bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Andrew Salmon

Koreans used as slave labour in Japanese factories during the second world war have demanded that Tokyo withdraw its bid to give some of those sites Unesco world heritage status, as Seoul ramps up its PR battle with Tokyo over lingering historical issues.
The move comes as both countries today mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties with relations at their lowest in years, largely because of differences over their shared wartime history.
Japan is seeking to list 23 “Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution” as Unesco World Heritage Sites, but South Korea insists that the plan be nullified as seven sites employed 21,900 Korean workers under atrocious conditions – long hours, low pay, dangerous environments and abusive treatment – in the 1940s.
A bipartisan group of politicians and victims spoke in Seoul ahead of today’s anniversary.
“We urge the Japanese government to reflect on its past before it proceeds to list these sites as world heritage,” National Assemblyman Lee Won-wook of the main opposition party said on Friday.
“We see such an act as a diplomatic provocation.”
Beijing has also protested against Japan’s Unesco move.
Lee said he would protest in Bonn, Germany, next month when the World Heritage Committee makes its deliberations.
Lee Yi-jae of the ruling party said: “The Korean government should see this situation as a Japanese move to list these sites not because they represent industrial heritage, but as an effort to beautify an ugly past.”
He alleged that if the Unesco listing is successful, Japan will then move to list kamikaze bases as heritage sites.
Former Korean labourers in Japan’s wartime industry spoke emotionally about their experiences during the period.
“I am living proof of what happened,” said Kim Han-su, 97, who laboured in Nagasaki’s Mitsubishi Shipyard. “If you do something wrong, it is only natural that you apologise.”
The 1965 treaty between Japan and South Korea is currently problematic.
The Korean president at the time, Park Chung-hee, had served in the Japanese Army during the second world war; in return for diplomatic normalisa8tion, he won US$800 million from Tokyo in loans and %colonial-era reparations.
Legally, these reparations were to settle all related disputes but Park disbursed no money to colonial victims; instead, he invested it, kick-starting South Korea’s “economic miracle.”
“The money paid to the Korean government was spent on roads and factories, and the Japanese government has not given a word of apology,” said a tearful Yang Keum-deok, 87, who worked on a Zero fighter production line in 1944 and is suing Mitsubishi for back pay. “I feel like ‘toast’ between the Japanese and Korean governments.”
While South Korea needed Japanese capital and expertise from the 1960s to 1980s, by the 1990s, it had become an economic powerhouse itself. And after democratisation in 1987, many previously silent victims spoke, notably “comfort women” – sex slaves for Japanese troops.
Since then, anti-Japanese sentiment has risen in politics, the media and the public.
During a spring visit to the US by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the South Korean government hired a public relations firm to dampen the goodwill effect, and Abe was shadowed during his trip by activists and a surviving comfort woman.
A comfort-woman statue stands opposite Tokyo’s embassy in Seoul, and similar statues are being erected across the United States by Korean-Americans.
Koreans have bought adverts in US media promoting South Korea’s position in territorial and historical disputes with Japan. And while Japan has issued multiple official apologies, the consensus in Korea is that these are insufficient.
According to a poll by Japanese newspaper Asahi and South Korea’s Dong-a, published on Saturday, more than half of the respondents in both countries say their image of the other side has worsened in the past five years. The poll also found 87 per cent of South Koreans feel strongly about better relations with their neighbour, compared with 64 per cent in Japan. 


Former Korean slaves demand Japan drop bid to give war factories Unesco status

The Onga River Pump House of the former state-run Yawata Steel Works in Nakama, Fukuoka Prefecture constitutes one of the sites of Japan's industrial revolution in the Meiji era (1868-1911) recommended for registration on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Photo: Kyodo

News

Asia

East Asia