more problematic than other former colonial powers the shedding of this history....