‘Pro-Japanese traitors’: South Korea’s Yoon slammed over wartime whitewashing

President Yoon Suk-yeol shocked South Koreans by omitting mention of Japan’s wartime atrocities from his Liberation Day speech

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Japanese nationalists holding war flags of the Imperial Japanese Army visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine earlier this month. Photo: dpa

Published: 8:00am, 20 Aug 2024Updated: 9:24am, 20 Aug 2024

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s decision to omit any mention of Japan’s wartime atrocities in his Liberation Day speech has ignited a political firestorm, with opposition parties branding his administration “pro-Japanese traitors” and warning the move threatens to derail efforts to resolve the countries’ long-standing historical grievances.

The controversy erupted after Yoon, in a notable break from tradition, focused his address commemorating Korea’s 1945 liberation from Japanese colonial rule on the need to promote reunification with the North and address human rights abuses by Pyongyang – all but glossing over Tokyo’s responsibility for past misdeeds.

“It’s outrageous that the Yoon government is ignoring the sentiments of the Korean people while seemingly advocating for Japan,” Han Min-soo, a spokesman for the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said in a statement on Sunday.

“Is it the Yoon government’s idea of justice to not hold the perpetrator accountable if they refuse to apologise?”

The fallout only intensified the next day, when Yoon’s security adviser Kim Tae-hyo declared that pressing Japan for an apology over its wartime past was futile as long as Tokyo had no intention of doing so – a remark that triggered a separate backlash.

Analysts say Yoon’s approach appears targeted at fostering closer security ties with Japan and the United States, but at the potential cost of losing domestic support. Opponents warn his omission undermines the painstaking process of improving ties between Seoul and Tokyo.