Monday, September 2, 2024

Kanto Massacre, martial law, and high school baseball



Below an excerpt from an October 2021 Georgetown Journal of International Affairs article on the Kanto massacre and Japanese denialism, the author is Tessa Morris-Suzuki:

Un-remembering the Massacre: How Japan’s “History Wars” are Challenging Research Integrity Domestically and Abroad


The Great Earthquake and the Massacre

In September 2023, Japan will commemorate the centenary of one of the twentieth century’s worst disasters: the Great Kanto Earthquake, which destroyed much of Tokyo and Yokohama, resulting in over one-hundred thousand deaths. In the panic that followed, rumors spread that immigrants from Japan’s then-colony of Korea were poisoning wells and planning violent attacks on Japanese citizens. Japanese vigilante groups, backed by the police and army, responded by killing those they believed to be Korean. A 2009 official report cites figures of anywhere from twenty-six hundred to sixty-six hundred Korean victims from the massacre, as well as several hundred Chinese victims.

Ever since the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre, a memorial event has been held for the victims, with messages of remembrance from public figures including the Governor of Tokyo. However, since 2017, the current right-wing Governor, Koike Yuriko, has repeatedly refused to send such a message. Further, recent memorial ceremonies have been accompanied by counter-protests staged by vocal right-wing “massacre denialist” groups, encouraging the proliferation of provocative anti-Korean hate speech. In the context of deepening tensions between Japan and Korea, Koike’s symbolic refusal to commemorate the massacre has raised concern amongst scholars and citizens’ groups as to how the 2023 commemoration of the Great Kanto Earthquake will deal with the memory of the massacre. There are fears that the contest between commemoration and the denial of memory may further inflame inter-ethnic and international tensions. Controversies surrounding the memory of the massacre are just part of wider intensifying contests over memory and history in Japan.



With pro-Japanese new right authoritarians now in power in the Yoon administration in South Korea, they too have a denialism problem. The Yoon Education Ministry is sanitizing history text book descriptions of Japanese war crimes against Koreans, as Japan did a generation earlier. The administration has also physically removed memorial plaques and statues of the Dokdo islets in public venues in Seoul. These include multiple subway sites in Seoul and the National War Museum. Dokdo was taken by Japan from South Korea after the Russo-Japanese war. The island is bizarrely still claimed by Japan, although it was occupied by Korea after WWII. Japanese coast guard vessels patrol the seas near the island, the same way the Chinese coast guard patrol around the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. An earlier Yoon move intended to change the orientation of South Korean history from national independence, unification and sovereignty, to an anti-communist/ pro-Japanese orientation, was to remove statues of independence fighters in front of the ROK Military Academy:

The KMA is reportedly reviewing installing the bust of Gen. Paik Sun-yup, who served as a second lieutenant in the Gando Special Force of the Manchukuo Imperial Army, once the busts of Korea Independence Army and Korea Liberation Army generals are taken down from its campus.

In its statement, the KMA explained, “We are moving ahead with the plan to refurbish memorials on the KMA campus with a focus on embodying the academy’s identity and its purpose of establishment as well as on creating the optimal environment to convey the value and significance of protecting liberal democracy and the South Korea-US alliance.” *


Controversy erupts over Korea Military Academy's hints at removing busts of independence fighters
Gen. Paik Sun-yup was a Japanese trained officer who served the interests of the Imperial Japan in Manchukuo before becoming a ROK Army officer who served in the Korean conflict. His brother, another ROK officer, was directly involved in ROK Army tactical movements across the 38th parallel that helped spark the Korean conflict.

Another rewriting of history in textbooks by the Yoon administration removes references to US installed Syngman Rhee as a dictator and his massacres of political opposition in South Korea, before and after the outbreak of the Korean conflict. Rhee a corrupt Americanized Korean, thought like MacArthur that North Korea would be easily defeated. Yoon's history rewrite comes at a time, when his administration appears to be installing a Hanahoe like military clique in the critical military commands that would be necessary to impose martial law and secure dictatorial powers in South Korea. Hanahoe was the military clique that installed Chun Doo-hwan as dictator. These commands are contended to be the Capital City Defense Command, the Counter-intelligence Command, and the Special Forces Command, the forces of which would be sufficient to control the capital, crush dissent, and discharge the National Assembly. Martial law plans were drawn up by the Defense Security Command during the Park Geun-hye impeachment proceedings but never implemented. Allegedly, acting president at the time, Hwang Kyo-ahn would not go along with the plan.

The circumstantial evidence of a potential martial law plan by the Yoon administration was laid out today in National Assembly hearings concerning the appointment of a new Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun. The defense minister nominee and others call it a conspiracy theory. Kim went to the same high school as Yoon. Kim's high school alumni 후배 and fellow graduating military academy class graduates (38th class-1982) either are, or will, be appointed to key positions within the Defense Ministry. Members of the political clique within the ROK military establishment are referred to as Choongam-pa for Yoon's high school clique, or Yonghyun-pa for 38th Academy classmates of Kim.

During active duty service Kim commanded the Capital City Defense Command. Kim himself is the current Director of the Presidential Security Service. Prior to this he was a presidential transition team member and national security and international affairs advisor to the Yoon campaign. He was responsible for the plan to change the Presidential Office from the Blue House to the National Defense Building at Yongsan. This move was considered a blunder by several experts because unlike the Blue House, the site is not defensible from air attack, as subsequently demonstrated by North Korean drone and balloon flights into the Yongsan presidential office prohibited area. Surrounded by high rise neighborhoods, one wonders if it is defensible from anything but demonstrators.

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