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The collective memory of Korea, which has evolved through the shaping of the country's national culture and identity, has deepened Koreans' animosity toward Japan, and undermined reconciliation between Korea and Japan since the end of World War II. This paper analyzes how the collective memory of Japanese colonization of Korea has been constructed since World War II by examining the multiple narratives contained in Arirang, a popular Korean novel by Jo Jeong-rae, which has since the 1990s achieved canonical status on the basis of its nationalist perspective. For this purpose, this paper explores how Japanese colonialism is portrayed in Arirang, the pushback this portrayal has received from professional historians, and the socio-economic context in which the collective memory the novel promotes has been shaped and shared among Koreans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the preparation and documentation activities of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (JMOFA) for the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. Between 1946 and 1949, JMOFA produced seven volumes of pamphlets on territorial issues in the preparation process leading up to the peace treaty. Among them, a series of four pamphlets under the title of Minor Islands Adjacent to Japan Proper was published. These pamphlets were distributed to the Allied Powers to good effect. Focus was placed on the Southern Kuriles, Ryukyus, and Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo), which Japan felt should be recognized as Japanese territory by the Allies. After the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan restored peaceful relations with the United States and its major allies, but hostile relations between Japan and its neighbors in East Asia persisted. It was natural that the Soviet Union (Russia), China, and Korea, excluded from the Peace Treaty, later came to engage in territorial disputes with Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August of 1910, the Japanese Empire annexed the Korean Empire (Daehan Jeguk fi. ft if? [S; also known as the Great Han Empire), the culmination of a step-by-step seizure of Korea's national sovereignty by means of a military force that was used starting from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). In this process, the Japanese Empire coerced five treaties from Korea: (1) Japan-Korea Protocol (February 23, 1904); (2) 1st Japan- Korea Agreement (August 22, 1904); (3) 2nd Japan-Korea Agreement, or Eulsa Treaty (November 17, 1905); (4) Japan-Korea Treaty of 1907 (July 24, 1907); and (5) Japan- Korea Annexation Treaty (August 29, 1910). It is well known that the above treaties were forced upon the Korean emperor and ministers through threats. This article examines how these treaties not only did not follow the standard form of treaties, but also how the Japanese government in fact prepared the documents that should rightly have been prepared by the Korean government. This article alsofocuses on how the Japanese government, in the translated English versions of the treaties, added words that were not present in the original treaties in order to convince the Western powers that the treaties were flawless in terms of their respect of national sovereignty. In addition, regarding Japans Treaty of Korean Annexation of 1910, this article shows how both the Korean and the Japanese versions not only used the same paper, but also the same strap and font. These facts constitute clear objective evidence that the annexation of Korea was done without the consent of the Korean Empire. The author expects this study to be utilized as evidence in proving the illegality of the Japanese annexation of Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is designed to analyze why Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms in Korea that existed up to the latter part of the seventh century, became the first victim in diplomatic and military struggles among the Three Kingdom, including Goguryeo and Silla. The Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms) gives the impression that Baekje, by dint of its geographical location, had pursued the most active and shrewd diplomacy. Located in the southwest of the peninsula, Baekje enjoyed not only easy communication and transactions with China and Japan, but also could put pressure on relatively weak Silla and move to the north when Goguryeo engaged in struggles with Chinese dynasties over the Liao river. However, this paper concludes, from an international relations perspective, that Baekje became the first kingdom to lose its independence due to its clumsy management of alliances, lack of understanding of the foreign policy priority of Chinese dynasties, as well as inconsistent and self-centered diplomacy vis-à-vis China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the artworks of the artists in the Asia, Politics, Art Project (APA Project) from the perspective of "performative narrative of the people," a notion suggested by Homi Bhabha. The APA Project shows how the artworks of diasporic artists inscribe otherness within the otherwise homogeneous space of the nation. The participant artists, as the second and third generations of zainichi Korean, do not hold the memory of traumatic events suffered by the first minority generation. However, their works utilize postmemory based on dim images of memories inherited from their family histories. The elements, such as a grandmother's chimajeogori and the lyrics of an old Korean song, are woven by Oh Haji into unique narratives that are distinct from the "pedagogical narrative of the people," emphasizing unity and continuity of the nation-state. Kim uses chimajeogori in a multi-layered manner to reveal the existential conditions of students bounded by a violence that has historical roots, but she does not treat it as a simplistic oppositional sign against the dominant national ideology. These minority writers/artists and their works are illustrative cases of performative narratives that use and reconstruct images in the history and everyday life of a minority, splitting the homogeneous space of the nation and suggesting new public and diasporic spaces within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Korean government announced its plan to lift the ban on the circulation of Japanese popular culture in 1998, it immediately articulated its intention to support "genuinely" domestic comic books (called manhwa in Korean) and animation in Korea. This policy move demonstrated the government's ambivalence toward the influence of Japanese manga; at the same time that the government officially encouraged cross-breeding between Japanese and Korean popular cultures and audiences, they became overly protective of Korea's domestic popular culture industry. This paper offers a critical examination of the notion of national culture or national aesthetics by looking at the official policy toward manhwa in Korea. In addition, Lee Dong-Gi's and Hyun Tae-Jun's artworks prove to be important alternatives to the notion of an authentic Korean manhwa culture. Using theories of the hybridizing process by Arjun Appadurai and Nikos Papastergiadis, I also investigate Lee Dong-Gi's Atomaus, a hybrid of Japanese Astro Boy and Disney's Mickey Mouse, as well as Hyun Tae-Jun's 2007 replicas of classic Japanese animation characters. These characters and artworks show the ambiguous state between original and copy, or national and hybrid cultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the pro-Japanese discourse represented in the play Kim Dong-han written by Kim Yeong-pal, who was a member of the Korean Artist Proletariat Federation (KAPF), a socialistic artists group. The historical figure Kim Dong-han (1893-1 937) had been a prominent pro-Japanese and anticom- munist political figure in colonial Manchuria, though he had spent years as a communist in the Soviet Union. An examination of the dialogue in the play reveals that the arguments for socialism and imperialism share nationalism as a common ground. In Act I, the playwright employs the discourse of nation- alism to create a binary in which Joseon is con flated with Japan, while the anticolonial guerrillas represent Soviet Russia. Though first developed in the early twentieth century as part of intellectuals' efforts to preserve Korean inde- pendence, within four decades, the concept of nationhood had been largely co- opted by Imperial Japan. In Act II, the protagonist Kim Doug-han persuades the communist leader Bi-su with "civilizational" discourse. On the one side is the abundance represented by Kim Dong-han and Manchuria, which is aligned against the poverty embodied by Bi-su and communist Russia. Such rhetoric espousing greater civilization has commonly been used by empires as ethical and universal justifications for invasion. Japan also sought to place all narir,n.c if Fa.ct Asia in this mold. thus assembling an imnerial nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legality of Japan's "annexation" of Korea under international law is an issue which forms the starting point and foundation of the bilateral relations between Korea and Japan. Therefore, it has been the object of acute confrontation between the two states. The so-called Japanese legal responsibility for its colonial rule over Korea is directly affected by the answer to the issue. Theoretically speaking, this legality should be judged solely on the basis of the validity of the 1910 Annexation Treaty between Korea and Japan. However, discussions concerning this issue also cover the validity of a series of other treaties concluded in the process of Japanese plundering of the sovereignty of Korea from 1904 to 1910. The argument for the invalidity of these treaties relating to the "annexation" of Korea is grounded on two major points: firstly, the 1905 Treaty and the 1910 Annexation Treaty were concluded in coercion; and secondly, several of these treaties have formal and procedural defects. Examining the two points, this paper concludes that the treaties relating to the "annexation" of Korea borrowed the mere appearance of treaties and therefore cannot be deemed to be valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two approaches to questioning the 100th anniversary since Japan's annexation of Korea. One is to seek ways of overcoming colonialism by duly understanding the process of colonial domination from its outset through the present. Another approach is to position Japan's annexation of Korea in current circumstances. This study has opted for the second approach. Over the past 100 years, conditions surrounding the matter of Japan's colonial domination have noticeably changed. Above all, changes in the circumstances defining the relationships between Korea and Japan made inevitable the mention of colonial domination amidst other issues. From the Korean perspective, the fact that what was a single entity 100 years ago has been divided into two is the most fundamental change that has occurred. With this as a starting point, the current paper proposes to address three factors present in the 100 years following Japan's annexation of Korea. First, the Japanese government's apologetic statement for colonial domination is combined with the conception of an East Asian community. Second, the framework of perceiving the Korea-Japan relationship and the East Asian community should have a common ground. Lastly, the author also viewed the emergence of China as an essential reason for changes in order of the region in East Asia and the principal condition in defining the present state of affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates achievements to settle the issues of the past in South Korea and its possible contributions to the East Asian history. Japanese colonial policy was dependent on compelling force, and the imperial policy was justified as the policy to make civilized East Asian nations. As for a look back at the 100 Years of Japanese annexation of Korea, this research is composed widely of two parts: first, the problem of imperialistic consequences such as the relationship between a colonized nation and its colonizer, which still remains today. In the context of the East Asian history, the colonized nation has a right to require compensation and apology for damages received from the colonizer. However, the hegemonic power of the United States over Japan and Korea has made this difficult. Second, the efforts of South Korea to solve the issues of the past created some achievements but have limitations because of the current government-level policy and their attitude for its people. Today, education for history and examination of the true history appear as issues. For peace in East Asia, the role of South Korea in rectifying East Asia's history has a great significance. At the end, this paper describes the role of South Korea as recognizing the characteristics of the East Asian Cold War history of the nations such as Taiwan, Okinawa, and Vietnam based on the identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the influence of the minganhak on the formation of knowledge culture in colonial Korea. The conflict between the gwanhak and the minganhak was pervasive across the Japanese empire. In Japan, the gwanhak meant official academism contributing to the nation's goal of economic wealth and military strength, whereas the minganhak meant to pursue universal values and academic diversity. In colonial Korea, however, the two types of academism had different characteristics from the Japanese counterparts. The gwanhak in the colony meant the learning concerned with colonial policies, namely, partial but intensified form of the gwanhak in the metropole, whereas the minganhak in the colony was the imagined form of the gwanhak as role and system to run modern state. The colonial minganhak was marked by the continued political endeavor to remind the readers of the lost sovereignty and its resurrection. In colonial Korea in the 1920s, the magazine Gaebyeok functioned the foremost agency in forming and developing the colonial minganhak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has examined how the people of Joseon understood East Asia as depicted in its old maps. A great majority of Joseon maps of the world and foreign countries were made from imported source maps. Naturally, the consciousness of the original cartographers was transplanted along with the in formation in the maps. Once they were copied and used in Joseon, however, East Asia came to be understood from the Joseon perspective. The most important factor seems to have been their Sinocentric worldview. While Gangnido presents an excellent overview of all the continents, Matteo Ricci's World Map gives a panoramic view of the vast world, comprehensive enough to include even the New World. We should pay close attention to this. The sizes of Joseon and Japan give some clues to understanding the stance of fifteenth-century Joseon. Quite a few Joseon intellectuals did not see that the vast world presented in Matteo Ricci's map conflicted with the Sinocentric geographical notion. Inverted maps of Japan were very popular among Koreans from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. And Ryukyu was remembered as a commerce state in the minds of Joseon people. Many Joseon intellectuals believed that the Netherlands was a country in Far Southern Sea and actively engaged in trade with Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author reviews commonalities and differences in the distortions of history by Japan and China and also analyzes the political implications and structure, ultimately to show how the process can be linked with bringing peace to Northeast Asia. Based on this analysis, solutions are sought to address the disputes over history between Korea, China, and Japan. In the long term, the historical debates can be addressed by establishing common historical perception based on academic research. This is possible when causes for debates such as the Sino-Japanese struggle for hegemony and the Gando issue raised by Korea are eliminated. Another premise is Japanese reflection on its modem history of aggression. What matters is to put words into action by calling on Japan to reflect upon the history of aggression in an effort to broaden common historical understanding among the three countries' civil societies and jointly defending the Japanese pacifist constitution as a universal value. When those issues are resolved, the sharing of East Asian history can realize its true significance of peaceful coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]