100 years after Japan's annexation of Korea

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

100 years after Japan's annexation of Korea

The coming August 29 marks the centennial anniversary of the annexation of Korea by Japan. Many Japanese and Koreans are now taking part in various activities towards achieving friendship and reconciliation.

Historians in Japan and South Korea in May issued a joint statement signed by 214 intellectuals, claiming that the 1910 treaty on the colonization of the Korean Peninsula had no legal grounds. It demands that the Japanese government retract its interpretation of considering this treaty as valid and agree to share a common perspective on this history with the Korean government.

It has been more than 60 years since outright Japanese imperialism collapsed after causing enormous damage and suffering in the Asia Pacific region. Yet, the Japanese government has not come to a full settlement in regard to its war of aggression and colonial rule over Korea. Taking the centenary as an opportunity to make amends, Japan should honestly admit the brutal nature of the annexation of Korea and fully apologize for what it had done in Korea.

The Democratic Party of Japan last summer replaced the past postwar governments led by the Liberal Democratic Party. However, the present DPJ government has no intention to reconsider the conventional view on Japan's colonial rule. Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya at a news conference in May expressed that both governments in the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea had confirmed that treaties concluded before August 1910 were all void. Okada also stated that the Japanese government is unwilling to make any changes in its interpretation that the 1910 Annexation Treaty was valid.

Successive LDP governments consistently argued that the Annexation Treaty had been concluded in a lawful manner. In November 1965, the late Sato Eisaku, the prime minister at that time justified Japan's colonial rule over Korea by stating that the Annexation Treaty "was concluded in accordance with the free will of both sides and on an equal footing." Sato's interpretation of the Treaty had been asserted as the government official interpretation until former Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi in 1995 modified Sato's statement.

Murayama at an Upper House committee meeting on October 17, 1995 said to the late Japanese Communist Party representative Yoshioka Yoshinori, "Judging from the circumstances at that time, I can hardly believe that the Treaty was signed on an equal footing." However, the Japanese government still clung to the interpretation that the Treaty "was legally valid" and still keeps the same view even to this day.

It is obvious that the Treaty was not made on a legal basis. Since 1904, Japan repeatedly enforced agreements in favor of Japan with Korea. In 1905, Japan made the second agreement with Korea while Japanese soldiers were seizing the Korean Royal Palace and were threatening the Korean Emperor and state ministers. Deprived of the right to run its own internal affairs as well as foreign affairs, Korea was completely under Japanese control. The 1910 Annexation Treaty was signed under such circumstances. How can the government keep claiming that the Treaty "was concluded in accordance with the free will of both sides on an equal footing?"

Taking the 100 year anniversary of the annexation of Korea as an opportunity, Japan should reevaluate its past actions.

- Akahata, July 21, 2010