Time I spent in korea: 19 months when in the army, mid '71 to early '73 (mostly seoul); peace corps volunteer, '74 to '76 (Inje, inner seorak-san); uni english teaching, calendar '84.
The resentment of japan--the need for apology (compensation/reparations) hadn't spun up, even by that last time. It was nowhere to be seen/felt. Japan hadn't become a bogeyman, and in '84 talk was, if anything, about the coming olympics ('88), and demonstrations (common, with loads of tear gas, at the uni front gate) were students demo-ing against the govt. Chun Doo-Whan was in power on up thru the olympics. So one oddity seems to be the relatively late emergence of the feelings towards japan.
And then there's the 'misuse' of the '65 treaty monies:
In January 2005, the South Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that the Japanese government actually proposed to the South Korean government to directly compensate individual victims but it was the South Korean government which insisted that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens and then received the whole amount of grants on behalf of the victims.
[10][11][12]
South Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period,
[13] at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person.
[14] South Korea agreed to demand no further compensation, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and
soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.
[12]
Most of the funds from grants and loan were used for economic development,
[15] particularly on establishing social infrastructures, founding
POSCO, building
Gyeongbu Expressway and the
Soyang Dam with the technology transfer from Japanese companies.
[16]
This treaty is now characterized as 'not a real apology', or some such. And the $800M in 1965 dollars that was directed to economic development (and not individual compensation) is equivalent to about $7.6 billion in 2023.
In the past I've mentioned the marked contrast between the views of japan in taiwan (also ruled by japan by about the same period that korea was) vs the recent views of japan in korea. Tho the parallels between the two countries are not complete, they are still plentiful, and it's strange how taiwan's view of japan can be so positive, while korea's is so negative.
Similarly, the Philippines (attacked by the japanese at the same time as pearl harbor**), Malaysia, Vietnam, the Dutch East Indies, and Burma. All of those places seem to have comparatively little animosity towards japan. Nor are they persistently calling for apologies, atonement, etc., and in those other countries there was actual fighting--war going on. Whereas korea was occupied without fighting back.
Tho there were protests and independence movements (March 1st is a biggie in korea), there may be some guilt that korea more or less submitted to japanese rule. There were probably as many koreans betting on the japanese, throwing their lot in with them (collaborators, in one way or another), as there were protestors. That's on the collective level. Then, there are generally three classes of war criminals. Class A are the highest level perpetrators--the generals and the leaders who directed everything. While you might think that class B and C did something less bad, these are the criminals who actually killed people (killing of prisoners, civilians, torture). Guess what--there were at least some koreans involved in war crimes against their own people, and if not war crimes, a far larger number of koreans worked in conjunction with and thus facilitated japan's occupation. These latter folks continued in power and privilege after korean liberation during Syngman Rhee's regime, and even thru the 70s (Pak Chung-hee, anyone?)
There is also the view in korea that japan benefited (unfairly) from the Korean war--that the war, which destroyed korea, was good business for japan (ah, those cunning japanese!). No doubt it did. War can be good business if you're not directly involved. On the other hand, if the US/UN had somehow
not been able to use japan for a staging area, korea might be unified today, and south korea would have ceased to exist. And, regarding the division of korea after the war, it should be noted that russia proposed a similar division 50 years earlier:
Russia had pursued an expansionist policy east of the Urals, in
Siberia and the
Far East, since the reign of
Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century.
[5] Since the end of the
First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan had feared Russian encroachment would interfere with its plans to establish a
sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuria.
Seeing Russia as a rival, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in
Manchuria in exchange for recognition of the Korean Empire as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and
demanded the establishment of a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan in Korea, north of the 39th parallel. The Imperial Japanese Government perceived this as obstructing their plans for expansion into mainland
Asia and chose to go to war. After negotiations broke down in 1904, the
Imperial Japanese Navy opened hostilities in a surprise attack on the
Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China on 9 February [
O.S. 27 January] 1904
Gee, the 39th parallel. Surprisingly close the the border today (loosely described as the 38th parallel).
Anyway, enough for this morning.
**Both Hawaii and the Philippines were US colonies at the time. FDR portrayed the attack on its hawaiian colony as an attack on america, while the simultaneous attack on the other american colony slipped off the radar.
