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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (left) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during their summit on the sidelines of the APEC conference in San Francisco, CA, on Nov. 16, 2023. (Yonhap)

By Lim Jae-sung, attorney and sociologist

“The World Heritage issue is essentially a history war.”

This was the phrase used by a right-wing Japanese political group in 2022 when it was pressuring the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to nominate the Sado mine complex for the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The Sado mines were the setting of a painful experience, where around 1,500 Koreans were forcibly mobilized to work during the colonial era. There was no possibility of having them included on the World Heritage list without the consent of Korea, the victimized party. Yet Japan also did not have much leeway in terms of acknowledging its history of wrongdoing.

Because of this conflict, there was widespread skepticism in Japan, with many wondering why they were bothering with something that was not going to succeed. But last month, the Sado complex was successfully registered as a World Heritage site.

The process of the perpetrators emerging victorious in the history war was a process of the victimized party — and more precisely, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration — forsaking both diplomacy and history.

Of all the contentious historical issues between Korea and Japan, the Sado mine was the one where Korea held the most advantageous position. Not only was there a great deal of talk about Japan not honoring its promises, but Korea was more than just the victimized party — it had the power to cast a vote against the registration.

Since 2007, Japan has made ongoing efforts to register infrastructure related to its modern industrialization as World Heritage. This has included examples of infrastructure where Koreans were forcibly put to work.

The first case involved the listing of Hashima Island (also known as “Gunkanjima” or “Battleship Island”) in 2015.

A banner hangs at the entrance to the Sado gold mine complex in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture on July 28, 2024, celebrating the complex’s registration as a UNESCO World Heritage. (Yonhap)

During the registration process, Japan formally acknowledged that “there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions.” With a promise to include a section commemorating the victims, it narrowly managed to get the site listed. It managed this major achievement while the Park Geun-hye administration was in office.

The promise went unkept. It was not until 2020 — five years after the registration — that an exhibit entitled “Industrial Heritage Information Center” was put in place. It was an isolated section that did not admit visitors without prior application and barred photography inside.

The biggest problem had to do with the overt historical distortions inside the exhibit. UNESCO repeatedly expressed its strong dismay over Japan’s failure to honor its promises. Meanwhile, Korea became a committee member in 2023, gaining the power to cast a vote in a structure where World Heritage registration decisions must be unanimous.

This was an overwhelmingly advantageous position to be in: Korea could urge Japan not to close its eyes to history, while reminding the work of the universal message that histories of suffering should also be remembered.

What ended up happening? The answer is a big step backward even from the Hashima Island situation in 2015, as Korea was able to achieve nothing at all.

Yoon’s presidential office has claimed that Korea “got what it wanted from Japan,” but this borders on an outright lie: after abandoning diplomacy, they are insisting that they engaged in diplomacy.

The Yoon administration has forsaken history. There are three things Korea should have demanded in the process of listing the Sado mine complex.

First, it should have insisted on a pledge from Japan to fully and properly honor its promise from 2015.

Second, it should have requested that the Japanese government come out with a formal position on the fact that Koreans were forcibly mobilized to work in the mines. Instead of subtle distortions that omitted context — writing of how “workers from the Korean Peninsula suffered hardship here” — it should have demanded a position statement clearly mentioning the forcible nature of the labor, as the Korean government requested and the Japanese government confirmed during the Hashima Island registration in 2015.

Finally, to avoid a repeat of the same unpleasant surprise seen in the Hashima case, it should have insisted on a promise to “promptly” install an exhibition section “inside” the World Heritage area, clearly indicating that this was “forced mobilization.”

None of these three things was achieved.

The first and second demands were never even a factor. All we got instead was limp rhetoric about “bearing in mind the Japanese government’s previous pledges” and “commemorating Korean workers.” In the third case, the essential elements ended up being obscured by shallow ploys.

The Yoon administration has been vocal about the measures for an exhibit commemorating victims having been implemented “ahead of time.” The idea is that this was some kind of achievement.

Was it, though? The exhibit that was clapped together was located in a corner of a pre-existing folk museum 2 kilometers from the World Heritage areas and did not include a single clear statement about forced mobilization.

While state-of-the-art exhibit spaces were built inside the Sato complex heritage region for the purpose of World Heritage registration, they include no mention of Koreans being forcibly mobilized. In the Hashima Island case, we didn’t know; with the Sado mines, we already knew and got fooled anyway.

When a victimized country forsakes diplomacy and history, it is not the only party to suffer the tragic consequences. One of the core standards for UNESCO World Heritage registration reviews is that of “history in its entirety.”

Only when it fully captures history as a whole — not only the positive parts, but also the negative parts and regrettable parts — can heritage be something to be shared with the world. Only through this process of remembering can humanity move forward.

With the Sado mine complex registration, these universal values were compromised. When a victimized country loses a history war, the result is a tragedy for everyone.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]