The author delivers a sharp critique of Kang Sang-jung’s writings in AERA, arguing that he refuses to confront the realities of Korean history. Unlike Park Chung-hee, who recognized Korea’s poverty, drew economic and technical aid from Japan, and lifted his nation, Kang hides the truth, misleading Japan’s discourse and policies. The essay highlights anti-Japanese education, South Korea’s currency manipulation, America’s failure to declare Japan’s war responsibility, and Umesao Tadao’s warning about “bottomless evil,” portraying Korea’s distorted system and the duty of scholars.

A critical essay sparked by a column by Kang Sang-jung, examining South Korea’s historical perspective and its policy towards Japan. The author praises former President Park Chung-hee as a “savior politician” while accusing Kang of failing to face the historical realities of Korea (the tyranny of the yangban, a history as a vassal state of China). The text also touches on the U.S.’s responsibility for not declaring the end of Japan’s war responsibility, and condemns the anti-Japanese education in Korea and China as “fascism with the mental age of 12.”

2013/1/28

As you know, I subscribe to the weekly magazine Aera. Currently, Kang Sang-jung writes a regular column for this magazine. Yesterday, I read this week’s column.

There’s something I’ve felt about him for some time. It’s that he hasn’t faced South Korea’s history squarely. It’s not limited to history; I’ve never heard him talk about the extremely arbitrary weak-yen policy that the South Korean government has pursued for the past decade.

On the other hand, Park Chung-hee faced South Korea’s history squarely. That’s why he was able to save the country.

As readers know, I’ve been visiting Kyoto and Shiga repeatedly for some years for a reason. In this process, I came to know, on a visceral level, the history of Korea after the Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla dynasties—a history that had disappeared from world history because for over 1,000 years, it existed as a country of barren mountains, of the tyranny of the yangban, and as a vassal state of China. This feeling was completely confirmed last year when President Lee Myung-bak made his landing on Takeshima (Dokdo). I thought, “What on earth is this situation?” and studied Korea intensively for the first time.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Park Chung-hee was the first true statesman in Korean history to save his country. He knew, without fail, the history of Korea from his background as the son of an extremely poor farmer. He knew, without fail, where Korea’s poverty came from. Because he knew true poverty, he was able to face it squarely.

The poverty of South Korea wasn’t created overnight. It was the result of over 1,000 years as a Chinese vassal state since the Silla dynasty, the rampant class system known as the yangban that resulted from it, and the barren mountains as a symbol of that poverty. That’s why he made his choice.

He believed there was no other way for Korea to develop than to draw out economic and technological aid from Japan. He concluded the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea and secured an enormous amount of economic aid from Japan. Not only that, he skillfully used the sentiments of the Japanese people to also get technical assistance for Korean companies.

Some might view him as a dictator, but it is a historical fact that he was a far more respectable person than the dictators who preceded him. It is also a historical fact that he was the only one among all of Korea’s successive presidents who did not engage in corruption or illicit enrichment.

Because he was a politician who faced South Korea’s history squarely, he was able to save the country. Kang Sang-jung doesn’t face South Korea’s history squarely, so he cannot save the country.

Not only that, by covering up the truth about Korea, he is leading Japanese public opinion and policy astray. There is no doubt that his words and actions have been aimed at shrinking Japan and diverting Japanese media criticism away from the weak-currency policy that Korea has pursued.

The state of not facing Korea’s history, as exemplified by him, keeps Korea a distorted nation. The anti-Japanese education that Korea continues, a fascism with the mental age of 12, is an act against world peace. The same, of course, goes for China.

That’s why, even 68 years after the war, despite establishing diplomatic relations with Japan when their countries were in extreme poverty and obtaining enormous economic and technological aid from Japan, which led to a great economic leap forward, they still—like a regular event in Korea—stir up anti-Japanese sentiment whenever a sitting president’s relatives are caught in corruption or illicit enrichment, causing the administration to become a lame duck. Moreover, this is by no means limited to within their own country.

Many U.S. citizens, whose country did not declare that Japan had fulfilled its war responsibility, also have a national character of only being interested in what’s in their own backyard. In other words, they take advantage of this to let the Korean Americans fully express the fascism with the mental age of 12 that they received through anti-Japanese education. They persistently attack Japan using local U.S. councils and the media. While they don’t deal with the comfort women who have filed lawsuits against the U.S. and Korean military forces, they have launched a massive propaganda campaign in Korea and the U.S. for those who have filed lawsuits against the Japanese military.

Why has this been repeated? America, it is your responsibility.

This is something no one but me has pointed out. Japan has fulfilled its war responsibility. By having nearly all its cities burned down by incendiary bombs, with about 3.6 million people killed, and finally having atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 400,000 people in an instant, Japan fulfilled its war responsibility for being on the losing side in the century of war.

Because the U.S. did not declare this to the world, South Korea and China, who are still continuing the fascism with the mental age of 12 known as anti-Japanese education, bring up historical recognition whenever it suits their government’s convenience. With a mind with the mental age of 12 that lacks even a shred of imagination for the atomic bomb, they continue to impose the logic of a 12-year-old, which is nothing more than a convenience for their own regimes.

Tadao Umesao, one of Japan’s greatest minds, once said after field-working almost all of China’s provinces: “It is a country of unfathomable evil, a country of plausible lies.”

Kang Sang-jung’s claim that there are no local intellectuals and craftsmanship in Korea because the land was scorched by the Korean War, whereas Japan retained its traditions because it avoided a final battle on its home soil, is a complete lie, the exact opposite of reality. At the end of the war, 127 Japanese cities were leveled by incendiary bombs, a weapon that violates humanitarian principles. It goes without saying that the final blow was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Kang Sang-jung, no matter how much you love Korea, it doesn’t make it right to distort history. Korea was not only a Chinese vassal state for over 1,000 years, but it was also the world’s poorest country as a result of a ridiculous class system like the yangban that continued to trample on the land and its people.

Japanese samurai, not just in the Edo period you mentioned, did not continue to thoroughly exploit the land and its people. On the contrary, Japan, which was actually a collection of over 300 different domains, had each of its lords strive for the prosperity of the people and the nation, devoting their hearts to developing their respective domains through things like flood control, afforestation, and agricultural land development. It’s no exaggeration to say that this was the essence of Bushido.

It is a historical fact that your home country, Korea, was the complete opposite—a country where the yangban continued to trample on the land and its people. I believe it is extremely unbecoming for an academic like yourself, who has been appointed a professor at the University of Tokyo, not to face your own country’s history squarely. The more people like you fail to face it, the more Korea will never be able to become a country like Japan.

In other words, it would never happen in Korea in 200 years that a Japanese person would become a professor at Seoul University, talk about the Korean government’s policies, or appear in the media to shape Korean public opinion, as you do. Or, for a Japanese person to act like Masayoshi Son and become Japan’s richest person… The day will never come in 200 years that a Japanese person (or perhaps anyone else) would become Korea’s richest person while inflicting significant damage on Korea. It will likely never come.

It goes without saying that this is the result of their fascism education with the mental age of 12. It is also a historical truth that such a distorted country cannot continue to exist without divine retribution. Being a distorted country—that is the divine retribution.