Published on July 28, 2019. This essay criticizes South Korean history education for portraying Japan as absolute evil and instilling anti-Japanese sentiment and victim consciousness. It discusses South Korea’s historical education and anti-Japanese propaganda from the Syngman Rhee era through the Park Chung-hee period and beyond, arguing that genuine Japan–South Korea relations cannot begin until South Korea rewrites its history textbooks in accordance with facts.

July 28, 2019.
South Korea is an abnormal country that, as a state, has continued for 65 years an indoctrinating education that implants hatred and prejudice toward a specific people.
Under the title, “The lies and fabrications of the South Korean government are that merciless.
I immediately sensed danger,” I am once again republishing the chapter I sent out on April 16, 2019, and the chapter I sent out on December 5, 2018, under the title, “The Japan–South Korea relationship depicted by South Korea’s history education is, so to speak, one of ‘100 percent perpetrator and 100 percent victim,’ and one of ‘absolute evil and absolute justice.’”
Astonished and appalled by President Lee Myung-bak’s words and actions in the final stage of his presidency, I wondered what kind of country South Korea really was, and searched the internet about South Korea and the Korean Peninsula.
In one hour, I understood the reality of the Korean Peninsula.
For the first time, I learned the reality of South Korea, which I had never understood, not only because I had subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun for many years, but also because I had received postwar education.
As for North Korea, even without searching, anyone can understand that it is an indescribably terrible country.
A moment ago, I discovered an article that, once again, is the very essence of the internet, the greatest library in human history.
What is now happening in South Korea should become understandable only after one knows these facts.
In other words, unless one knows these facts, one cannot understand Koreans, and that is extremely dangerous for Japanese people.
Just as I personally encountered evil so great that it brought me to a grave illness in which I nearly lost my life, Japan in fact has long continued to encounter this evil, and has continued to be exposed to it.
Not only against Japan, they continue to display their evil by making the United States and the United Nations their main battlefields.
The truth presented by this laborious work is the true nature of anti-Japanese propaganda.
Against Japan, a country where The Turntable of Civilization turns as divine providence, and which must lead the world alongside the United States, the world has overlooked the fact that countries of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies,” such as the Korean Peninsula and China, have continued for 70 years after the war to practice Nazism under the name of anti-Japanese education.
It is no exaggeration to say that this is the true reason the world remains unstable and full of conflict.
The fact that I, having no choice, appeared in this way carrying The Turntable of Civilization was, of course for me, but also for readers, and for Japan and the world, actually a very important thing.
The following is the article I discovered.
The emphases in the text, apart from the headings, are mine.
It was after reading South Korean history textbooks.
Japanese people were depicted as cold-blooded and cruel “devils.”
Modern Japan was said to have done “nothing but slaughter and plunder” to Korea.
◆ Why Did South Korea Rewrite History?
Considering Its Motives and Background, Part Two, by Yamada Takaaki.
The Syngman Rhee Era, Which Became the True Beginning of South Korea’s Misfortune.
Now, let us return to the main point.
With Japan’s defeat, the right to govern Korea was transferred from the Government-General to the United States.
At first, various factions quarreled over the founding of the state, and the Soviet Union quickly set up a puppet.
The provisional government and the independence army themselves were not recognized, but Syngman Rhee personally, who came from that government, had studied in the United States and had also engaged in lobbying activities there, so in the end he was enthroned as the head of an anti-communist puppet government.
However, the selfish demand that “South Korea be added to the Allied Powers” was rejected.
This was because it was thought that people who had neither fought nor shed blood had no right to push themselves forward.
Therefore, for Koreans to call themselves “citizens of a victorious nation” or “citizens of an Allied nation” is simply contrary to fact.
Regarding the fact that this man seized dictatorial power as the first president, one cannot help but feel sympathy.
The period from Rhee’s return to Korea until his exile was a “dark age,” and it is abnormal that contemporary Koreans lack that memory.
In many senses, this Syngman Rhee is the root of all evil, and his era was exactly the “Japanese imperial rule” as depicted in South Korean history education.
The first evil deed Syngman Rhee committed was the Jeju Island incident, in short a massacre of communists and islanders suspected of being communists.
As a result, tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and another tens of thousands fled to Japan and settled there.
The massacres continued afterward as well, and the island’s population sharply declined.
On a smaller scale, similar massacres were also carried out in other regions.
When speaking of Syngman Rhee’s war crimes against Japan, the invasion and seizure of Japanese territory Takeshima and the massacre of Japanese fishermen are famous, but in fact, before that, he tried to invade Tsushima.
For that purpose, he had gathered forces at the southern end of South Korea, when North Korea launched its lightning invasion.
Since he was willing to massacre even his own citizens without hesitation, it is not difficult to imagine that the South Korean army would have carried out a massacre on Tsushima.
When the Korean War broke out, Syngman Rhee accelerated his paranoia about enemies within, and executed large numbers of people registered in the National Guidance League, an organization for re-educating communists and their families.
The number of people massacred by the military and police is not precisely known, but it is said to exceed one million.
It was not only obscured by the war, but continued to be concealed even under the later military regimes.
At first, the South Korean army was driven into the southern part of the peninsula, but with the entry of the United States military into the war, it turned the tide, and four months later reached the Yalu River on the Chinese–Korean border.
However, what should have ended with the collapse of North Korea was pushed back again to the 38th parallel by China’s entry into the war, and the war ultimately continued for three years.
As a result, several million soldiers and civilians became victims, and most of the Korean Peninsula was devastated.
Incidentally, South Korea has not demanded even once that China, which prolonged the war and increased the number of victims, face up to and settle the past.
Even afterward, Syngman Rhee continued to remain in the position of dictator until the middle of 1960.
Rhee purged not only communists but also those who opposed him as political criminals, and thoroughly suppressed demonstrations and opposition movements.
Koreans who knew the Japanese period at the time angrily said, “Where on earth is this ‘liberation’?
Is this not a far worse society than under Japanese imperial rule?”
Syngman Rhee cracked down on this movement through a reign of terror that included control of thought and speech, a system of informers, and secret police.
In this way, he monitored and suppressed pro-Japanese thoughts and speech, made the generation that knew the Japanese period through experience close their mouths out of fear, created a division between generations, and used the media and public education to implant “false memories” in children.
During the Pacific War, Korea was not bombed, had virtually no conscription, with a few conscripts seeing the war end before they were sent to the front, and received treatment extraordinary for a “colony,” consisting only of requisitioning of goods and forced labor.
As a result, at the end of the war, the Japanese home islands had produced enormous numbers of war dead and had been reduced to ashes, while Korea was almost unscathed.
In other words, after the war, Japan’s and South Korea’s economic and social conditions had been completely reversed.
However, by the time Syngman Rhee left, South Korea had fallen into the ranks of the poorest countries, and the conditions of the two had been reversed once again.
In the end, Syngman Rhee contributed nothing whatsoever to the development of South Korean society and economy, and merely wielded dictatorial power, imposed oppression, massacred his own citizens on a large scale, and impoverished them.
Incidentally, the South Korean government still conceals this shameful part of its history, while on the contrary fabricating nonexistent massacres by the Japanese army and teaching children a false history, so is it not something like a half-accomplice?
Why was a false national history passed down?
After Syngman Rhee’s exile, South Korea was in turmoil for a while, but the person who ultimately seized power was Park Chung-hee.
As is well known, he had been an officer in the former Japanese military, and by concluding the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea, he normalized relations between the two countries and obtained enormous funds from Japan.
Park fostered heavy industries such as steel and petrochemicals and expanded social infrastructure, achieving high economic growth called the “Miracle on the Han River.”
However, if one has Japanese funds amounting to more than double the national budget and a neighbor that, with a sense of mission, teaches technology and know-how step by step, then, omitting the middle, I do not think causing a “miracle” is so difficult.
Thus South Korea was able to escape poverty not once, but twice, through Japan’s aid and cooperation.
However, President Park Chung-hee also did not correct the propaganda that made Japan absolute evil.
Because he thoroughly suppressed anti-government demonstrations and movements, he became the target of resentment among some citizens.
For a military dictatorship that inevitably creates internal friction, an object toward which to deflect people’s hatred and dissatisfaction is indispensable.
North Korea and the communists were not sufficient for that role.
To begin with, many anti-government people were sympathizers of them.
He needed an “enemy of the people” unrelated to ideological categories.
Perhaps because of such political calculations, Park Chung-hee inherited the education that demonized Japan as it was.
Furthermore, since he also turned all the results of Japan’s economic assistance into his own achievements, contrary to the image of him generally believed in Japan, it is hard to say that he was a very fair person.
No, beyond that, it seems that he added something unnecessary to public education.
That was the cultivation of pride in the style of “our people have been great since ancient times.”
In other words, it seems that he strengthened a self-glorifying view of history.
However, I should note that regarding this matter, I do not have materials at hand and it is only hearsay.
But, on the reverse side, that also meant degrading Japan as a “culturally backward country.”
This is because the superiority of one’s own people emerges through comparison with others, and the object of comparison could naturally not be China, but ancient and medieval Japan.
South Korean children are taught things such as “our ancestors taught the Japanese such-and-such” and “in the old days we were more advanced than Japan.”
As advanced culture transmitted by Korea, examples given include rice cultivation, weaving, architecture, Buddhism, paper, and writing in ancient times; pottery-making techniques at the time of Hideyoshi’s invasion; and medicine, Confucian studies, calligraphy, and painting through the Korean missions to Japan in the Edo period.
In this way, through relativization with Japan, they come to possess a sense of ethnic superiority, such as “until the Meiji Restoration, Korea was the more culturally advanced country,” and “our ancestors were teachers who civilized the barbaric Japanese.”
Then, because Hideyoshi’s invasion and modern Japan’s invasion are highlighted greatly, they naturally become indignant, thinking that “kindness was repaid with enmity.”
Thus the foundation of a “strange history education,” which nurtures both a sense of superiority toward Japan and a victim consciousness, extending to the present day, is completed.
Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, who later became presidents, were also from the same military academy line as Park, and inherited anti-Japanese education.
The reason was probably the same as above.
A military regime inevitably needs an object to take on people’s hatred.
Moreover, Chun Doo-hwan was a person who suddenly carried out suppression of citizens such as the Gwangju incident.
He also wanted to perform a miracle like Park’s and tried to draw out a huge amount of economic assistance from Japan.
As a means to that end, he began picking a fight over the textbook issue.
Why would such a man correct anti-Japanese education?
In 1988, South Korea finally transitioned to a democratic system.
In principle, freedom of thought and speech was also almost guaranteed.
However, through 40 years of domestic propaganda, “false memories” had completely become established facts, and it was already too late.
Koreans had completely become spiritually one with the “founding father.”
Now, independence activists are the identity of the Korean people.
In other words, ordinary citizens believe that “we fought bravely against the devil called Japanese imperialism and won,” and because they are the guardians of that myth, overturning it has become difficult.
“Japan–South Korea friendship” that never existed from the beginning.
Now, it is not as though I have had no personal relationships with Koreans.
If I describe my experience at that time, it is that “I could not think of them as strangers at all.”
Around me, there are people who did business with Koreans and were deceived, had things stolen, or had payments defaulted, but fortunately I myself have never had an unpleasant experience even once.
Therefore, personally, I still think of Korean acquaintances as if they were relatives.
Perhaps the reason Japanese people a hundred years ago devoted themselves to the modernization of Korean society with goodwill and a sense of mission that were somewhat beyond normal bounds was such feelings.
I think the true picture may unexpectedly have been feelings such as “they do not seem like strangers” or “they seemed like separated brothers living in miserable circumstances.”
However, within such personal relationships, I found it strange that even intelligent and gentle Koreans, when the topic somehow turned to history, would suddenly change color.
It was as if a person who had been abused in childhood were being tormented by flashbacks.
I learned the reason for this fifteen years ago, after reading translated South Korean history textbooks.
Japanese people were depicted as cold-blooded and cruel “devils.”
Modern Japan was said to have done “nothing but slaughter and plunder” to Korea.
The lies and fabrications of the South Korean government are that merciless.
I immediately sensed danger.
Naturally, children grow up believing that all of it is fact.
This is equivalent to “devilish Japan” propaganda even beyond the “devilish Americans and British” that Japan spread during the war.
The Japan–South Korea relationship depicted by South Korea’s history education is, so to speak, one of “100 percent perpetrator and 100 percent victim,” and one of “absolute evil and absolute justice.”
It has become a cheap story of rewarding good and punishing evil that a fake hero would likely think up.
Because Syngman Rhee seized dictatorial power as the first president, such fiction truly became a founding myth, and because that indoctrination has continued until today, even ordinary Koreans have become spiritually one with this counterfeit.
South Korea is an abnormal country that, as a state, has continued for 65 years an indoctrinating education that implants hatred and prejudice toward a specific people.
Moreover, it calls counterfeit things contrary to fact “correct historical recognition” and tries to force them on Japanese people as well.
Because the whole country believes things that are not scientifically or objectively factual, this has already reached the realm of “faith.”
In other words, it is better to think that, on this earth, in addition to Christian countries, Islamic countries, and Buddhist countries, there exists a fourth “country of anti-Japanese dogma.”
South Korea is a single cult organization.
Therefore, Japanese people who say with a straight face that South Korea is a friendly country or a partner that shares the same values are either extremely ignorant, foolishly good-natured, or a type of agent.
The fact is that it is the most unfriendly country, and a country with different values.
Those pro-Korean people, or perhaps Korea-subservient people, are now flustered by South Korea’s “sudden” anti-Japanese behavior, saying things such as “Japan and South Korea should have gotten along well until now,” or “They are only clashing at the level of politicians and governments, and after a while they should return to the previous friendly relationship.”
This is exactly what is meant by “there is no medicine for fools.”
South Korea was originally such a country, and the fact that it has now begun picking quarrels one after another is simply that, because of changes in the situation, it no longer needs to hide its true nature.
To begin with, there is a great gap between the Japan–South Korea friendship imagined by Japanese people and that imagined by Koreans.
Japanese people literally imagine “an equal relationship of friends.”
However, among Koreans, the relationship of “100 percent perpetrator and 100 percent victim” is the premise, and therefore, when they speak of “friendship” or “cooperation,” it carries the meaning that “Japanese people must properly know their place as perpetrators.”
In other words, it means “serve the victims.”
Therefore, whether or not there is a need for Japan and South Korea to reconcile is a different level of issue, but believing that it can be done is too naive.
Personal exchange and dialogue between Japan and South Korea should certainly be promoted, but excessive expectations for their effects are forbidden.
That is just like leaving the mother body that continues laying alien eggs one after another in the rear, while defeating only the individual creatures attacking at the front.
For them truly to have an effect, the mother body, that is, anti-Japanese indoctrinating education of children, must first be defeated.
However, even though it is extremely mistaken, the education of that country is, after all, a domestic matter.
If it can be reformed, only Koreans can do it.
As for that possibility, I cannot say anything definite.
However, in the end, it is unscientific occultism that treats counterfeits as “legitimate.”
If the light of truth is shone upon it, falsehoods will gradually dissolve.
However, in one sense, that is equivalent to the “collapse of the national polity” of the Republic of Korea.
That is why the government fears the truth of history, in effect controls freedom of thought and speech, and even silences people.
From another point of view, that can also be taken as “desperate resistance.”
On the other hand, is the attitude Japan should take not clear?
First, Japan should demand that South Korea “rewrite its history textbooks in accordance with the facts.”
At this point, there is no such thing as leaving it simply as a domestic matter.
South Korea has until now implanted hatred and prejudice toward Japan in children, while at the political level pretending to be a friend and partner.
It can be said that in this way, through a double-personality type of diplomacy, it deceived Japan and used it skillfully.
Perhaps, inwardly, it was sticking out its tongue and thinking, “It is easy to fool the Japanese.”
However, from now on, the deceptive posture toward Japan of saying on the surface, “Japan and South Korea should cooperate with each other,” or “We do not really hate Japan,” while behind the scenes propagating in public education that Japan is a devil, will no longer work.
We will not fall for that trick anymore.
Koreans who do not face the truth of history have no future.
First, the root must be corrected.
Discussion begins after that.