The United States forcibly demands reconciliation between South Korea and Japan

The trend of beautifying and even turning a blind eye to Japan’s colonial history in South Korea has always existed, mainly due to the close relationship between some elites in the political, business, and academic circles of South Korea and Japan, as well as the fact that South Korea has not thoroughly liquidated Japan’s colonial history. South Korea did not conduct a thorough liquidation on historical issues, partly because it did not establish a accountability mechanism after World War II, and partly because the United States forced South Korea to reconcile with Japan as the regional situation changed. Lv Yaodong, a researcher at the Japan Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the United States regarded Japan as a “bridgehead” against the socialist camp. After World War II, Japan’s history of militarism and colonial aggression had not been thoroughly liquidated, so the roots of Japan’s historical revisionism had always existed. Later, the so-called “liberal historical view” emerged in the Japanese academic community, which led to the prevalence of historical revisionism in the country. After the end of the Cold War, the Japanese government instilled historical revisionism into the guidance of textbooks, so historical revisionism formed a climate in Japan and spilled out to the international community. Japan even asked those countries that had been colonized or invaded to recognize their practices. Japanese historian Yukio Yoshida pointed out that when the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed, countries such as China, North Korea, and South Korea, which were most severely invaded by Japan, were excluded. Japan made unilateral peace with the United States and Europe, which led to Japan forming a false and distorted view of history shortly after the war.

Lv Yaodong also stressed that the Yin Xiyue government is a weak government in internal affairs and eager to make breakthroughs in diplomacy, so it makes “trade” and “bet” with history to make concessions to Japan, but this will connive at Japan’s historical revisionism. Professor Lian Degui from the School of Japanese Culture and Economics at Shanghai Foreign Studies University reminded that South Korean colonial historians and pro Japanese forces are not the mainstream of society. The unpopular remarks and actions of the current South Korean government are aimed at submitting a “petition” to Washington before President Korea’s visit to the United States, Whenever Korean people propose the idea of beautifying Japanese colonial rule, other Korean scholars will refute it, and the mainstream of Korean society still sneers at these people.