What is the aim of South Korea-s anti-Japan policy?

South Korea has long been the ally of the U.S., and in the more recent history, it has established very good trade relationships with China. Not only this, the peninsular country is trying its best to keep up in the good books of North Korea.

(Courtesy: The Daily Star)

South Korea’s anti-Japan policy has its roots in the days of its colonialism. The country was a Japanese colony for 35 years after Japan invaded the peninsula in 1910.

Let’s have a look at what all South Korea suffered at the hands of Japan:

• Japanese, just like any other colonizers, suppressed the South Korean language and imposed their own language and culture on the people.

• During the World War –II, they used South Korean women as the “comfort women”. These women were used as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers.

• Even the annual visits of Junichiro Koizumi, the former Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006 to Yasukuni shrine (situated in Tokyo to commemorate the Japanese war dead and some war criminals) have also been one of the subjects of South Korea’s dissatisfactions.

• South Korea and Japan have a territorial dispute as well. A group of islands (along with fishing and mineral rights) is claimed by both the countries. The islands lie in the Sea of Japan called Dokdo by Koreans and Takeshima by Japanese.

• Japan is also accused of wiping out its wrong-doings during wartime from Japanese textbooks.

All these things have given rise to the anti-Japanese sentiments and such policies in South Korea.