Published on October 13, 2019.
This article introduces a review by Nagae Kiyoshi in the monthly magazine WiLL of Matsumoto Koji’s The Origin of Korean “Anti-Japaneseism.”
It critically examines the views of Korea held by Yamazaki Masakazu, Shiba Ryotaro, and Okazaki Hisahiko, while discussing the realities of the Japan-Korea annexation period, the Soshi-kaimei name system, Korean anti-Japanese education, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, Kim Gu, and remarks by figures such as Ham Sok-hon.

October 13, 2019.
It also records many remarks by Ham Sok-hon, the “Gandhi of Korea,” and others, but its basic theme is: “It was not that there were pro-Japanese Koreans; they were Japanese.”
The following is from a book review published in the monthly magazine WiLL’s review column, Nagae Kiyoshi’s “This One Book of the Month,” under the title The Origin of Korean “Anti-Japaneseism” by Matsumoto Koji.
Yamazaki Masakazu, who received the Order of Culture last year for his contributions to culture over half a century, argues that although Japan did not produce a Hitler or Nazis in the last war, the entire nation cooperated in the war, and therefore the whole nation has no choice but to keep apologizing to the victimized countries, especially Korea, where Japan “annexed the state, stole the national language, and even forced changes of names,” as he wrote in the November 2013 issue of Ushio.
There is also Shiba Ryotaro, another recipient of the Order of Culture.
In the overseas section of his grand travelogue Kaido wo Yuku, serialized in Shukan Asahi, the first country he chose was Korea.
When a Korean woman asked him what he wanted, he answered, “To a farming village where I can feel the mood of ancient times when our languages were mutually understood,” but he wrote that what he really wanted to say was, “I am going to the land of my ancestors.”
Like Kim Dal-su, whom he deeply respected, he regarded Japan and Korea as descendants of the same horse-riding people.
There is also Okazaki Hisahiko, former ambassador to Thailand, whom Prime Minister Abe regarded as a model teacher.
After serving in Seoul, he wrote What I Thought in a Neighboring Country, in which he praised Korean resistance before and after annexation as “one of the fiercest among colonized peoples,” and felt ashamed of Soshi-kaimei as a “folly” on the level of “erasing a people” or “American slavery.”
This book rejects all of those views.
For its proof, it uses about 1,000 documents, of which 240 are untranslated Korean, Chinese, and English sources.
Documents that could not fit into the main text are placed in more than 870 notes, amounting to 112 pages in small type.
It is a major work that one can only ask readers to read, but if I were to summarize it roughly, it could perhaps be paraphrased as follows:
Annexation penetrated ideally through moderate Japanese rule and the cooperation of Korean residents, but precisely because of that, the residents lost the place where their hearts could rest after Japan’s defeat.
For the rulers, in order to rebuild Korea, it became necessary to recast the people’s central spiritual pillar, and through false history education, to clothe them in “anti-Japaneseism.”
After all, it is said that conversations at private banquets among the national leadership were conducted in Japanese.
Korean textbooks describe Japan during the annexation period as “so wicked that no parallel can be found in world history.”
And today, “the entire people continued to fight” is the common national understanding.
The counterevidence is the scene of the homecoming press conference of Kim Gu, president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, after returning from Shanghai.
When asked how collaborators with Japan should be treated, he answered, “Every single Korean was a collaborator with Japan.
Everyone should go to prison.”
France executed 10,000 collaborators with Germany, and Italy executed 15,000.
In Korea, not a single person was executed.
On the contrary, the book cites personnel records showing that leaders in every field, beginning with the heads of the three branches of government, were people who had been active during the annexation period.
It also records many remarks by Ham Sok-hon, the “Gandhi of Korea,” and others, but its basic theme is: “It was not that there were pro-Japanese Koreans; they were Japanese.”
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea declares in its preamble that it “inherits the legal tradition” of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, but that government was never trusted by its compatriots.
This book also explains in detail the meaning of Soshi-kaimei, the circumstances of its introduction, and the reactions to it.
In Korea, there was a “surname” indicating patrilineal bloodline, but there was no “uji,” meaning a family designation, so a new “uji” was established in order to create a family register.
Lim Jong-guk, who devoted his life to investigating the records of pro-Japanese figures, wrote that “people competed with one another to create uji.”
In addition to their original “surnames,” being able to have a mainland-Japanese-style “uji” was “not a bad thing.”
Because it was permissible to use one’s “surname” as one’s “uji,” several million people did so.
More people did not change the “given names” they had received from their parents, such as “Dae-u” and “Gyeong-ryeol.”
The author is a former career official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, who worked at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in the mid-1980s.
Since then, he must have spent, probably, over 100,000 hours searching widely for materials inside and outside Japan, reading them closely, and compiling this book.
Because of my work, I too have read many books on Korea and the Korean Peninsula, but this one stimulated me.
This is the first book for which rebuttals and objections are so eagerly awaited.
Gratitude.