Published on January 5, 2020. Continuing Ruriko Kubota’s essay “The Gnashing of Teeth by Left-Wing Media” from the monthly magazine Sound Argument, this article introduces questions asked at Lee Young-hoon’s press conference in Japan by the Sankei Shimbun, Kyodo News, and others. It discusses the forced-labor compensation ruling, the Rising Sun Flag issue, the anti-Japanese origins of the Moon Jae-in administration and its ruling Democratic Party of Korea, and the party platform’s reference to the March First Independence Movement, while criticizing the low level of Japanese media and its lack of understanding of free speech.

2020-01-05
It was truly a question that lacked any respect for the author.
It seemed to expose the low level of the Japanese media in the sense that they have no understanding of “free speech activities,” and I felt ashamed.
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
Explaining the Moon Administration through the Ruling Party Platform
Meanwhile, a Sankei Shimbun reporter asked for his view on the ongoing Japan-Korea issue concerning the forced-labor compensation ruling.
“In the book, regarding the written judgment of the Supreme Court ruling that caused the deterioration of Japan-Korea relations, you write, ‘The factual relationship here is false.
There is no way to verify it,’” the reporter began.
The Supreme Court ruling was a lawsuit in which four plaintiffs who had worked at the former Nippon Steel during the period of Japanese rule sought consolation money, and it ordered the payment of about ten million yen per person in consolation money based on the plaintiffs’ basic factual claim that “their monthly wages were forcibly saved and the dormitory supervisor did not return their wages.”
However, in the book, Lee points out, “This factual relationship has not been proven.
The dormitory supervisor was not even investigated.
Therefore, the plaintiffs’ claim does not stand.”
The reporter continued, asking, “Please tell us once again your opinion of the Supreme Court ruling,” and “Korean public opinion also claims that the Rising Sun Flag should not be brought into the Tokyo Olympics.
Is this also tribalism?”
Lee’s answer referred to the essence of the Moon administration.
“The ruling of last October certainly worsened Japan-Korea relations over the past year.
This was a ruling derived from the strongly anti-Japanese response of the Moon Jae-in administration,” he said, and then added, “Let me introduce the platform of South Korea’s ruling party, the Democratic Party of Korea.
The party platform states, ‘We inherit the anti-Japanese spirit of the March First Independence Movement.’
The people who make up the current Moon administration and ruling party are people who have been trained in an anti-Japanese spirit since childhood.”
Some explanation of this answer is needed.
The “anti-Japanese spirit of the March First Independence Movement” in the party platform refers to the largest anti-Japanese movement during the period of Japanese rule, from 1910 to 1945, which occurred on March 1, 1919, and began when religious leaders issued a “Declaration of Independence” and gave three cheers of “manse” at Tapgol Park in central Seoul, today’s Pagoda Park.
At the “Declaration of Independence,” several thousand people suddenly gathered, Seoul fell into a state of disturbance, and anti-Japanese demonstrations spread throughout the country.
Some who became rioters attacked government offices, police stations, and schools.
The struggle between the disturbances and their suppression continued for about two months, and because the Japanese side mobilized the military and police to suppress them, many bloody incidents occurred.
Afterward, Japan prosecuted 6,500 people and convicted about 4,000, but the Japanese government did not impose extreme punishments such as the death penalty.
To escape arrest, activists and nationalists such as Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu fled to China, gathered in Shanghai, and called themselves the “Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.”
The Moon administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea regard the provisional government that fled to Shanghai as their own roots, and view negatively the founding of today’s South Korea, the Republic of Korea, on August 15, 1948, after Japan’s defeat and the U.S. military occupation, as “something created by pro-Japanese collaborators and the United States.”
Lee Young-hoon explained the origins of the Moon administration by introducing the platform of the ruling party.
The Moon administration, which proclaims the anti-Japanese spirit of March 1, 1919, as the legitimacy of the nation’s founding, is made up of biased people who decide that all Korean laborers who worked at Japanese companies during the period of Japanese rule were “conscripted workers” subjected to “forced labor,” and who stand on the value judgment that comfort women were “sex slaves” whose sexuality was plundered.
The Moon administration, which ideologically denies the modern Republic of Korea, sees the 1965 normalization of Japan-Korea diplomatic relations and the Japan-Korea Claims Agreement, which have served as the foundation of Japan-Korea relations, as “mistaken history created by pro-Japanese collaborators.”
In other words, they are “people who have been trained in an anti-Japanese spirit since childhood.”
Lee continued.
“That is why the forced-labor compensation ruling of October 2018 emerged from such a background.
The reaction to the Rising Sun Flag was also produced by the strong anti-Japanese feelings of the ruling party of the Moon administration.
In South Korea, from the 1950s through the 1990s, such anti-Japanese feelings did not exist.
I would be pleased if you could understand that the strong anti-Japanese feelings that surged up after the 1990s are what now move Korean politics.”
As the discussion extended to the content of the book and the background of the Moon administration, it seemed that the confrontational mood in the venue had dissolved, but then another biased question came out.
A reporter from Kyodo News asked, somewhat provocatively, as follows.
“What kind of readers did you have in mind when you wrote this book?
What kind of readers in Korea, and what kind of readers for the Japanese edition?
Even if you tell the layer of people who support the current Moon administration that they are liars, you cannot persuade them, can you?
Is this an argument that persuades the enemy, or is it not?
In the end, I find myself thinking that perhaps you wrote it for your own allies…” and then asked, “For Japan, what kind of readers are you writing for?
At present, it has been taken up by conservative media, but if that is all, I do not think it will spread as discourse.
What kind of readers, whom are you trying to persuade?”
It was truly a question that lacked any respect for the author.
It seemed to expose the low level of the Japanese media in the sense that they have no understanding of “free speech activities,” and I felt ashamed.
Lee, who understands Japanese, must have immediately grasped the meaning of the question, but he listened again through the interpreter and began speaking as if nothing had happened.
“As for what kind of readers or audience Anti-Japan Tribalism was aimed at, honestly speaking, I have never thought about it in that way.
It was written for Koreans as a whole.
What I did was point out where the problems lie in the historical view that Koreans know.
My starting point was that I wanted them to read about the root of that disease.
According to analyses by Korean bookstores, many of the people buying the book are in their thirties.
In Korea, people in their thirties and forties have received anti-Japanese education and have stronger anti-Japanese feelings than people in their fifties and sixties.
I see history as progressing at a slow speed.
I have also never thought about the readership in Japan.”
This article continues.