The Japan–Korea Annexation and the Postwar Division of the Korean Peninsula: Junko Miyawaki on Syngman Rhee, Kim Il Sung, and the Jeju April 3 Incident
Published on August 22, 2020. Drawing on the writings of historian Junko Miyawaki, this article examines the Japan–Korea Annexation, the postwar division of the Korean Peninsula, Syngman Rhee, Kim Il Sung, the Jeju April 3 Incident, and the Syngman Rhee Line, presenting the historical arguments contained in the original text.
At the Time of the Japan–Korea Annexation, Koreans Were in Fact Genuinely Pleased to Become Citizens of Japan, a First-Class Nation That Had Joined the Ranks of the Western Powers. Many Records Remain Showing That the Annexation Was Welcomed. — August 22, 2020
The following is taken from a book that a friend of mine, an exceptionally avid reader, strongly urged me to buy. It is a work by Junko Miyawaki, one of the world’s leading scholars of East Asian history. It was Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist of the postwar world, who first made me aware of her. The late Hidehiro Okada, who was her husband, was one of the greatest scholars of East Asian history in the world, as Professor Hiroshi Furuta, a great scholar whose existence the Asahi Shimbun never informed the public about, has repeatedly stated. I also believe that Junko Miyawaki is a person who has lived one of the happiest lives in the world. Her extraordinary insight goes without saying. Alexis Dudden, who is nothing other than an agent of Korea dominating the American historical establishment, and John Dower, who made a name for himself as an anti-Japanese scholar after freely toying with Japanese women in Japan immediately after the end of the war, ought to brew and drink the dirt from beneath her fingernails. This book is required reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world. The Japanese people should go immediately to their nearest bookstore, Amazon, or elsewhere and buy it. All the more so because a book filled with the scholarly achievements of such a genuine scholar costs only 900 yen.
Chapter 8: The Tragedy of the Korean Peninsula Divided into North and South
Koreans who behaved like citizens of a victorious nation after Japan’s defeat The tragedy of the Korean Peninsula was not the Japan–Korea Annexation. The problem came after the war. At the time of the Japan–Korea Annexation, Koreans were in fact genuinely pleased to become citizens of Japan, a first-class nation that had joined the ranks of the Western powers. Many records remain showing that the Japan–Korea Annexation was welcomed. However, the moment Japan was defeated by the United States, they quickly changed sides, stood with the victorious nations, and behaved as though they themselves were victors. Japan had not fought a war against Korea. They, too, were supposed to have fought as Japanese. Yet they suddenly adopted an attitude as though they had turned their palms over. Because they were not citizens of a victorious nation, however, they were called “third-country nationals.” The United States also left such Koreans largely unchecked. This was because the United States had expected the occupation of Japan to encounter fierce resistance. It had intended to use Okinawa as a base and spend about a year carrying out the occupation policy. The Americans had never dreamed that Japan would accept the occupation so peacefully. They therefore attempted to make Koreans residing in Japan and Chinese, who could stand against the Japanese within Japan, their allies as “third-country nationals.” The principle of Western colonial rule is divide and rule. The aim was to divide the country, set third-country nationals and Japanese against one another, and rule through that competition. The conduct of the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others, which continually sided with foolish political parties such as the Constitutional Democratic Party, kept attacking Prime Minister Abe, and sought to divide and weaken Japan, was therefore something inherited from GHQ. Koreans who acted under the authority of the United States took advantage of the postwar confusion and committed all manner of lawless acts, such as roping off land in front of railway stations and declaring it their own property. That is why even today there is a pachinko parlor in front of almost every railway station in Japan. Under the American occupation, the Japanese police were unable to crack down on their criminal acts, and it was the yakuza who physically put themselves on the line to protect Japanese people. As a result, yakuza organizations expanded their power in Hiroshima and Kitakyushu, areas where many Koreans lived.
Syngman Rhee Became President After Assassinating Political Rivals with the United States Behind Him
Japan’s defeat in 1945 led to the division of the Korean Peninsula. This was because Soviet forces occupied the area north of the 38th parallel, while American forces entered the south. The Cold War began immediately after the war, and the United States and the Soviet Union confronted one another across the 38th parallel as a military dividing line. By January 1946, movement between north and south had become impossible. Because of this, Japanese repatriates from Manchuria could no longer return to Japan by way of the Korean Peninsula. Public security had deteriorated. They therefore gathered first on the Shandong and Liaodong Peninsulas and returned aboard American military vessels. In the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, under GHQ military occupation, three men—Syngman Rhee, Kim Gu, and Lyuh Woon-hyung—were locked in a fierce struggle for real power. Syngman Rhee came from the yangban class, but because he could speak English he had gone into exile in the United States. He claimed to have engaged in anti-Japanese activities, but it was all talk and he did nothing. Because he had no experience whatsoever of life under Japanese rule, he simply made Japan into an abstract villain. Kim Gu was the most active of the three. The plan to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor was also the work of Kim Gu. He also had good relations with China. In the end, however, Syngman Rhee had the other two assassinated and seized real power. He became a conduit to the United States, although the United States itself does not appear to have thought particularly highly of him. In 1948, Syngman Rhee became the first president following a general election held only in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and the Republic of Korea was founded on August 15, the date on which Japan had surrendered. South Korea did not gain independence from Japan; it gained independence from American military occupation. At that time, the United Nations also adopted a resolution recognizing the Republic of Korea as the only lawful government on the Korean Peninsula.
The “Legendary General Kim Il Sung” Sent in by the Soviet Union Was a Different Person
Meanwhile, in the north, one month after the establishment of the Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung became premier in September and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was founded. Kim Il Sung was a man whom the Soviet Union, after occupying Korea north of the 38th parallel, brought by warship from the Maritime Province and put ashore. The man whom they sent in while saying, “This is the legendary General Kim Il Sung,” was Kim Il Sung. The Kim Il Sung legend had existed even before the Japan–Korea Annexation. A rumor circulated among Koreans for years that General Kim Il Sung, who had graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, would someday bring independence to Korea. In Korea, Kim Il Sung was a hero of the anti-Japanese partisan movement. Although the truth or falsity of the story is unclear, Kim Il Sung, who joined an anti-Japanese force in Manchuria during the period of Manchukuo, is said to have virtually annihilated the Maeda unit of the Manchurian police in 1940. Even so, except for its commander, Mr. Maeda, every member of the Maeda unit was reportedly Korean. Kim Il Sung was wanted by the Manchukuo police, a bounty was placed on his head, and this was even reported in newspapers. In the end, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army in Manchuria, to which Kim Il Sung belonged, was reduced to a state of collapse by Japanese surrender-inducement operations and punitive campaigns, and in 1940 Kim Il Sung abandoned his superior and fled with a little more than ten subordinates to the Soviet Maritime Province. After the war, Soviet forces claimed that they had brought back Kim Il Sung, who had crossed into the Soviet Union, but he was still a young man of only thirty-three and could not speak Korean. Koreans themselves had imagined that the famous General Kim Il Sung would be an old man with a white beard. They were therefore astonished when the General Kim Il Sung who actually appeared was so young. Survivors who had fought alongside the real Kim Il Sung in the partisan movement and testified that this man was someone else were all killed. The truth was buried in darkness. Even today in Japan, scholars of Korean history, including Haruki Wada, maintain that President Kim Il Sung was the same General Kim Il Sung who had participated in the partisan movement. This Haruki Wada is truly beyond redemption. Equally beyond redemption was Kenzaburo Oe, who invariably placed his name among those of the so-called cultural figures signing the anti-Japanese statements that Wada issued from time to time in order to attack the Japanese government and criticize Japan. However one looks at it, the Kim Il Sung who became the leader of North Korea could not possibly have been the legendary Kim Il Sung who had participated in the partisan movement. Kim Il Sung entered North Korea when he was thirty-three years old. How could the commander of a partisan unit organized in Manchuria in 1940 have been thirty-three years old in 1945? In North Korea, the moment one voices such a doubt, one is sent to a labor reform camp and killed. That is because Kim Il Sung’s claim to have come from the anti-Japanese partisan movement forms the basis of his legitimacy as North Korea’s leader.
President Syngman Rhee Massacred 60,000 Islanders on Jeju
What, then, of Syngman Rhee’s government in the south? Here too, a great deal of blood was shed in the course of its formation. The April 3 Incident occurred on Jeju Island in 1948, and by 1954, spanning the period of the Korean War, 60,000 residents had been killed. The incident began when southern Korea sought to establish a state through elections held independently of North Korea. Left-wing islanders who opposed the separate election launched an armed uprising on April 3. Police and right-wing youth organizations entered the island and suppressed them, and this eventually developed into killings by the South Korean military. During the Goryeo period, Jeju Island was directly administered by the Mongols and used as grazing land for Mongolian horses. Later, because it was also used as an island of exile, it had suffered discrimination since ancient times. Because aristocrats who lost political struggles were exiled there, the islanders are proud and strongly independent people. Journalists who went to Jeju Island to conduct interviews immediately understood that Seiji Yoshida’s testimony claiming that he had hunted down military comfort women on Jeju was an outright lie. This was because people on Jeju said that if women had ever been forcibly taken away, the men of Jeju would never have remained silent; they would have beaten the perpetrators to death together. They were people of such great pride that they resisted fiercely. As a result, one in every five islanders was killed. Nothing like this ever happened under Japanese rule. Even during the separate election in southern Korea, Syngman Rhee killed as many as 600 opponents, won the election, and became the first president of the Republic of Korea. That is why Syngman Rhee is unpopular even in South Korea. Moreover, when North Korean forces invaded during the Korean War, he immediately fled by himself from Seoul toward Busan. His behavior was exactly the same as that of the successive kings of the Korean Peninsula: the leader fled before the people. However, when the United Nations forces led by the United States landed at Incheon and turned to the counteroffensive, Syngman Rhee told MacArthur to “drop atomic bombs,” astonishing the Americans. For Japan as well, Syngman Rhee was the worst possible president. In 1952, during the Korean War, he unilaterally established the Syngman Rhee Line in place of the MacArthur Line, which until then had restricted Japanese maritime areas, expanded the exclusive economic zone, and did whatever he pleased—seizing Japanese fishing vessels indiscriminately, arresting and detaining their crews, and even firing upon them. This Syngman Rhee Line later became the cause of South Korea’s effective control of Takeshima. To be continued.
