Volatile Korean Sentiments Towards Japan

Korean volatile sentiments toward the Japanese may be understandable, given Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and more so in an event as momentous as the 1973 kidnapping of opposition figure Kim Dae Jung on Japanese soil. But surely it was hard pressed for Tokyo to deal with such volatility, and being caught in a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't situation?

On the one hand, pro-government forces in Korea condemned Japan for investigating into Kim's kidnap, arguing that the move was an intrusion into Korean sovereignty. But while it is perhaps understandable for insecure and undemocratic regimes to blow the do-not-interfere-into-my-domestic-affair horn, what was unique in this case was Seoul's constant reference to Tokyo's wartime aggressions.

As a pro-government legislator loudly and self-righteously berated: "Historically, Japan has used its officials and power to carry out all sorts of imperialist acts in China, Manchuria, and Korea, as in the murder of Korea's Queen Min in 1895 and the holding of Prince Yong Chin as a hostage during the Japanese invasion of Korea. Given this past record, no Japanese has any right to publish inflammatory articles or reports about us, even if our own public agencies did have some role in the Kim case."

But yet on the other hand, many Koreans felt that Japan should investigate into Kim's kidnap or risk being seen as a willing accomplice of the Park Chung Hee regime.

As one Korean put it: "Let the Japanese be forewarned of the Korean people's condemnation if they can do no better than calculate their own benefit regardless of what happens. Our fervent wish is that the Japanese will be neither so easily excited, nor so callously indifferent, over the Kim Dae Jung affair."

Some observers at that time even predicted that if the Japanese government was seen as an accomplice of the Seoul government, a massive anti-Japanese movement might even have erupted.

In the face of such delicate volatility, not to mention predicament, what can Japan do, or not do?