Today, only two days after the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary said that its government would consider verifying testimonies of sexual slavery victims drafted for the Japanese imperial army, a Japanese prefecture held an event once again to make preposterous claims over Dokdo, an integral part of Korean territory, and the Japanese government engaged in the provocation by sending a high-level official to the event again as it did last year.

In 1905, when Imperial Japan began its aggression over the Korean Peninsula in earnest, it illegally incorporated Dokdo, claiming it was “terra nullius (no man’s land).” Now, the Japanese government is making self-contradictory claims that Dokdo has always been a part of its “inherent territory.” The government is even trying to deny the fact that it committed inhumane acts of mobilizing young women compulsorily under the cloak of the so-called “military comfort women,” inflicting immeasurable pain and suffering on them.

History proves that Japan itself admitted Dokdo is not a part of its territory in numerous historical documents and materials, including the 1877 Dajokan Order. On the issue of sexual slavery victims, then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono acknowledged that the victims were mobilized, transferred and controlled generally against their will through coaxing, coercion, etc. Reports written by UN Special Rapporteurs Coomaraswamy and McDougall in 1996 and 1998, respectively, concluded that the Japanese imperial army forced the victims into sexual slavery through violence, kidnapping, coercion and deception. After the US House of Representatives adopted a resolution on the “comfort women” issue in 2007, the US Congress, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, recently urged the Secretary of State to encourage the Japanese government to address the “comfort women” issue.

The Japanese government is turning a deaf ear to such stern criticism from the international community and denying the truths of history. This act is making explicit the Japanese government’s intention to take the historical revisionist path by denying its history of aggression over the Korean Peninsula during its imperial era and rewriting history. In addition, many concerns have been raised about the Japanese government’s move to boost its military under the name of the so-called “proactive contribution to peace.” For instance, prominent media outlets around the world, including the US, Europe and Southeast Asia, are expressing serious concerns, calling it “collective amnesia,” “destructive historical denialism,” and “nationalist wave.” The Japanese government must humbly listen to such voices of the international community.

If Japanese leaders keep trying to distort and deny history, making countless excuses, the ROK government will continue to exert multi-dimensional efforts, together with the international community and many conscientious people in Japan, to let the whole world know Japan’s such historical revisionist move. The ROK government truly hopes that Japan immediately breaks out of an illusion of justifying and glorifying its wrongdoings during its imperial era, works to help its future generations become citizens with a correct view of history, and acts as a responsible member of the international community.

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