Published on January 5, 2020. This article introduces Ruriko Kubota’s essay “The Gnashing of Teeth by Left-Wing Media,” published in the monthly magazine Sound Argument’s special feature on what Anti-Japan Tribalism exposed. It discusses how Anti-Japan Tribalism, edited and written by Lee Young-hoon, became a historic bestseller in both Japan and South Korea, and how Korean historians and comfort women support groups have still failed to refute its historical examination of Korea’s anti-Japanese historical view, the comfort women sex-slave theory, and the forced-labor conscription narrative. It also describes the tense press conference in Japan where Japanese left-wing media confronted Lee.

2020-01-05
Korean historical associations and comfort women support groups have still been unable to refute this book, which demolished Korea’s anti-Japanese historical view through historical verification.
The following is from an essay by Ruriko Kubota titled “The Gnashing of Teeth by Left-Wing Media,” published in the special feature “What Anti-Japan Tribalism Exposed” in the currently available monthly magazine Sound Argument.
This month’s issue of Sound Argument is also packed with essays that every Japanese citizen must read.
The Japanese people must go immediately to their nearest bookstore to buy it.
As for people throughout the world, I will inform them as much as possible, though my translations may be imperfect.
The book Anti-Japan Tribalism, edited and written by Lee Young-hoon, which declared that the root cause of the conflict in Japan-Korea relations lies in South Korea’s “politics built on lies,” became a historic bestseller, exceeding 500,000 copies in Japan and South Korea combined.
The Korean edition sold 120,000 copies, and the Japanese edition recorded 400,000 copies within one month of its release in the autumn of 2019.
Korean historical associations and comfort women support groups have still been unable to refute this book, which demolished Korea’s anti-Japanese historical view through historical verification.
Meanwhile, when Lee held a press conference in Japan in late November, Japan’s left-wing media pressed him with questions such as, “What do you think about Japan’s responsibility for colonial rule?”
It was the first such structure in which Japanese media, which had gone along with South Korea’s comfort women sex-slave theory and forced-labor conscription theory, confronted Korean intellectuals who had stood up to correct their own country’s anti-Japanese historical view.
A tense atmosphere ran through the venue.
The Offensive by Denialist Media
The venue was full of media people who had rushed in, and in the rear seats people were standing.
For about thirty minutes, Lee read aloud in Japanese, in a tone that seemed to savor each word, the prepared “Message to Japanese Readers” (see page 145).
Some nodded, while others listened with their eyes closed, and the sound of computer keyboards echoed through the hall.
The media who packed the room were divided between supporters and opponents of Anti-Japan Tribalism.
Almost all of those who stood up for the question-and-answer session were opponents, or skeptics, and the questions themselves were phrased provocatively, making Lee’s expression appear somewhat tense.
A reporter from the Shinano Mainichi Shimbun asked.
“There were parts of your analysis of Koreans’ anti-Japanese feelings that I found very convincing, but I felt that in this book there was only a brief description, or not much at all, regarding Japan’s responsibility for colonial rule.
How much responsibility does Japan bear for its colonial rule?
And what do you think should be the proper way of postwar settlement and of settling the issue of that rule?”
Lee calmly answered as follows.
“Through my long life as a researcher, I have thought a great deal about Japan and Korea from 1905 to 1910, that is, the process from the Second Japan-Korea Agreement to annexation.
The fall of the Korean Empire and the Japan-Korea Annexation were major changes that historically determined East Asia in the twentieth century.
Japan also subsequently entered imperialism.
Japan advanced onto the continent, and China became communist.
I believe that the fall of the Korean Empire was also a historical responsibility of Koreans.”
Regarding postwar settlement, he said, “There are various studies, so I do not feel any need for me to speak about it deliberately.
This book is, after all, a book of self-responsibility by Koreans and self-criticism by Koreans,” thereby cutting off the leading question that tried to draw out criticism of Japan and returning to the main subject.
The reporter from the Asahi Shimbun who stood up next pressed him with an ideology that was precisely Asahi-like.
First, he raised an objection, saying, “Leaving aside whether one uses the term anti-Japanism or not.”
Then he pressed on: “There are several problems with this book.
First is the issue of conscripted workers.
Legally, conscription was implemented from September 1944.
Before that, there were stages of recruitment and official mediation, and here in Anti-Japan Tribalism, there are statements saying that they could refuse or that they were not legally punished, but this does not reflect the reality at the time.
It simply means that this is what the law said, and there are many studies, such as those by Professor Tonomura of the University of Tokyo, Professor Masaru Tonomura of the University of Tokyo, on the forced-labor conscription theory, but if this is to be a refutation of them, then you should show a little more evidence.
There is none at all.
And then there is the part where it says that the conscripted workers did not live as slaves.
For example, it says they were free to play hanafuda cards, or that they could drink alcohol and go outside, but that was only a small part, and moreover no evidence at all is shown for that part.
I think this is a problem,” he pressed.
He declared that the essays in Anti-Japan Tribalism “have problems” and that “there is no evidence.”
Although the evidence is shown in those essays through notes such as references, it was a direct question that ignored this, but Lee answered it carefully.
“From 2005 to 2007, I interviewed nearly fifty people who had been laborers in Japan at the time.
Also, after this book came out, many people wrote, through the Syngman Rhee School website and through book reviews, that is, reviews on major Korean bookstore websites, about memories in their own family lines of relatives, fathers, or grandfathers who had gone to work as laborers in Japan.
When these accounts are gathered together and compared with the documents, I think that the claim that they worked as slaves is greatly exaggerated.
I feel that strong assertions by highly political groups have rewritten history.
I am also very familiar with the book by Mr. Tonomura of the University of Tokyo.
I think it is an excellent research book.
However, I believe it goes too far to treat recruitment and official mediation as forced transport.
That is a dangerous way of thinking that degrades Koreans into slaves.”