Published on August 26, 2020. Drawing on Junko Miyawaki’s work, this article presents her arguments concerning the meaning of August 15, 1945 as “Liberation Day,” the Soviet and American occupations of the Korean Peninsula, the establishment of South Korea in 1948, competing claims to national legitimacy in North and South Korea, and the role she attributes to anti-Japanese sentiment in their national identities and founding narratives.

August 26, 2020
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The Very Founding of North and South Korea Is Based on Fiction
To repeat, during the 36 years following the annexation of Korea, modern nation-building proceeded on the Korean Peninsula under Japanese rule.
The Korean people were also pleased to have become citizens of a first-rate country, their standard of living rose, and the population increased.
Then, with Japan’s defeat, they abandoned Japan and found themselves having to conceal the fact that they had until then lived as Japanese.
Because they had sought to survive by placing themselves under whichever power was strongest at any given time—a practice known as sadaejuui—some Koreans in Japan placed themselves on the side of the victorious powers and behaved as though they were a people who had defeated Japan in war.
But they had by no means defeated Japan.
Therein lies the fundamental contradiction inherent in the systems of North and South Korea that began after the war.
Every year on August 15, South Korea celebrates Gwangbokjeol, or Liberation Day.
The meaning of “liberation” is that Korea was freed from colonial rule and became independent as a nation at the same time as Japan’s defeat on August 15, 1945, but this is an outright falsehood: Korea did not become independent at that time.
As had been decided at the Yalta Conference, the Korean Peninsula was placed under Soviet occupation in the North and American occupation in the South.
However, immediately after the war, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began, and the confrontation between East and West intensified.
South Korea therefore held elections in the South alone, elected Syngman Rhee as president, and achieved independence from the United States in 1948.
It did not become independent from Japan.
Because South Korea was not a country that won its independence through a war of independence, it lacks national legitimacy.
For that reason, it fabricates a false “historical perception,” continues deceiving itself, and desperately tries to force Japan to accept it as well.
Both North Korea and South Korea are founded upon the fictional national myth that they fought Japan, escaped colonial rule, and achieved independence.
If one follows that fiction, then North Korea, founded by Kim Il Sung, who is said to have engaged in anti-Japanese partisan activities, would at least possess the greater legitimacy.
The reason pro-North Korean forces have gained influence in South Korea is also that the North holds the advantage in terms of national legitimacy.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye pursued anti-Japanese policies because she needed to erase the image of her father, President Park Chung-hee, who was regarded as pro-Japanese, and at the same time because anti-Japanese sentiment itself enhances national legitimacy.
That is why, regardless of who becomes president, South Korea cannot abandon anti-Japanese policies.
North Korea cannot abandon anti-Japanese sentiment either.
This is because anti-Japanese sentiment has become the foundation of their national identity.
North Korea and South Korea are structured in such a way that they compete for legitimacy according to which of them is more anti-Japanese.
That is the same as competing over lies.
The two countries are competing according to the bizarre rules of a game in which the one that tells the greater lie is regarded as more legitimate.
Japanese people would immediately notice such historical contradictions and respond accordingly, but on the Korean Peninsula, it is a world in which whoever makes the claim wins, whether it is true or false, so historical facts do not matter.
South Korea constantly confronts Japan over issues of “historical perception,” but they have no interest in actual history.
They invoke history merely in order to insist that they themselves are right.
To be continued.