Competing Memories of Japanese Colonization and Resistance: A Study of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Textbooks

Abstract

This paper attempts to develop an understanding of the ways in which Korean, Chinese, and Japanese middle school textbooks depict colonial rule and resistance in the period of Japanese expansion in Northeast Asia. The first section discusses the three nations’ distinct perspectives on the period of Japanese invasion. The second section examines the memory of resistance, namely the March First Movement, or Samil Movement, and the May Fourth Movement, which are taught as major turning points in the independence movement in Korea and China, respectively. Japan’s policy of securing wartime armament, discussed at length in Korean and Chinese textbooks, is examined in the third section. In addition to material mobilization, the forced nature of human resource mobilization is also covered extensively. Manchuria is discussed in the fourth section because of it being the historical intersection of Korea, China, and Japan. The final section details the importance of August 15, 1945.