He came to give the country back to the people

Joseph H. Chung (정희수), Ph.D. Professor of Economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)

(지난 호에 이어)

Shinzo Abe is notorious for his denial of Japanese war crimes. What is difficult to swallow is the fact that Shinzo Abe denies the war crime of comfort women despite five prominent Japanese politicians' admission of the crime and their apologies for the crime.

In 1992, Koichi Kato, the, chief cabinet secretary, stated this.

"Government has been involved in the establishment of comfort stations, the control of those who recruited comfort women, the construction and enforcement of comfort facilities, the management of comfort stations… and that the government wanted to express its sincere apology and remorse to all those who have suffered indescribable hardship, so called wartime comfort women."

In 1993, Yohei Kono, former chief secretary of the prime minster office, made the following statement.

" The Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of comfort women. The recruitment of comfort women was entrusted mainly by private recruiters of the comfort women. In many cases, they were recruited against their will coercing. At times, administrative/military personnel took part in the recruitment. They lived in misery at comfort station under a coercive atmosphere."

Thus, Kato and Kono made it crystal clear that the sub-human treatment of 200,000 young girls mostly from Korea was imposed not only by the military but also administration of Japan. What these two former chiefs of cabinet secretaries did was the proof of the hellish atrocity committed to the poor girls by Japan. Kato even offered an apology.

In 1995, Tomichi Murayama, former prime minister, said this.

" In the hope that no such mistakes made be in the future, I regret in spirit of humility these un-refutable facts of history and here once again my feeling of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apologies."

In 2005, Junichiro Koizumi, former prime minster, made an apology.

"Sincerely facing these facts of history, I once again express my feeling of deep remorse and heartfelt apology."

Both Murayama and Koizumi were highly respected prime ministers. In fact, Koizumi was Shinzo Abe's boss.

Let us see what Shinzo Ave shad to say about the crime. In 2015, Shizo Abe said this.

"I bow my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at home and abroad. I express my feeling of profound grief and sincere condolence."

This was not an apology for the war crime for the surviving victims of the beastly collective rapes.

Although Abe has never explained his rational reasons for such irrational behaviour, I argue that, for him, the admission of such crime is not compatible with the integrity of the Yamato race, the race of the Emperor-God. Therefore, he has taken out from the school history text book the crime against the comfort women so that the future generation can rule Asia again with no guilty feeling.

Now, to conquer Korea again, it is important to beautify Japan's colonialism. Sinzo Abe wanted to tell Koreans that the annexation of Korea was beneficial for Koreans and the Japanese military cannot do commit such crime as the sex slavery of Korean girls.

Since Japan cannot convince the Koreans by itself, Japan has asked the PJCSK to do it for Japan. This is the political neo-colonialism.

Japan has been funding a lot of money to far-right research centers, academics, religious group and NGOs in Korea. These groups are a part of the PJCSK and they established a pro-Japan force in Korea called "New-Right".

This pro-Japan group has made the PJCSK government of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye to take out from the school history text books the crime story of comfort women and put emphasis on the goodness of the Japanese colonialism in Korea.

Fortunately, President Moon Jae-in has put back in the School history text books the story of comfort women and the atrocity of the Japanese colonial power.

The security neo-colonialism: Finally, there is the security neo-colonialism.  Japan is fearful of the reunification of Koreas for unified Korea mean a serious threat to Japan's security and its regional influence. The best way of preventing the reunification is the prevention of the North-South peace process. In other words, the way of preventing the peace process is to sustain North-South tension.

Since the North-South relations are Korean internal problems, Japan has asked the PJCSK to demonize North Korea so that the North-South tension is kept. In fact, the PJCSK has been doing their best to maintain the North-South tension.

But, the governments of Kim Dae-jung (1098-2003) and Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008) were able to begin the peace process.

President Moon Jae-in went even farther in the promotion of the peace process with North Korea. Thus, President Moon was able to stop security neo-colonialism from going any further.

8. Unfinished Tasks of President Moon Jae-in

Five years are an extremely short period of time to make major national reforms, but President Moon Jae-in has made game-changing reforms.

He has challenged the corruption culture which has been developed, refined and fortified over the past 70 years by the PJCSK.

He has shown to the world how a country can combat successfully the pandemic through science, people's trust in the government, the president's love of people and people's mutual supports.

He has made decent social reform which is necessary not only for the justice, equality but also for prosperity.  

He has established a new economic regime allowing the creation of jobs, the generation of income of the ordinary people through the development of SMEs and productive production chain in which the SMEs are well integrated with Chaebols.

He has shown his remarkable ability to handle crisis, namely, the shipping industry crisis and the crisis of trade war with Japan.

He has been able to establish the basis for the permanent peace on the Korean peninsula.

He has opened a new chapter of Korean foreign relations making it possible not only to promote trade but also enhance Korea's international leadership. (다음 호에 계속)

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