China and Japan are the protagonists in most discussions about the unsettled legacies of Northeast Asia’s twentieth century, which makes sense. Although we will never know for sure, Japanese soldiers killed between ten million and twenty million Chinese in the nation’s attempt to bring China under Japanese control during the 1930s and 1940s. This figure is maddeningly imprecise, yet the toll at either end is so staggering that it remains difficult to approach simple questions of what happened to whom, and how?
Today, the dynamics of history and memory at play in these issues incorporate wide-ranging claims of right and wrong as well as demands for atonement, all of which are subsumed by the local catchall phrase, “history problems.” Without challenging China’s central place in them, the following pages instead consider how Korea—particularly South Korea—fits in because an interesting pattern runs across Northeast Asia’s modern history. As Japan dislodged China as the preeminent power in the region during the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese officials often used policies in China that they had previously tried out in Korea. In other words, and in no way a perfect mirror, Japan’s takeover and rule of Korea between 1905 and 1945 would serve as a template for Japan’s aspirations in China at the time. Notably, the practice continued into the post-1945 world, particularly in terms of Tokyo’s policies regarding the nation’s collapsed empire. Therefore, looking at Korea and Japan’s interactions concerning their shared past may usefully nuance some of China and Japan’s more widely known debates.
Moreover, examining Japan’s “history problems” with Korea makes clear that any study of these countries’ post-1945 relations fails without substantially considering the role of the United States in the matter. Including the United States in this way raises awareness about the limits on writing history, which America has helped sustain in Northeast Asia since the end of the Second World War, leading to related questions about the ongoing nature and meaning of contemporary democracy. Finally, and perhaps most important for most readers, introducing the United States through this lens reveals deep-seated and self-perpetuating boundaries on America’s national narratives as well.