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The Burden of the Past: Problems of Historical Perception in Japan-Korea Relations
by Kan Kimura (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
The Burden of the Past reexamines the dispute over historical perception between Japan and South Korea, going beyond the descriptive emphasis of previous studies to clearly identify the many independent variables that have affected the situation. From the history textbook debates, to the Occupation-period exploitation of “comfort women,” to the Dokdo/Takeshima territory dispute and Yasukuni Shrine visits, Professor Kimura traces the rise and fall of popular, political, and international concerns underlying these complex and highly fraught issues.
Utilizing Japanese and South Korean newspaper databases to review discussion of the two countries’ disputed historical perceptions from the end of World War II to the present, The Burden of the Past provides readers with the historical framework and the major players involved, offering much-needed clarity on such polarizing issues. By seeing behind the public discourse and political rhetoric, this book offers a firmer footing for a discussion and the steps toward resolution.
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Foreword
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction: The Complexities of the Dispute over Historical Perception
Part I: Theoretical Examination
One. A Theoretical Framework for Examining the Historical Perception Dispute
Two. Three Factors in the Dispute over Historical Perceptions
Part II: Case Study 1: Historical Disputes in the 1980s
Three. The History Textbook Issue
Four. The Turning Point of the 1980s
Part III: Historical Perception Dispute: Case Study 2: The Comfort Women Issue
Five. Japan-South Korea Relations at the End of the Cold War
Six. Issues of Historical Perception during Japan's "Lost" Twenty Years
Seven. Revisiting the Japan-South Korea Historical Perception Dispute
Afterword
Chronology of the Japan-South Korea Historical Perceptions Issue
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Foreword
Peace in Northeast Asia is being threatened by rising nationalism, a renewed search for national identity, and revived rivalry between Japan and China. In particular, unresolved historical and territorial issues stemming from the unfortunate past of colonialism and war raise the specter of collision between two main allies of the United States-Japan and South Korea. Written by a Japanese scholar who specializes in Korean history and politics, this book presents unique yet balanced accounts of historical disputes between the two nations since the 1980s by stressing their complex interactions at both official and civil society levels. This is a fascinating read not only for experts but also for anyone interested in the politics of memory and international re-lations in Northeast Asia.
In this book, the author examines two prime cases of contention over the past, history textbooks and comfort women. According to his account, the 1982 controversy on history textbooks, which triggered the so-called history problem in Northeast Asia, did not necessarily reflect Japan's turn to the right, contrary to the conventional wisdom. Rather, it was the outcome of Korean people's growing recognition that the differing views of history were signifi-cant. In Kimura's view, it reflected the concern that Korea had about the reemergence of militarism in Japan, as the rapid expansion of Japanese economic power in the 1980s thrust Japan onto the world stage. Also, the dynamics of their bilateral relationship shifted for worse as both countries gave rise to a new generation of politicians who without shared colonial experiences held different ideologies about the historical events; the end of the Cold War that removed a reason for security Page viii - cooperation only exacerbated the rift. In the past before this change, the South Korean elite sought support from the Japanese right in the face of the critical stance of Japanese progressive forces that were represented by the Japanese Socialist and Communist Parties who were sympathetic to North Korea. Likewise, the Japanese elite saw the need to cooperate with the Korean elite in the Cold War era. Thus the ruling classes of Korea and Japan had worked closely together through personal ties and networks to contain disputes over their pasts. However, in this new era, all these ties and reasons for cooperation have weakened if not disappeared, providing fertile ground for historical disputes.
The comfort women issue too was the outcome of domestic politics, in this case as the result of civic activism in democratizing Korea influenced by Marxism and dependency theory. In this emerging view that saw women as victims of capitalism, when one addressed the comfort women issue, one was also dealing with the issue of women in capitalist society and, by extension, in contemporary Korea. In explaining the rise of this new discourse and movement, the author stresses the role of progressive forces in Japan, including the liberal media and "conscientious" experts who brought the issue to the forefront, showing close cooperation between Koreans and Japanese at the civil society level, who fought officially. The book details the protracted process of struggles and negotiations between the two governments, which culminated in the 1993 Kōno Statement, a landmark apology that admitted to the Jap-anese state's involvement in the comfort women.
This book also offers an excellent account of the rise of populist nationalism in Japan and South Korea, which has deepened the perception gap in recent years. In both countries the public became increasingly distrustful of the old elite, largely due to economic slumps and growing inequality, leading to the emergence of such populist leaders as Koizumi Junichiro and Roh Moo-Hyun. Neither were afraid of challenging the status quo including historical issues -Koizumi's open visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and Roh's public criticism of that-and thus the bilateral relationship over historical issues worsened dur-ing their tenure. More worrisome is the recent growth of anti-Korean sentiments in Japan called Kenkanryu, while anti-Japanese sentiments are nothing new in Korea. The author attributes this recent trend to new technology. With internet and social media, ordinary people now come into direct contact with the perception gap between Japan and South Korea over matters of territory and history, something that was previously known only to a limited group of experts. In his view, the historical perception dispute between Japan and South Korea has consequentlyPage ix entered a new phase of direct con-frontation between public opinion in the two countries.
The author makes some arguments that can be controversial. For example, he believes that the 1993 Kōno Statement was "the product of political compromise between the Japanese and Korean governments, which meant that both governments had to bear responsibility for it." This was the same logic that Prime Minister Abe used when he was trying to revise the statement in 2014, and his attempt provoked strong reaction by Koreans. The author also contends that regarding historical and territorial issues, Koreans generally raised them and Japanese responded. Koreans may disagree.
Is time going to solve the history problem that divides the nations of Northeast Asia? Unfortunately, the answer is "no," as we witness even stronger nationalist sentiments in the new generation. The answer attests to the urgency of concerted efforts to narrow the perception gap through better under-standing of how historical memories are formed and politicized on the other side. This book will make an important step forward in achieving that chal-lenging objective.
Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University)
Fall 2018
(제공된 이미지는 스탠퍼드 대학교의 신기욱 교수가 2018년 가을에 작성한 책의 서문(Foreword)입니다. 한일 관계 및 동북아시아의 민족주의와 역사 갈등을 다룬 서적의 핵심 내용을 요약하고 있습니다.
이 서문의 주요 내용을 요약하면 다음과 같습니다:
- 핵심 주제: 이 책은 1980년대 이후 심화된 한일 간의 역사적 갈등(역사 교과서 왜곡 문제 및 위안부 이슈)을 일본 학자의 시각에서 균형 있게 다루고 있습니다.
- 갈등의 배경: 저자는 한일 갈등이 단순히 '일본의 우경화' 때문만이 아니라, 한국의 경제 성장 및 민주화와 함께 나타난 대중의 역사 인식 변화, 그리고 냉전 종식으로 인해 과거 양국 엘리트 간의 긴밀했던 협력 관계(느슨한 연결고리)가 약화되었기 때문이라고 분석합니다.
- 민족주의의 대중화: 과거에는 전문가들 사이의 논쟁에 머물렀던 영토 및 역사 문제가 인터넷과 소셜 미디어의 발달로 인해 일반 대중에게 직접 전달되면서, 일본 내 혐한 정서(Kenkanryu)와 한국 내 반일 정서가 대중적으로 확산되는 새로운 국면에 접어들었다고 짚어냅니다.
- 논쟁적 견해: 1993년 고노 담화가 한일 정부 간의 '정치적 타협의 산물'이므로 양국 모두가 책임을 분담해야 한다는 저자의 주장은 한국인들에게 논쟁의 여지가 있을 수 있음을 언급합니다.
==
Preface to the English Edition
The original Japanese edition of this book was published in 2014 by Minerva Shobō, based on a series of articles entitled "Nikkan rekishi ninshiki mondai ni dõ mukiau ka" (How to approach the Japan-South Korea historical perception issue) that were serialized in the Minerva magazine Kiwameru from April 2011 to March 2014. As a result, the content reflects to some extent the situation pertaining at that time. While in August 2010 the two countries managed to ride out the centennial of Japan's 1910 annexation of Korea relatively smoothly, this was nevertheless a period in which serious differences arose again over the comfort women and other issues of historical perception.
The rift began with the August 2011 ruling by South Korea's Constitutional Court that the government's failure to make a tangible effort to resolve the comfort women issue was unconstitutional, and calling on the government to take action. The Lee Myung-bak administration consequently abandoned its previous reluctance to foreground issues of historical perception and began to actively press the Japanese government on the comfort women issue, leading to a rapid deterioration in bilateral relations. This situation continued under the Park Geun-hye administration that came to power in February 2013. As of October 2014, when the Japanese edition of this book was published, Japan and South Korea had failed to hold so much as summit talks for the past three years.
Those summit talks finally took place a year later, in November 2015, and in December the situation took a turn for the better with an agreement reached on the comfort women issue, the most contentious Page xii among the many issues of historical perception. However, this was not to last, largely due to public negativity toward any improvement in bilateral relations. In South Korea, the public rejected from the outset the 2015 agreement on the comfort women issue as running counter to the wishes of the comfort women themselves, a criticism that only grew more vociferous over time. The Japanese public greeted the agreement much more warmly, but the erection of commemorative statues to the comfort women in South Korea and elsewhere drew considerable condemnation in Japan, and public opinion darkened. In this context, the Japanese edition of the book perhaps inevitably took a rather pes-simistic stance on the historical perception issue.
Today, as I write the preface to the English edition, tensions over the issue are again rising. On December 27, 2017, a report issued by a Korean government task force examining the 2015 agreement was strongly critical that there were portions of the agreement not disclosed to the public and, above all, that it did not reflect the wishes of the actual former comfort women. The South Korean public is now pressing hard for the agreement to be renegotiated and revised, but the Japanese government appears strongly opposed to any such move.
In other words, for better or worse, more than three years since the Japanese edition of this book was published in October 2014, the state of affairs between Japan and South Korea over the historical perception issue remains unchanged, and it might even have gained gravity and importance as a result of two other developments in Northeast Asia. The first is North Korea's nuclear missile program, the threat of which has already reached as far as the United States. The other is the rise of China, which continues to joust with the United States in the South China and East China seas. Meanwhile, the international community remains actively engaged with the Korean Peninsula, including the U.S.-North Korea summit talks on June 12, 2018. As the international situation continues to evolve, cooperation between Japan and South Korea on issues such as these is more critical than ever before, but the historical perception issue is complicating the situation and souring public opinion in both countries on the prospect of cooperation.
In these circumstances, the publication of the English edition of this book seems quite timely. As I note in the introduction, the book examines the mechanisms underlying the historical perception issue and how these developed, an understanding of which will be critical in terms of considering not only the bilateral relationship but also the increasingly complex international environment in which the two countries find themselves.
Page xiii At the same time, given the significant differences in prior knowledge and interest between Japanese- and English-speaking readers, I could not put out the same book in English that I wrote in Japanese for a Japanese audience. The English edition consequently features two major changes. First, I have revised numerous passages to clarify my theoretical framework and create a tone more suited to an academic work, in order to better address the needs of the majority of readers of the English edition, who are more likely to be academics with a deep interest in Japan-South Korea relations and the historical perception issue, rather than general readers. I have also added references, which were absent from the Japanese edition as the publishing company felt that it would make the book more accessible to the general reader. The English edition now contains detailed notes for readers with a more academic interest, as well as those who wish to confirm the basis for my assertions. In this sense, the English edition both reflects the original Japanese edition and incorporates major revisions that make it effectively a different work.
Publication of this English edition would not have been possible without considerable assistance. First, my deep gratitude goes to the University of Michigan Press. This is my first full-length English publication, and as such, I am not particularly familiar with English-language publishing conventions. Feedback from the University of Michigan Press has been invaluable in that regard. I was also fortunate to have strong backing from Professor Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan, and I thank him for his recommendation, without which this English edition would not have been possible. I received various forms of support right through to publication from Keiko Yokota-Carter, research librarian for Japanese publications in the University of Michigan Library, an old friend from my Seattle research days. I hope my book repays this generous support from everyone at the university.
Even more important has been the support I have received from the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC). I was fortunate to have this book selected for the Japan Library series, with JPIC consequently handling the whole process from translation to negotiations with publishers and even advice on publication of the English edition. I am particularly grateful to Asonuma Futsuki, who kept the negotiations moving forward. I would also like to pay my respects to Marie Speed for the excellent translation and to the Festina Lente editorial team for the high professional standard of the English edition. It was no mean feat to translate a book on such a sensitive issue with so much difficult terminology, especially given my idiosyncratic and awk-ward Japanese!
Page xiv-Finally, thank you to all the readers of this book. As a researcher on South Korean politics and Japan-South Korea relations who lives in Japan, I am eager for people to learn more about my region, and I would be delighted if my book succeeds in contributing to that end.
June 21, 2018
From my rainy season-wreathed Kobe study
Kimura Kan
제공된 이미지는 책의 '영문판 서문(Preface to the English Edition)'으로, 한일 관계와 역사 인식 문제를 다룬 저서의 배경을 설명하고 있습니다. 주요 내용은 다음과 같이 요약할 수 있습니다.
- 도서의 배경: 이 책은 2014년 미네르바 쇼보(Minerva Shobō)에서 출판된 일본어 개정판을 바탕으로 하고 있으며, 2011년에서 2014년 사이의 한일 관계와 역사 인식 상황을 반영하고 있습니다.
- 한일 관계의 변화: 서문에서는 2015년 위안부 합의와 이에 대한 양국 대중의 엇갈린 반응, 그리고 2017년 한국 외교부 태스크포스(TF)의 검토 보고서 발표 이후 고조된 양국 간의 긴장 상태를 타임라인별로 짚어냅니다.
- 영문판의 수정 사항: 저자는 영어권 독자들의 이해를 돕기 위해 이론적 틀을 보완하고 학술적인 톤을 강화했으며, 일본어판에는 없던 상세한 미주와 참고문헌을 대거 추가했다고 밝히고 있습니다.
- 감사의 글: 미시간 대학교 출판부(University of Michigan Press), 일한문화교류기금(Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, JPIC), 번역가 및 편집팀에 대한 감사의 인사를 전하며 마무리됩니다.
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