Tag: UNESCO

This seems like a fair compromise, Japan gets their UNESCO site and South Korea gets a marker explaining the history of Korean forced laborers:

South Korea has given the green light to designate Japan’s gold and silver mines on Sado Island — where an estimated over 1,500 Koreans were forced to work at the end of Japan’s colonial rule — as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.

Japan’s ongoing efforts to have the Sado Island Gold Mines recognized have fueled a dispute with South Korea. The controversy revolves around Japan’s deliberate omission of its history regarding the forced mobilization of Koreans during its brutal colonial rule over the peninsula. (….)

An inscription on the World Heritage list typically requires a two-thirds majority vote from the WHC member states. However, it has become customary for the final decision to be reached through consensus, ensuring broader agreement and cooperation among the committee members.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry’s confirmation came hours after Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported that a preliminary agreement had been reached. Under the agreement, Japan will display the history of Korean forced laborers at the site in exchange for South Korea’s consent to the inscription of the Sado Mine complex as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me a fairway to handle this is that any information about the site include the fact that Korean forced laborers were used her during the Imperial era. However, this makes too much sense and likely won’t happen:

A government panel proposed Tuesday that a gold mine site on the island of Sado, Niigata Prefecture, be a candidate for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage designation.

But in a rare move, the Cultural Affairs Agency released a statement saying that the candidate selection by the Council for Cultural Affairs does not mean that the government has decided to recommend the site to UNESCO.

The agency said that the government will consider the matter comprehensively.

Under ordinary circumstances, the Japanese government would submit a recommendation to UNESCO by Feb. 1 next year after obtaining approval from related ministries and agencies and the Cabinet.

As South Korea claims that workers from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work at the Sado mines, however, it is unclear whether the Japanese government will recommend the site for World Heritage listing.

Yomiuri Shimbun

You can read more at the link.

Lee Young-ae (R), one of South Korea’s leading hallyu actresses, poses for photos with Min Dong-seok, head of the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, on Oct. 27, 2015, in Seoul after being named a special ambassador of the organization. Lee will participate in the commission’s donation campaign for education assistance to underdeveloped countries. (Photo provided by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO) (Yonhap)

This undated photo, released on Oct. 10, 2015, by the Cultural Heritage Administration, shows a printing woodblock for the Collected Works of renowned Confucian scholar Toegye Yi Hwang, which is included in a set of Korea’s Confucian printing woodblocks that UNESCO has added to the “Memory of the World” list. The U.N. body also added to the list a decades-old local TV program to reunite families separated by the Korean War. The woodblocks are comprised of 64,226 pages of 718 kinds of books written by Confucian scholars during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), when the ideology served as the ruling philosophy. (Yonhap)

The Suwon Fortress also known as the Hwaseong Fortress is a must see tourist site for anyone visiting Korea. The impressive fortress walls surround the entire old city of Suwon and are registered UNESCO World Heritage site. The fortress is not only impressive to look at but also features an interesting history.

The idea to build the fortress was first conceived by the Korea’s King Jeongjo (1776-1800). This period of Korean history featured much intrigue within the ruling yangban class which ultimately caused King Jeongjo’s father to be murdered. King Jeongjo felt that creating a new, well fortified capitol would strengthen the monarchy and dillute the power of the yangban class. He chose the city of Suwon just south of Seoul to be his new capitol. He moved the tomb of his father to Suwon and began construction of his great fortress in 1794.

The fortress was designed by Jeong Yakyong (1762-1836) who was known nationally as one of Korea’s greatest scholars. He envisioned a fortress that balanced the needs of commerce, the welfare of the people, and military defense. The work force he employed to build the fortress was quite extensive. 642 masons, 335 carpenters, 295 plasterers and 11,820 painters and tilers were used. In total an average of 70,000 laborers were used to work on the fortress every year until completion. Jeong also did something that was unusual for this period, he actually payed his workers for their work instead of conscripting forced laborers to build the fortress.

When construction was completed, the walls averaged a height of nine meters and featured many watch towers, cannons, secret gates, and other fortifications. The total length of the walls is 5 kilometers long. The fortress was the first construction project in Korea to use advanced technology such as cranes to move dirt and blocks into place. It took a total of over 2 years to build the fortress.

Over the years more improvements were made to the fortress but even these great walls couldn’t save Korea from the bickering and ineffective leadership of the yangban class that would ultimately lead to the annexation of Korea by Japan nearly a hundred years later. Due to the aftermath of the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War, the walls were heavily damaged. In the 1970’s the Korean government decided to restore the walls to their past glory.

The outer wall that sticks out like a claw around the main entrance gate allows defenders to attack anyone trying to breach the gate from their rear.