history

In the past, Japan fabricated all manner of illegal fraudulent documents by high-handedness and force in order to reduce Korea to their complete colony. Among them is the “Korea-Japan protocol”.

Its attempt at cooking up the protocol had started before the Russo-Japanese war broke out.

At that time, Japan tried to forge the protocol because it wanted to put the Korean feudal government under its control before the Russo-Japanese war so as to create favourable conditions for fighting the war and provide a legal guarantee for colonizing Korea in the future.

In November 1903, Japan sent Hayashi, its minister resident in Korea, to Emperor Kojong and urged him to break off all relations with Tsarist Russia and promote friendship and cooperation with it.

The Emperor gave no definite answer to the rude demand of Hayashi, who blatantly interfered in the internal affairs of a sovereign state as an individual minister.

Under the circumstances, Japan made a surprise attack on the Russian fleet anchoring in Lushun port of China with no declaration of war on the night of February 8 1904, thereby provoking a war against Russia.

After building up its huge aggression forces in Korea on the pretext of the war, Japan drove them out to block the royal palace on the signboard of “preservation of the Korean imperial family and territory”, making it impossible for the Emperor to find shelter in other place and refuse to conclude the protocol.

When its moves to fabricate the protocol encountered vehement opposition from the officials of the Korean feudal government, it mobilized aggression troops to arrest “opposition forces” and did not hesitate to abduct a Korean government official at midnight and take him to Japan.

Under such threat, Japan egged on pro-Japanese lackeys of the Korean feudal government to conclude the six-point Korea-Japan protocol on February 23 1904 by force.

The protocol said that the Korean government shall firmly believe in the Japanese government, accept its advise on political improvement and is not allowed to conclude any agreement contrary to this agreement with the third country, that the Japanese government shall guarantee Korea’s independence and preservation of its territory and take necessary measures in case the well-being of the Korean royal family and the preservation of territory are in danger and that the Korean government shall offer convenience for it.

The protocol is woven with spacious words including friendship, peace and Korea’s independence and preservation of territory. But it was, in essence, an unequal and aggressive treaty in every way to use Korea as a yard for aggressive war and provide conditions for charging the heavy burden to fight a war onto the Korean people.

Later, the Japanese imperialists fabricated the Ulsa five-point treaty in 1905 to seize the diplomatic right of the Korean feudal government and enforce barbarous colonial rule.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of Japan’s crimes committed in the past against the Korean people.

However, Japan has not recognized any wrongdoings it had committed in the past century.

It should be well aware that thoroughgoing apology and compensation for the past crimes will only earn it the trust of international community and promote peace.