Top-Ranking Official of Japan’s Ruling Party Comes Under Fire for Remarks on Japan’s Colonial Rule in Korea

Top-Ranking Official of Japan’s Ruling Party Comes Under Fire for Remarks on Japan’s Colonial Rule in Korea

Aso Taro, chairman of the Policy Research Council of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, drew protests from the governments of North and South Korea and Koreans at home and abroad when he said on May 31 at a lecture held on May 31 that the 1939 decree forcing Korean people to adopt Japanese names “stemmed from Korean requests for surnames.” He apologized on June 2 for infuriating Koreans by claiming they voluntarily adopted Japanese names during Japanese colonial rule. But Aso did not retract his previous statement, saying that there are “various views” in both Japan and Korea.

The top-level official of Japan’s ruling party “let loose preposterous remarks over the policy pursued by Japan during its military occupation of Korea under which it forced the Koreans to change their names into Japanese ones,” the KCNA reported. Reportedly he claimed that the policy was enforced because Koreans asked Japan to name them in Japanese, adding that Japanese taught Koreans the Korean alphabet, that it is Japan that enforced a compulsory educational system and that it would be better to have a correct understanding of history.

The KCNA also said that Aso’s remarks were “an intolerable mockery of the Korean nation as they laid bare Japan’s impudence of flatly denying its past crimes committed against the Koreans.” The policy of forcing Koreans to change their names into Japanese ones, called “Sousi Kaimei” in Japanese, was “part of Japan’s colonial policy to exterminate the Korean nation and assimilate its members to Japanese and thus convert Koreans into Japanese subjects,” it added.

Chongryun, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, condemned the LDP senior official’s remarks, saying that his remarks were an “impudent distortion of undeniable historical facts” and “intolerable provocative remarks against the Korean nation.” In a comment issued on June 2, Jo Ryong Hyon, vice-chairman of Chongryun and chairman of “the Committee for Protecting National Identity” urged Aso to retract his statement and sincerely apologize to Koreans, expressing his concern that his remarks reflected a strong anti-DPRK public opinion and atmosphere prevailing in Japan.

Papers of the DPRK dismissed his remarks as “a gross distortion of historical fact” and “an unpardonable challenge to the Korean nation” as it infringes upon and gravely debases its dignity.

Rodong Sinmun in a signed commentary on June 6 said that the Japanese imperialists had enforced that policy as part of their policy to “make Koreans imperial subjects” and his claim that the policy was enforced at the request of Koreans is “a gross distortion and denial of historical facts and a revelation of Japan’s intention to repeat its past aggression.” Minju Joson also warned that such politicians as Aso had better be careful about their words and deeds, mindful that they will have to pay a very high price for their reckless remarks.

“Conservative political figures of Japan are hell-bent on creating a favorable atmosphere in a bid to justify the history of blood-stained aggression, avoid the responsibility for their past crimes and realize their long-cherished ambition for reinvasion of Korea,” said a spokesman of the DPRK Measure Committee for Demanding Compensation to Comfort Women for the Japanese Army and the Victims of Forcible Drafting.

“Japan would be well advised to liquidate its criminal past and take the road of peace and stability of Asia, not the road of becoming a military power, mindful of the bitter lessons of the last century,” the spokesman added.

In 1939, Japan worked out and promulgated a law on disallowing the Koreans to go by their peculiar Korean names and changing them into Japanese ones and carried it out at the point of the bayonet. Japan forcibly took Koreans to “consultation offices for changing names” and did not allow the children whose parents did not change their names to enter schools at all levels or continue their studies a higher level and get jobs but drafted them for compulsory labor of various forms, labor conscription and “patriotic corps.”

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