Published on November 10, 2019. This is a continuation of Edward Luttwak’s essay “South Korea, Learn the Truth of History: The Four Choices for the Korean Peninsula,” published in the monthly magazine Hanada’s special feature “Moon Jae-in’s Total Collapse.” The essay compares Sweden’s wartime cooperation with Germany, its postwar anti-German sentiment, and Korean anti-Japanese psychology, arguing that the Korean problem is not a diplomatic issue but a psychological problem within Koreans themselves.

November 10, 2019.
In the face of the humanitarian crisis during the Second World War, they did nothing.
They merely watched the course of the war and ate bread elegantly.
And they did not merely stand by and watch the situation; they sold an enormous amount of iron ore to Germany.
The following is a continuation of Edward Luttwak’s essay, “South Korea, Learn the Truth of History.
The Four Choices for the Korean Peninsula,” which opens the special feature titled “Moon Jae-in’s Total Collapse” in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine Hanada.
Swedish hypocrisy.
Another example is Sweden.
During the Second World War, this country did not change its position as a passive onlooker toward the inhuman acts Germany was carrying out throughout Europe.
Swedes like to make themselves appear as if they are the greatest and most humanitarian people in the world.
A recent example is the high school girl named Greta Thunberg, who attracted attention with her speech at the United Nations global warming summit.
They always preach humanitarianism to the world and insist that we save humanity and save the earth.
However, in the face of the humanitarian crisis during the Second World War, they did nothing.
They merely watched the course of the war and ate bread elegantly.
And they did not merely stand by and watch the situation; they sold an enormous amount of iron ore to Germany.
The Nazis turned it into steel, and then into guns and tanks.
Sweden, supposedly the most humanitarian country, was supplying the materials for German weapons.
Furthermore, when the Germans occupied Norway, the Scandinavian brother country of Sweden, Sweden did not help at all and left it to die.
That was not all.
Afterward, Sweden allowed German troops heading to occupied Norway to use railways crossing its own territory and let them pass through the country with ease.
They betrayed Norway and cooperated with Germany in transporting troops.
After the war, by around 1953, for example, many countries in Europe had already forgiven Germany, but Sweden, like the Netherlands, maintained an extremely strong anti-German sentiment.
During the war, they had been cowards like the Dutch and had cooperated with the Nazis.
Postwar Sweden has preached morality to the world, but their actual conduct during the war was extremely immoral.
It is paradoxical, but that is precisely why they want to stand on moral high ground.
Among Swedish companies and business leaders, there were many who became extremely wealthy during the war by selling vast quantities of goods and resources to Germany.
It is well known that much of the Nazi gold ultimately went to Sweden.
Precisely because they had actively cooperated with Germany, they turned after the war into fierce anti-German sentiment.
The same thing applies to Koreans.
At first glance, South Korea’s behavior contains things that are difficult to understand.
However, when one compares it carefully, one understands that its essence is the same as the attitude of European countries toward Germany.
It is precisely the countries that were cooperative with Germany during the war that truly come to take an anti-German attitude.
Swedes claim that they themselves are the guardians of world humanitarianism and that all other countries are greedy people pursuing their own self-interest.
Precisely because they actively cooperated with Germany until the end of the war, after the war they came to go around condemning Germany by saying, “Germany is a terrible country!”
The Dutch also cooperated with Germany like servants, and therefore after the war they turned to “No Germans Allowed.”
The anti-Japanese psychology of Koreans.
In the same structure, the problem South Korea bears also originates in the inner world of Koreans.
In other words, it is a matter of the relationship between sons born after the war and their fathers and grandfathers, and it is not a problem that can be solved by diplomacy or bilateral negotiations.
In other words, this is a psychological problem.
They are single-mindedly trying to hide and forget the slavish attitude of their grandfathers’ generation, which is a source of shame to them.
Here lies the root of a new problem.
Today’s South Korea is trying to switch the object of its subordination and become a servant of China, and there a strategic problem emerges.
That is because it means that South Korea cannot participate in the anti-China containment alliance led by the United States.
This alliance is a strategic framework in the Indo-Pacific region made up of Japan, Australia, India, and Vietnam.
In the new alliance relationship that the United States is working to build, South Korea’s position closely resembles that of Cambodia in ASEAN.
ASEAN has the meaning of Southeast Asian countries uniting to counter China’s influence, but because Cambodia is China’s servant, it acts to weaken that unity.
Cambodia, loyal to China, will certainly move to reject any rational political statement by ASEAN as a whole if it detects the slightest scent of anti-China sentiment in it.
The European history from sixty years ago introduced here offers two lessons for the current situation in South Korea.
First, Japan-South Korea relations are not a diplomatic issue.
Japan has tried every effort to improve relations, but the essence of the problem is not between Japan and South Korea.
It is the generation gap among Koreans, that is, the problem lying between the current generation and their fathers and grandfathers.
It is a backlash against the fact that their ancestors acted as cowards during the period of Japanese rule.
Second, and this is extremely regrettable, it has become clear that South Korea will no longer return to the relationship it once had with the United States and Japan.
They have no will to resist China and are becoming one-sidedly subordinate to it.
If South Korea withdraws from its alliance relationship with the United States and Japan, the negative strategic impact will be great.
This article continues.