재일 동포

Defense Mechanism of Anti-Korean Sentiment

Japan's 'anti-Korean sentiment (嫌韓)' has a considerably long historical origin, and it does not stop at the level of evading war responsibility or the defensive psychology of the perpetrator. The people who should be most curious about their psychology and study it to learn from it are Koreans, but for some reason, Korea does not teach or learn about the developmental history of anti-Korean sentiment, so there are no scholars to respond to it. It is pathetic that South Koreans sometimes feel relieved by the abusive criticism of Japan from North Korea, or send unfounded cynicism. Even colonial historiography and the New Right are at the level of patching together and reusing Japanese research from institutions to the private sector, and there is no golden tower that has established its own framework of pro-government historiography. They don't even know that they should be ashamed of living like pigs and dogs of brainwashing and propaganda without anything.

The government has subtly hidden the history of colonialism as a matter of policy, and the private sector is only focused on the entrance exam education market, so they are not interested in the impact of the destruction of past traditional civilizations on humanity, or even the negative impact on Koreans themselves. Instead, self-deprecation, which takes for granted the reality that their own value has declined, has taken root. There is a lack of information and knowledge, and the level of media and news is low, making objectification difficult. Because they are conscious of Japan and the United States, news and articles that quote their standards are rampant. Due to the accumulated corruption of various powers that subtly hid the remnants of colonialism without removing pro-Japanese factions after liberation, even after several generations, there is no sense of ownership in the country. Overall, it seems to prove the human history that there is no example of a colonized, subjugated people successfully rebuilding.

Japan's ruling power is an extremely bizarre group that has sought internal development through attacks on the outside world, going through events such as the Imjin War and the Meiji Restoration. It took about 300 years of physical time from the Imjin War to the Meiji Restoration, and everyone is frightened by the fact that they have developed into a national form for invading others so persistently for hundreds of years, and that such national development in Japan once caused a war against the world. However, it is a success in its own way that the existence that instigated them from behind is hidden in the shadows.

Instead, it is a pity that Korea, the biggest victim of Japan, has not taken the lead and solved why this evil karma has continued. They have continuously upgraded their bad habit of trying to solve internal problems through external factors such as invasion of neighboring countries. If this part had been studied intensively, it would have been possible to pinpoint the background behind the formation of Japan and the reasons for Korea's defeat. Immediately after liberation, the US military politics and the pro-Japanese regime blocked these two things.

In this process, 'anti-Korean sentiment' has become a symbolic word for a very useful means of shifting blame by turning the internal problems of Japanese society outward, and is often used as an expression to arbitrarily denigrate Koreans. Like the Rising Sun Flag provocation of a war criminal nation, humiliation and shameful reality have continued in accordance with the codes of each era. But now, Japan has long been culturally behind Korea. Koreans may feel the pain of hungry poverty, but Japan is a country where culture is deeply ingrained. Looking back on history, the declining cultural pride of Japan is like a life more important than money. However, the public sentiment that does not even think about the fact that the rising cultural powerhouse Korea can be a threat to them, and still admires, fears, and dreads them, can never grasp the reality of Japan's national mechanism, and future predictions are also impossible. As a result, Koreans have been deprived of their past and have even joined in abandoning their own identity, so it is natural that the future is uncertain. Unless we overcome the politics that have suppressed the instinctive curiosity about the reality of this suppressed anxiety with politics, history will not reveal its traces.

Theorizing Anti-Korean Sentiment

Previously, it was stated that the main theoretical background of anti-Korean sentiment lies in the "Datsu-A Ron" (脫亞論) of Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤諭吉, 1835-1901), an enlightenment thinker who symbolizes the Meiji Restoration. The core of Datsu-A Ron is that the problem of Japan's civilization should not be found within themselves, but should start with severing ties with "foolish" neighboring countries such as Korea and China. Japanese imperialism interpreted civilization as enlightenment, not tradition. They thought that taking other people's traditions and making them their own would lead to enlightenment and a new world.

Looking at this argument coldly, we can see that the colonial hegemony of white people, advocated by Western Enlightenment, was passed on to Japan as it is, rationalizing the concentrated bombardment of specific ethnic groups. Whether it was a frame planted by the West in Japan or a frame that Japan digested on its own, it is clear that raising the issue of race led to a shift from the pre-modern class hierarchy.

Now, rather, the West, which was the origin of racial issues, is taking the lead in legally sanctioning racial discrimination, but in the past, ethnic cleansing was once the goal and reason for carrying out war. There must have been a good reason why the West instigated and supported racial issues, encouraging Japan to follow suit most enthusiastically, and Japan must have had a primitive sense of inferiority. It is basic common sense that Hitler's Nazism is based on racial superiority. This is because the history of that common sense becoming Japan's common sense and law provided the beginning of the Joseon genocide. There may be more people who do not connect Hitler-Nazi-Japanese Empire-Joseon geographically and humanistically, but there is evidence. On October 21, 1936, the Chosun Ilbo reported that Hitler was close enough to donate disaster relief funds to Joseon. Some argue that Hitler was a racist, but not a racial discriminator. Was it only Jews or Jewish communists that he hated?

The core of the Theory of 脱亜論 (Datsua-ron) is that 'in order for Japan to become stronger, it is more efficient to invade other countries and solve the immediate tasks at once, rather than solving and reforming internal problems on its own.' We can see a wrong spirit of the times that is thoroughly focused on other people's things and blaming others without looking back on one's own subject, and their base intentions of finding Japan's revival in '脱亞 (Datsua)' rather than '自強 (self-strengthening)' eventually became a decisive catalyst for triggering the war frenzy of the militarist group.

I am reminded of the Japanese leaders of the time who were delusional in thinking that Japan's madness would educate its people into warmongers and that madness would help dilute their identity or help solidify it. I wonder if a totalitarian regime was possible in Japan independently. We must also point out the distorted madness of Koreans who were colonized by a country that used madness in politics, but in any case, this kind of 'external blame shifting' of the Japanese does not work in modern times. In a world where politics is no longer conducted in secret and even wars are broadcast live, I think Japan's past only proves that it was just a clumsy wordplay in the chaos of modern politics.

Anti-Korean sentiment denies colonial rule

On October 30, 2018, the Korean Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation to pay 100 million won each, a total of 400 million won, in compensation to four victims of forced labor. In response, Japan argued that this ruling shook the foundation of the 1965 Korea-Japan Agreement and violated international law, and demanded that the Korean government correct it. The 1965 Korea-Japan Agreement was a large-scale demonstration and struggle that had already faced the anger of the people who opposed the signing and ratification of the treaty, with students leading the protests and struggles for several years, and citizens, intellectuals, and opposition parties participating, leading to the June 3rd Uprising in 1964 and the declaration of martial law in June 1964. It was a historical event that opposed the humiliating treaty contents without Japan's apology and compensation for colonial rule and denounced the Park Chung-hee regime's treacherous diplomacy, but it was also a representative example of the ignorant tyranny of the dictatorial regime that crushed the frustrated will of the people.

On October 1, 2019, the following year, Japan changed the company name of the problematic Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, or 신닛테쓰스미킨(新日鐵住金), to Nippon Steel Corporation, or 닛폰세이테쓰(日本製鐵), which was used during the era of Japanese imperialism. In other words, Japan complied with the 1965 treaty regarding compensation, while they regressed the company name to the Japanese colonial period. The president of Nippon Steel explained as follows: "In order to counter the rapid advancement of the Chinese steel industry and the global trend of protectionism, it is necessary to develop markets in emerging countries such as India," emphasizing, "By using the name 'Japan' again, we tried to express our intention to grow in the world." That's nonsense. The beginning of unequal treaties includes countless treaties such as the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity, or the Treaty of Ganghwa Island, and the Korea-U.S. Treaty of Amity and Commerce. This is the case when viewed briefly. Without knowing the true meaning of the unequal treaties of modern history, the inertia of petty, third-rate politicians like Park Chung-hee lowering the pride and self-esteem of their own people is the worst social sentiment.

On the other hand, the media and broadcasters uniformly touted the 2018 ruling as an encouraging example, assigning meaning only to the formal and pretentious ruling and glossing over it. However, the ruling left room for all forced laborers to sue, and 윤석열, the rightful successor who inherited this ruling that became an achievement of the Moon Jae-in administration at the time, went even further, taking advantage of the fact that the South Korean media was focusing on increasing public fatigue with historical issues, and mobilized an absurd and bizarre method called 'third-party reimbursement.' At the time, the total number of surviving victims was only 124, the number of those who remained after many had died. There were only four trial participants, but fearing that the remaining 120 would file lawsuits, they preemptively created a foundation and tried to 'shut them up.' They created a ghost-like organization called the Ilje Forced Mobilization Victims Support Foundation for elderly victims with impaired cognitive abilities, obtained 'backside confirmations,' and had them receive compensation, causing extreme stress to the victims. This incident is a continuous event, but the media and broadcasters covered it in a one-off manner, allowing it to be naturally forgotten over time.

The Yoon Suk-yeol government has created a Japan that is 'legally' free from 'past wrongdoings' by not placing political or economic burdens on Japan. In the meantime, the legal interest has increased to over 300 million won per person, and as of 2024, approximately 11 to 12 victims have already received compensation, with the majority still not having received it or waiting for payment. No government has yet raised the issue that this tedious ruling is tarnishing the pride of the Korean people and further degrading its value.

Doesn't it feel somewhat familiar? It's a similar formula to the idea that martial law was declared because of the Kim Keon-hee risk. To practice Yi Yi-jie, which involves covering up one crime with another, one must make a last stand, but Yoon Suk-yeol is politically inept. He was a prosecutor in Korea, a prosecutor general, and according to Na Kyung-won's book, Yoon Suk-yeol is a 'stock expert'. The country is rotten. It is not fate that Koreans have to continue a subservient life under a stupid person because of the most corrupt prosecution and media. Koreans have forgotten whether a sense of history even existed due to their lost history. The Korea-Japan Claims Agreement signed in 1965, which cut off the seeds of individual compensation obligations, and the Treaty of Ganghwa are also invalid. How long will we continue to be dragged around by these third-rate collaborators because we lack the historical knowledge to claim fundamental invalidity?

Every South Korean, even a three-year-old, knows that the Korean media and judiciary are long-standing corrupt groups obsessed with their own interests while insulting their own people. However, the weight of history that politics has failed to remove on its own, even after that three-year-old becomes thirty and passes sixty, overlooks the fact that Japan is trying to deny its colonial rule itself with anti-Korean sentiment as its slogan. We must be able to grasp the true meaning of the fact that Japan has consistently continued its national strategy of trying to solve its own problems through conflicts and confrontations with the outside world, such as the theory of Mimana Nihonfu, the theory of conquering Korea, and the theory of leaving Asia, as if they were plausible theories, as a historical lineage.

Colonial rule must be denied

The Japanese have condoned and defended the 'value of invasion' to this day, and are degenerating into a strange country where there is no way to erase the dark shadows of society caused by the outdated conscience of the war criminal state. In light of the changed sense of the times, Fukuzawa Yukichi is not an enlightened thinker for developmental modernity, but a government-sponsored propagandist who pointed out the roadmap for invasion, and his theory of leaving Asia was the greatest operation on earth that declared that the revival and civilization development of Meiji Japan was in the ambition of invading other countries, that is, advancing into the continent, and his symbolism was merely for accumulating justification as if to secure legitimacy for latent aggressive habits.

We tend to view anti-Korean sentiment from a narrow and biased perspective, simply as Japanese people disregarding and hating Korea. However, constantly creating tension with neighboring countries for the sake of one's own well-being, security, and development is logically unsound. The aggressive nature and blame-shifting attribute of trying to solve one's own problems through anti-Korean sentiment should not be regarded as merely an old habit. The essence of anti-Korean sentiment is one axis of denying the past era of invasion and distancing both Korea and Japan physically and emotionally through minor emotional conflicts among civilians.

It is a misguided assumption to lightly accept anti-Korean sentiment as a mere emotional deviation of some instigated citizens and to view it from a national security perspective. If we lightly accept and overlook Japan's anti-Korean sentiment as a mere emotional deviation of some instigated citizens, we must be able to clearly see that being seized by a vague sense of unease that it could one day become a third 'invasion of Joseon' will prevent us from approaching the true essence of colonialism.

However, in reality, the attitude of Koreans towards Japan is mainly dominated by the emotional element of anti-Japanese sentiment. When Japan not only fails to apologize for its past colonial rule but rather presents the theory of colonial modernization and shows a brazen historical perception, the anti-Japanese sentiment of many Koreans explodes. When feelings of anger explode, you can't see what you really need to see. Ironically, the colonial view of history of the New Right, which advocates the theory of colonial modernization, is the claim of Koreans. The fact that Koreans are the leading figures in charge of brainwashing and information control of Koreans is a chronic political numbness that is a hindrance to social division and, furthermore, national development. It is a structure in which parasites operating in division and self-deprecation overcome heterogeneity and are diluted in homogeneity.

The evidence is that although anti-Japanese sentiment is quite strong, Korean anti-Japanese sentiment does not include blatant discrimination, contempt, or curses against other ethnic groups, such as Japan's anti-Korean sentiment. Rather, Koreans' attitude toward Japan is contradictory. While showing irrational attitudes toward Japan with blatant anti-Japanese sentiment, they actually enjoy Japanese culture and have almost no 'rejection of anti-Japanese sentiment' about using 'Japanese products,' and rather, some people say that they should learn from their sincerity and diligence. In this way, Japan is a kind of 'gray area' where love and hate intersect for Koreans, and it is by no means a red zone dominated only by unilateral hatred and cursed anti-Japanese sentiment. This is because there is an internal homogeneity and biological homogeneity. What's scary about colonialism is that you have to take a cold look at the contradictions of real life, human, and all too human existence of laying and raising the child of a rapist.

Right here lies the difference between anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and anti-Korean sentiment in Japan. Koreans approach Japan with a naive and innocent perspective, but the Japanese do not. In fact, it is nearly impossible for the citizens of one country (Japan) to consistently maintain hatred and animosity towards the people of a neighboring country (Korea) without a clear reason, and this fact has a very mysterious aspect. The constant development of hate theories through *Seikanron* and *Datsu-A Ron*, and the deeply rooted spread of anti-Korean sentiment, is a kind of curse and 'ill will' that is far more persistent and terrifyingly obsessive than Korean anti-Japanese sentiment. Why have the Japanese historically harbored such hatred and animosity specifically towards Korea?

The following answer can be suggested here. It is a way to interpret *Datsu-A Ron*, a spiritual superiority that has historically accumulated a sense of superiority over Asia since the past, that is, the idea of ​​'leaving Asia and entering Europe (脫亞入歐)' literally. It should be noted that literally leaving Asia geographically and incorporating into Europe means securing and proving racial superiority. Japan, a pirate nation that started with *Wokou*, has followed the same path as Western European maritime empires and their transformations. Although we cannot belittle Western European developed countries, in the past they were descendants of pirates who plundered at sea. Japan's *Datsu-A Ron*, which wants to share homogeneity with them, is not an ideology, but a geographical point of contention, and anti-Korean sentiment is a highly sophisticated brainwashing that hides the history of geographical movement and avoids the core with emotional responses.

In other words, anti-Korean sentiment is a defense mechanism that dilutes historical distortion. How have we, as a colonized people, been conditioned to this? It is the historical cognitive dissonance proven by our lives, who are the targets of anti-Korean sentiment, falling into self-deprecation. The driving force is religion. We are denying the history of national ruin, crushed under the wheel of history that has evolved and developed to the point where we undermine our own spirituality and cannibalize ourselves.