‘Abe should stop distorting Japan’s history of aggressions’

Choi Seo-myeon, 85, director of the International Korea Studies Institute, happened to meet Foreign Minister Yun Byeong-se at the first floor lobby in the ministry’s headquarters in Seoul’s Jongno district at around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, as the former was entering the Foreign Ministry building to give policy advice to working-level ministry officials. Warmly greeting Minister Yun, Choi handed five A4-size sheets to Yun, saying, “Please read them without fail,” to which the minister replied, “Yes, I will.”

Choi told this reporter, who witnessed their encounter, “(The document) contains contents that (Japanese) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who made distortions and absurd remarks about past history, should naturally feel ashamed of.”

Choi, a leading expert on Korea-Japan relations, said in a recent interview with The Dong-A Ilbo, “Abe reminds me of Adolf Hitler of the Nazis,” in strongly blasting the Japanese prime minister’s distortions of past history.

What Choi handed to Minister Yun was a full text of a press conference offered in Korea by Kazuo Yatsugi, a special envoy that former Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s maternal grandfather, dispatched to Korea in 1958 to apologize for Japan’s colonial rule. Yatsugi was the head of the first delegation seconded by the Japanese government to make an apology.

Yatsugi said at the press conference on May 21 that year, “Prime Minister Kishi regrets mistakes Japanese militarists committed to Korea. The prime minister has been making sincere efforts to improve Korea-Japan relations. I have conveyed Prime Minister Kishi’s commitment to former Korean President Rhee Syng-man to continue such efforts in the coming years.”

The most notable was the final segment of the press conference. “Since Prime Minister Kishi coincidentally hailed from the same hometown as Hirobumi Ito, the prime minister made up his mind that he would exert efforts to come clean of past mistakes committed by Ito.”

Hirobumi Ito was the mastermind of Japan’s aggression into the Joseon Dynasty and was later assassinated by Korean compatriot Ahn Jung-geun. The document Choi handed to Minister Yun also contained a memoir of late former Korean Foreign Minister Kim Dong-jo, who served as Korean Ambassador to Japan and the U.S. Kim was vice foreign minister when Yatsugi visited Korea. According to the memoir, what Yatsugi said when he met with President Rhee was more dramatic. Conveying Prime Minister Kishi’s personal letter to Rhee on May 19, 1958, Yatsugi said, “Japan’s annexation of Korea was a mistake. Since Japanese aggression into Korea that put the Korean people in a miserable situation by Hirobumi Ito was a grave mistake, we atone for it.”

Before meeting Rhee, Yatsugi reportedly asked Korean government officials, “Japanese people take a bow by kneeling down when they make an apology. Is it a good idea to do so?” Only after hearing that “There is no need to do so,” did he continue to take a deep bow of 90 degrees until Rhee approached near him before holding out his hand, according to former Minister Kim’s memories.

Choi especially noted that Kishi made an apology through Yatsugi for mistakes by Hirobumi Ito, who was a senior from his hometown of Yamaguchi Prefecture. He explained, “It constituted an official apology at the government level, plus a private apology at the individual level.” Kishi himself also had a track record of serving three years in prison as a Class-A war criminal, before being acquitted and released to return to politics.

Choi once again emphasized, “Both Koreans and Japanese of today are not well aware of these facts. Prime Minister Abe should not defy the spirit of his maternal grandfather who sought to make an apology to Korea (that the grandfather publicized through Yatsugi’s press conference statement).