Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

　
On November 24, a memorial service for workers who died at the Sado Island Gold Mines, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, took place at the site in the central Japan prefecture of Niigata. The South Korean government disagreed with the Japanese side over the event during the preparation stage and refrained from participating in it. The South Koreans held a separate memorial event the next day for Korean workers. Most South Korean news media reported that the memorial service on November 24 became a “half memorial service.” I found this expression repulsive. The Sado Island Gold Mines has a history of nearly 400 years, including only six years when Koreans worked as wartime workers there. Is it reasonable to insist that Koreans account for a half of the ceremony despite that extent?

Japan and South Korea clashed over a speech

At the preparation stage for the memorial service, the biggest issue in dispute between South Korea and Japan seemed to be the content of a draft address by Japanese Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Akiko Ikuina who was to represent the Japanese government at the memorial service, rather than whether she visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine a few years ago. According to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, the outline of Ikuina’s address was as follows:

“The glorious achievement [of World Heritage inscription] is the product of contributions by our predecessors, including miners who worked in dangerous and harsh environments.

“Even under the unique circumstances of war, [the miners] worked hard in the dangerous and harsh conditions of the mines far from home, thinking of their loved ones.

“The miners included many people who came from the Korean Peninsula in the 1940s under Japan’s wartime labor [mobilization] policy. Some of them died while engaging in difficult work.

“Unfortunately, there are people who died here without returning to their hometowns before the end of the war.

“Now that the gold mines have been registered as a World Heritage site, we must think well about the history created by our predecessors and renew our pledge to pass it on to future generations.

“I would like to express my heartfelt respect for the hardships of past generations and my deepest condolences to all those who have lost their lives.”

What South Korea wants is Japan’s apology

From the Japanese point of view, the short address safely expressed gratitude to the miners, including Korean wartime workers, and remembrance for the victims among them. 　　

However, what the South Korean government wants is not gratitude but an apology, which is premised on the recognition of the wartime migration of Koreans as “forcible mobilization” and their work as “forced labor.” However, that recognition was not the case.

When more than 720,000 Korean wartime workers went to Japan from September 1939, more than 1.68 million Koreans moved to Japan as short-term migrant workers independently of the war. More than 500,000 of the wartime workers responded to Japan’s mobilization of workers of their own volition.

Korean wartime workers received appropriate wages basically without being discriminated from Japanese, and moved freely within the scope of their contracts, The period from 1939 to 1945 saw an explosive increase in short-term immigration from Korea to Japan mainly for short-term migrant work.

The memorial service at the Sado Island Gold Mines will be held next year and beyond. If a left-wing Democratic Party of Korea government is born in South Korea, Japan and South Korea will dispute over the memorial service more fiercely. Meanwhile, there is news that Japan plans to promote the registration of the Ashio Copper Mine (Tochigi Prefecture) and Kurobe Dam (Toyama Prefecture) as World Heritage sites. Unless the “anti-Japan tribalist” view of Korean wartime workers as slaves is overcome, history-related Japan-South Korea disputes that occurred over Gunkanjima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture and the Sado Island Gold Mines will be repeated.

Lee Woo Yeon is a researcher at the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research in South Korea.