On the 100th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Koreans who were massacred by Japan cannot be forgotten

Source: Global Times

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake. In response to the abuse and killing of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno recently said: "There is no record within the government that can confirm the facts. But a previous Japanese government report said that an estimated 1 percent of those killed after the earthquake were victims of the massacre.

Rumors turned into killings

On the morning of September 1, 1923, a major earthquake of about magnitude 8 struck the Kanto region of Japan. The earthquake affected six prefectures in Ichifu, from Chiba Prefecture in the east to Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Kamakura, Hakone, and Izu to Shizuoka. Tsunamis, fires and collapses caused by earthquakes caused heavy casualties, with about 90,000 dead and 15,000 missing.

Natural disasters are followed by "man-made disasters". In 1910, the Korean Peninsula became part of Japan, and the Japanese government had been worried that the Korean people would not submit and seek independence. After the earthquake, rumors about "unscrupulous Koreans rioting" in the Kanto region spread rapidly - "North Koreans set fires", "North Koreans poisoned wells", "North Koreans robbed" ... On September 2, 1923, the Japanese Ministry of the Interior sent a telegram to the regional governors, ordering strict measures against the Koreans. In addition, they notified towns near Tokyo to organize residents to form self-defense units to alert North Koreans. In fact, in Tokyo and Yokohama, the hardest-hit cities, the killings began on September 1. North Koreans were defenseless victims.

The trial records of the Urawa District Court clearly recorded the murder of Kang Dae-heung, a 24-year-old North Korean youth. At about 3 a.m. on September 4, 1923, Jiang Daxing, who was lost, met members of the local Self-Defense Forces. Armed with a spear and a Japanese sword, they chased Jiang Daxing to the cultivated land in the Someya area... When Jiang Daxing turned to look back, one of them stabbed him in the chest with a spear, Jiang Daxing continued to escape, and then fell into the nearby Jiang Tian Ditch. One slashed at Jiang Daxing's left shoulder with a Japanese knife, while the other slammed his forehead with a spear, Jiang Daxing struggled to get up, fled into a sweet potato field on the side, and fell again. At this time, other people who had heard the rumors of "unscrupulous North Koreans" also rushed over, and they used knives and spears in their hands to slash and stab many parts of Jiang Daxing's body. Jiang Daxing was seriously injured and sent to the hospital for treatment and died at about 9 a.m. that day.

According to statistics, after the earthquake, about thousands of North Koreans were tortured and killed, and some Chinese workers in Japan were also affected. According to Huang Zilian, a survivor of the Oshima town murder incident, on September 3 of that year, more than 300 Japanese ronin armed with firearms broke into the residence of 7-chome Chinese workers in Oshima Town, threatened Chinese workers to tell where their belongings were hidden, and lured Chinese workers outside the house, saying that an earthquake was imminent, making people lie on the ground, and then using hammers and other weapons to kill 174 Chinese workers. On September 5, Japanese military police and Japanese foreman Tanaka sent small workers to burn the bodies of Chinese laborers, shovel away the charred earth, fill it with cinder, and clean up the site. Wang Xitian, a Freemason member who had been campaigning for the relief of Chinese workers, was arrested by the Japanese military police while going to comfort the Chinese workers, and was hacked to death on the way to the barracks.

Atrocities tacitly approved by the Japanese government

Whether it was the Self-Defense Forces or the rioters, their atrocities against the Koreans were tacitly approved and even condoned by the Japanese government. Soldiers from the Guards Division and the First Division stationed in and around Tokyo also participated in the killings.

Regarding the murder in Oshima, Hirose said, "On September 3, in 7-chome, Oshima-cho, Chinese related to 'suspected arson by Koreans' and Koreans were shot or killed with sticks three times. According to Hirose, the perpetrators of the Oshima-cho murder also included the military. After the massacre, the Metropolitan Police Department personnel reported to the commander of the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade and the chief of staff of the martial law command and hoped to make a decision on how to deal with it. It can be seen that the torture and killing were tacitly approved by the Japanese government and military.

Six months after the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan's Yamato Shimbun published an article titled "The Bones of Hundreds of Tortured Koreans Drifted to the Zi'an Coast." According to the article, North Koreans were tortured and killed after the earthquake six months ago, and their bodies were thrown into the sea and then carried to the coast of Zi'an by the storm. According to the data, the Kanagawa Police Station, which is in charge of the area, did not take any measures to dispose of the remains, allowing the bodies to be abandoned. The Kanagawa Police Station is the only police station in Yokohama that has been protected from earthquake fire, but it is responsible for one of the worst areas where North Koreans have been abused and killed. Kanagawa Prefectural Police Chief Katsuto Nishisaka publicly declared, "Although the damage to the police station was small, due to the Korean riots, the commissioner and the commissioner also put in the same effort and hard work as other affected areas." ”

In addition, the Japanese government's lenient treatment of perpetrators also sends a signal of "ethnic discrimination", and perpetrators are given suspended sentences, lighter sentences, and even amnesties. On January 26, 1924, Japan promulgated a pardon and commutation order related to the marriage of Crown Prince Hirohito, which greatly contributed to the discrimination against foreign races in Japanese society.

"Japanese history" that is increasingly deviating from the truth

After the torture, the Japanese government not only did not severely punish the murderer, but concealed the truth for the first time. Regarding the torture and murder of Chinese workers and the murder of Wang Xitian, the Japanese government tried to perfunctory things on the grounds that it could not grasp the specific situation. It was not until this incident caused a strong protest from the Chinese people that the Japanese government began to respond.

There is a history of government cover-up operations. A previous meeting of five ministers decided to completely conceal the Oshimacho incident and the Wang Xitian incident. The Japanese Government has made meticulous planning about who can respond and how. The memorandum changed drafts several times, teasing out the complete story chain of Wang Xitian from "protected" to "released", and falsified the deliberate murder of the military department as a disappearance caused by "poor protection".

Japanese people with a conscience have been campaigning to investigate the truth, including journalists, university professors, and civil society groups. But as those who witnessed it passed away one after another, the Japanese government's handling of this past became more and more deviant from the truth. Mr. Matsuno has repeatedly said there is "no relevant record" of whether the killings took place and that the government has no plans to investigate. In response to statements in the 2009 report of the Central Disaster Prevention Council of the Japanese government, such as "many examples are more appropriately described as torture" and "the largest number of Korean victims," the Japanese government's attitude is that the report of the Central Disaster Prevention Council was prepared by members of an expert investigation team composed mainly of university researchers and cannot represent the government, so as to dissolve the relationship.

In addition, successive governors of Tokyo have delivered eulogies at memorial ceremonies for the massacre. But since taking office in 2017, Koike has repeatedly ignored the experts' demands that "tragic events that have taken place unequivocally acknowledged" and never gave another eulogy. Last year, a film called "In-Mates" was canceled by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government because it involved the torture and killing of North Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake. The producer of the work, Yuki Iiyama, went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government several times to explain, but the staff always refused. "The governor of Tokyo's negative attitude toward history has affected government workers, further exacerbating new discrimination issues," Iiyama said. ”

Milan Kundera wrote at the beginning of The Unbearable Lightness of Life: "It is precisely because the history books talk about a past that will not be repeated. The bloody years then turned into words, and theories and discussions became lighter than a feather, and no longer feared. "When all those who witnessed it pass away, it becomes especially important to pass on their true memories. History cannot be forgotten, because forgetting means repeating it.