Imperialist vs Rogue. Japan, North Korea and the Colonial Question since 1945

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt on grasping with the Japanese colonization in Korea through two main issues: the colonial past as an important stake in the Japan-North Korea negotiations since 1945, and the status of the Japanese colonization among the Japanese public debate.In 1991, during the negotiations aiming at the normalization between Japan and North Korea, « settling the past » constituted a main issue before reaching to the consensus of the P’yŏngyang Declaration, the 17th of September 2002. The Declaration mentions apologies for the colonial domination and preconizes a strong “economical cooperation”, meaning actually the payment of indemnities to North Korea, and re-enacting the same type of resolution decided toward South Korea some 35 five years ago.In Japan, the persistence of regional security issues with North Korea (the threat of ballistic and nuclear missiles, repeated abductions of Japanese citizens) and the well mediatized idea of North Korea as a « rogue state » tends to obliterate, in the public Japanese mind, the colonial past and the former Japanese domination in Korea. Although very well documented et studied in Japan among scholars, the colonial domination, thus, constituted a weapon of choice in the self-legitimization rhetoric of the P’yŏngyang regime and Kim Il-sŭng, since its very foundation.