Based on the arguments presented by Lee Young-hoon and others in Anti-Japanese Tribalism, this article discusses the Takeshima issue, wartime labor, the comfort women issue, and the deeply rooted anti-Japanese hostility within Korean society.
It argues that only the wisdom of Koreans themselves can prevent the ruin of Korea, and that Japan must watch this struggle as a matter tied to its own destiny.

November 15, 2019.
Frankly speaking, there is not a single piece of evidence that the Korean government can present to the international community to prove that Dokdo has historically been Korea’s inherent territory.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
On Takeshima.
Regarding the issue of Korean wartime laborers, Lee Woo-yeon of the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research has proven that the treatment of Japanese and Koreans was exactly the same, and regarding Takeshima, he clearly states, “Frankly speaking, there is not a single piece of evidence that the Korean government can present to the international community to prove that Dokdo has historically been Korea’s inherent territory.”
Lee Young-hoon wrote that such observations may be unpleasant for Koreans, but that “as one intellectual,” he cannot avoid pointing them out.
I think he is truly an admirable person.
These contents may make Japanese people breathe a sigh of relief, but Mr. Lee also wrote roughly as follows.
“Ordinary Koreans do not have good feelings toward Japan. They have unpleasant, or hostile, feelings. These have been handed down through a long history, and I believe they may have begun at the end of the seventh century, when Silla unified the Three Kingdoms.”
In 663, Japan sent troops to assist in the restoration of Baekje, fought the Tang-Silla allied forces at the Battle of Baekgang, and was defeated.
After that, our country strengthened its defenses in preparation for an invasion by the Tang-Silla allied forces and deepened its spirit as an independent nation.
Mr. Lee points out that, from that time onward, for more than a thousand years, Japan and Korea remained distant countries despite being extremely close to each other, and that Korean displeasure and hostility toward Japan go back to that era.
Mr. Lee also warns that Japan is Korea’s mortal enemy and the object against which tribalism erupts.
Anti-Japanese Tribalism also cuts deeply into the comfort women issue, which drove Japan-Korea relations down to their worst level.
It describes in detail how, after Japan’s defeat in the war, the comfort women issue became a problem involving the Korean military and the U.S. military, and how the circumstances of the women worsened further.
Mr. Lee and his coauthors wrote these facts under a “premonition of national ruin.”
Only the wisdom of Koreans can stop the ruin of Korea.
I am watching this struggle while thinking of Japan’s own destiny.