Japan has sparked controversy by again deliberately omitting historical wrongs from the Japanese colonial period, including forced Korean labor, from an information booklet introducing its World Heritage sites published to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its UNESCO membership.
According to Kyodo News on September 14, the booklet discusses the “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution” and the Sado Mine without mentioning historical issues at all. In particular, it emphasized only the Sado Mine’s aspect as the largest gold production site of the Edo period, and omitted the fact that more than 1,000 Koreans were mobilized for forced labor to secure war materials during the Pacific War.
In addition, it highlighted Japanese skilled workers through a mine tunnel model and stated that Koreans at the time received high wages, obscuring the fact that they were not properly paid.
This attitude was equally apparent in the introduction of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution, which includes Gunkanjima.
The booklet described Gunkanjima as a “maritime city equipped with advanced technology,” and regarding the Hashima coal mine, where forced Korean labor was concentrated, it merely mentioned that it was a simple undersea mine that supported domestic and international coal demand.
In this regard, Kim Young-hwan, Director of the External Cooperation Office at the Center for Historical Truth and Justice, strongly criticized, saying, “This is a repetition of the anachronistic historical denialism of the Japanese government, which thoroughly conceals the history of forced Korean labor, and it is a clear violation of the recommendations of the World Heritage Committee.”
