The Cycles of Korean Nationalism

Interesting read in this Asia Times article about the continuing clashes between President Roh of Korea and Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan.

Against all these recent favorable social and cultural exchanges by the peoples of the two countries, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun recently, on February 25 and March 1, repeatedly urged Tokyo to continue grappling with its past. On March 1, in his speech commemorating an uprising against Japanese colonial rule 86 years ago called the March 1 Independent Movement of 1919, he urged Japan to offer a heartfelt apology and settle its past history with Koreans – invasion, occupation, enslavement and forced labor, comfort women – by paying compensation if necessary in order for real reconciliation to take place.

Japan has offered its apologies and, in effect, compensation in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and grants. South Korea, however, has been planning a probe of collaborators with Japanese occupiers, a sore point with Japan and something that could embarrass some of South Korea’s top families who benefited during the occupation. The opposition wants to probe collaboration with North Korea.

Why is President Roh continuing his Japan bashing with so many positive social developments between the two countries?

While Roh is apparently trying to maintain buoyancy for his administration – his ratings have fallen significantly, far below the 70% in his prime just after his inauguration in February 2003 – by playing politics with the past, he also seems to have conveyed an unspoken warning to Tokyo, reflecting domestic public opinion: Many Koreans are alarmed by changes in Japan’s traditional pacifist military posture and growing right-wing bias in Japanese politics and society.

Could President Roh actually be using Korean nationalism to raise is low approval rating? Say it ain’t so. For Japan’s part they are not doing much to help themselves with the whole Dokto dispute. I still don’t get what Japan hopes to get out of the whole dispute. Korea will never give up those two islands. The Asia Times offers some other things Japan can do to improve relations:

For Japan’s part, it should reconsider postwar education policy in its modern history. Japanese education appears to have emphasized postwar Japan as a defeated nation, which suffered from aggression by great Western powers and which received two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war – not as aggressor and victimizer in Asia. Because of this reluctance to face up to the past, in the postwar period Japanese education and ordinary parents seem to have avoided teaching much about neighboring countries’ history and geography. Perhaps most high-school students cannot cite the name of five cities in South Korea now, although they can probably cite names of five cities of the US. (This, of course, is thanks to major-league baseball, Japanese baseball players Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees’ Hideki Matsui, among others.)

For Japan, to face up to its troubled past and reconcile with neighbors is also strategically important to establish regional diplomacy, especially when South Korea and China are vigorously opposed to Japan’s permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council.

Japanese education about past history is really as white washed as many Koreans claim. I remember going to the National Museum in Tokyo and seeing Korean artifacts on display. The displays would say certain artifacts were gifts from Korea but in reality they were stolen during the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea in 1592. They had no display about World War II in the national museum but I did find a display at a different museum that honored the Japanese Kamikazes. This display called World War II the Greater East Asia Co-properity War. The Japanese were just trying to free the Asian people from colonialist Europeans and Americans and that Americans were evil in dropping the two nuclear bombs on them.

Their view of history is definitely misguided but I see as much chance of them changing their approach to history as Korea ever giving up Dokto. So each country just needs to learn to live with the other because neither country is going to change to much to accomodate the other. But as long as there are politicians who need to raise their approval ratings both countries will continue to use nationalism to bash each other with.

If nationalism against the Japanese doesn’t work for Korean politicians, there is always low quality English teachers and GI’s to bash on too. These fits of nationalism seem to run in cycles. First it is GI’s, then low quality English teachers, and now they have moved on to the Japanese. I guess that means they will be coming after us GI’s again next. I better enjoy this quiet time while it lasts.