Published on April 17, 2019.
This piece examines how anti-Japanese education has penetrated South Korean society and state institutions through the demand that Japan refrain from using the naval ensign at an international fleet review and through judicial rulings that upheld the confiscation of property from the descendants of so-called “pro-Japanese” figures.
It highlights South Korea’s breach of international courtesy, retroactive confiscation in disregard of constitutional principles, and discriminatory treatment of Japan, arguing that these actions gravely wounded the pride of the Japanese people.

2019-04-17
This was brought about by the paranoid fear toward Japan on the Korean side, produced by anti-Japanese education, and by this the pride of the Japanese people was gravely wounded.
What follows concerns the fact that Korea and China themselves are the ones carrying out racial discrimination against Japan….
They do so with state budgets….
South Korea spends 2 billion yen every year….
China must be spending astronomical sums….
Given the more than 100 trillion yen they extracted from Japan….
They are surely pouring funds without limit into sympathizers and organizations all over the world….
And yet, exactly as Saicho said….
People who had continued to live in one corner of society as treasures….
Rose at last, at their own expense, for the sake of Japan and the Japanese people….
And caused the facts to be posted on the official website of a United Nations committee….
This is precisely the work of people truly worthy of the Nobel Prize.
It is the continuation of their labor.
3-1-3.
Coercing Japan not to use the naval ensign.
In September 2018, the South Korean government asked Japan not to use the Japanese naval ensign, to which the U.S. Navy and the navies of other countries pay respect, at the international fleet review to be held in South Korea.
Fleet reviews had also been held in South Korea in 1998 and 2008, but at those times no such request had been made.
After that, as anti-Japanese sentiment intensified due to anti-Japanese education, a trend spread of misunderstanding the naval ensign as “a symbol of militarism.”
Yielding to such anti-Japanese public opinion, the South Korean government asked Japan to refrain from raising the naval ensign, but this was an extremely rude demand, utterly lacking in international courtesy.
The naval ensign is required to be raised under Japanese law, including the Self-Defense Forces Act, and under international law it also corresponds to an “external mark” indicating that a vessel belongs to the armed forces of a state.
Furthermore, the naval ensign is a source of pride for members of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and even the United States Navy, which fought against Japan in the Second World War, pays it respect.
Faced with South Korea’s extremely uncomprehending and unreasonable demand, Japan had no choice but to cancel the dispatch of its naval vessels to the fleet review.
While South Korea requested the participating countries to raise only their national flags and the South Korean flag, at the fleet review on October 11, the South Korean naval vessel carrying President Moon Jae-in raised an “anti-Japan flag.”
The navies of the participating countries, meanwhile, rejected South Korea’s demand and paraded with their own naval ensigns raised.
This incident was brought about by the paranoid fear toward Japan on the Korean side, produced by anti-Japanese education, and by this the pride of the Japanese people was gravely wounded.
3-2.
Examples of anti-Japan conduct by the South Korean judiciary.
3-2-1.
Ruled constitutional the confiscation of assets from the descendants of “pro-Japanese collaborators.”
In South Korea, the “Special Act on the Inspection of Collaborations for Japanese Imperialism” was promulgated on March 22, 2004, and based on this law, the “Committee for the Inspection of Properties of Pro-Japanese and Anti-National Collaborators” was established as a state body under the president.
That committee listed 168 persons deemed to have cooperated with Japan during the period of annexation, and decided to confiscate inherited property including land worth 210.6 billion won from 168 descendants of those listed, on the grounds that their ancestors had “acquired it through pro-Japanese acts,” and to vest it in the state.
This special law is a retroactive law of a kind impossible in a modern state, and it also violates Article 13 of the South Korean Constitution, which states as follows.
Paragraph 2: No citizen shall be deprived of property or restricted in political rights through retroactive legislation.
Paragraph 3: No citizen shall receive disadvantageous treatment due to the acts of relatives rather than his or her own acts.
And yet, on August 4, 2013, the Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled that “it is constitutional to make property granted to persons who received titles from Japan subject to confiscation.”
If the other party is Japan, even the Constitutional Court ignores constitutional provisions, accepts retroactive laws, and declares it “constitutional” for property to be confiscated because of the acts of one’s ancestors.
This is a discriminatory judicial ruling clearly directed only at Japan and pandering to anti-Japanese public opinion.