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A mannequin installed in a mining shaft at the Sado mines complex in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture on July 28, 2024. The mine complex was recently officially inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. (Yonhap)

The Sado gold mine complex, a site located in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture and haunted by the ghosts of Korean slave laborers forced to work during the Japanese colonial occupation, was inducted to the UNESCO World Heritage list on Saturday.
 
The inscription was made possible by the government of South Korea, the country whose people were rounded up and forced to toil in the mines, which readily stood in Japan’s favor.
 
Sites can only be added to the World Heritage list with the unanimous consent of all 21 representatives of the World Heritage Committee, which includes South Korea and Japan.
 
South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that it had agreed to the addition of the Sado mine complex to the World Heritage list “on the condition that Japan sincerely implements the recommendations of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the decision of the World Heritage Committee to reflect the whole history at the site of the Sado mines.”
 
The Japanese government opened an exhibition hall of 21.84 square meters that demonstrated the dismal working conditions of Korean workers in the Aikawa History Museum on Sunday. However, it refused to acknowledge the biggest point of contention between South Korea and Japan: the compulsory nature of how Korean laborers were mobilized.
 
Takehiro Kano, Japan’s ambassador to UNESCO, did not use any phrases that referred to the forced mobilization of Korean workers or forced labor and merely said that Japan had “already installed news exhibition material relating to all the workers at the interpretation and presentation facility in the site to explain the severe conditions of their work.”

“All workers” erases the specific nature of the cruel discrimination that only Korean slave laborers were subject to. History is being tampered with. Japan has taken a significant step backward from 2015, when it acknowledged that “there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s” when Hashima Island, also known as “Battleship Island,” was added to the World Heritage list.
 
Any Korean administration in its right mind would publicly denounce the designation of the Sado mine complex as a World Heritage site, proclaiming that it could not accept such a decision when Japan’s history of forced mobilization is being swept under the rug. However, the current administration is failing to adhere even to the regulations implemented when Hashima Island was being considered for inscription while President Park Geun-hye was in office.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry claimed that the use of phrases related to forced mobilization was “settled” in 2015, which is why it was not discussed this time around. Unbelievable. If the issue is finalized, the same language should be used for all occasions.
 
A high-ranking ministry official went so far as to boast that they had “focused on cinching better follow-up measures rather than wasting our bargaining skills over phrasing. We’ve managed to bag another victory into our pockets.”
 
This “victory” was made possible by allowing Japan to ignore the key issue of forced mobilization and by being promised an exhibition that barely demonstrates the harsh reality and sacrifices, including death, that Koreans were forced to make. No hint of historical awareness or accountability can be seen.
 
The Yoon administration’s foreign policy has long been exposed as a sham with its blatant denials of history and one-sided concessions. This most recent turn of events further proves its inadequacy. Once again, we find ourselves asking: Just who does this administration serve?

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