How the Banning of Japan’s “Rising Sun” Flag Will Help Asia Heal
As conversations over what the Confederate flags and statues scattered across the United States represented and whether or not they appropriate were had and laid to rest by the United States Department of Defense and NASCAR among others this last month, everybody seemed to have their eyes on America. From London to Tokyo, it seemed as if the pains of racial injustice, police brutality, and the general perverted power dynamic between those in power and those in chains seemed to echo in a universal language. In that moment, as the eyes of the world looked to the “leader of the free-world,” President Donald J. Trump failed to ease division in the country, dismissing the movement against Confederate symbolism as a “culture war” and telling RealClear Politics, “If the Republicans don’t toughen up and get smart and get strong and protect our heritage and protect our country, I think they’re going to have a very tough election.”
With the 2028 Summer Olympics bid having been awarded to Los Angeles, California, it certainly isn’t difficult to imagine that were a Confederate “rebel flag” to fly among the fans in a stadium filled to capacity, millions of Americans would be left recalling a dark and painful history. Yet, across the Pacific, the organizers of Japan’s now-2021 Summer Olympics have denied requests by the South Korean Sports Ministry to ban a controversial banner that many Koreans see as a symbol of a violent and brutal history under Japanese rule in the earlier half of the 20th century. Japan states that the “rising sun” flag in question does not constitute a political statement and is thus, appropriate for display at the Olympics.
Japan’s “rising sun” flag — which depicts a “sunburst” accompanied by sixteen rays — is distinct from the red circle upon a white background depicted by the Nisshōki, the official national flag of Japan as of August 1999. Originally flown by Japan’s feudal warlords, the “rising sun” banner was adopted as the official flag of the Japanese imperial military forces beginning in 1870 and lasting until the end of the Second World War. The banner became the official symbol of the Japanese Imperial Navy in 1889 and subsequently the Maritime Self-Defence Force in 1954.
Going beyond the “rising sun” flag’s vexillological history, the complicated relationship between South Korea and Japan is an important background to note in regards to this conversation. Harking back to the late-16th century Toyotomi-regime Japanese invasions of the Korean peninsula and the battles that ensued with the alliance of the Joseon and Ming dynasties — the predecessors of Korea and China respectively — even as far back as the 7th century A.D., the two nations have oftentimes found themselves at war with one another, with multiple Japanese attempts to invade the Korean peninsula tracing back to then.
With Japan’s victory in the First Sino-Japanese War in April of 1895, the Joseon dynasty Korean Empire was placed under the Japanese sphere of influence. After the Japanese government’s assassination of Joseon Empress Myeongseong in 1895, who was viewed as a direct obstacle to Japanese overseas expansion for her anti-Japanese influence stance, the Korean Empire saw a massive spike in resentment of Japanese presence whilst under the rule of Emperor Gojong (her husband) and Emperor Sunjong (her son). However, after the Japanese victories in both the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars as well as centuries of intimidation and political maneuvering, Korea ultimately succumbed to Japanese colonial rule and was formerly annexed and colonized in 1910.
Despite significant modernization and industrialization over the following 35 years of colonial rule, Koreans nonetheless suffered brutal repression at the hands of Japan’s military regime. The Second World War saw Korean men being forced to the fronts as soldiers or to wartime factories as laborers and thousands of young Korean women becoming enslaved “comfort women,” providing sexual services to Japanese soldiers in military brothels.
Waging an all-out war on the Korean way of life, the Empire of Japan forced Korean grade schools and universities to forbid the speaking of Korean, with Japanese becoming the official language of the colonized peninsula. Burning Korean historical documents and tearing down the nation’s most noteworthy historical sites, certain elements of Korean culture — which Japan preserved — were manipulated to uphold the theory that while one empire, Koreans under Japanese rule were an inferior and primitive people, a second-class citizen. As language, education, and history were manipulated to assimilate the Korean people into the Japanese Empire, the empire’s attempts to mandate the worship of Japanese religions and adopt Japanese names only added fuel to the cultural genocide being waged upon the Korean peninsula.
Beyond the Korean peninsula, the Japanese Empire proceeded to wage this cultural genocide upon the people of mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Singapore, Myanmar, and various inhabited islands in the Pacific. Most notable of the atrocities during the height of the Japanese Empire was the infamous Unit 731, a covert biological/chemical warfare, research, and development unit that was stationed in Manchukuo, present-day China. Performing experiments on Chinese, Russian, Mongolian, and Korean prisoners of war and civilians, Unit 731 carried out experiments involving rape and forced pregnancy, intentionally giving victims frostbite to test the body’s resilience, chemical weapons testing, and vivisection without anesthesia — or the performing of surgical procedures on a living being, usually being animals. At the Second World War’s end, much like how the scientists of Nazi Germany had been granted immunity from war-crime charges through “Operation Paperclip,” the United States granted secret immunity to the researchers of Unit 731, dismissing victim accounts as “communist propaganda” and gathering data on human experimentation.
In recent months, the fellow economic superpowers, free-world leading nations, and U.S. allies have found themselves at odds with one another yet again, with the South Korean Supreme Court ordering Japanese firm Mitsubishi in 2018 to compensate Koreans that had been used as forced laborers during the Japanese rule over Korea. When Mitsubishi refused, the South Korean government had the South Korean assets of Mitsubishi, as well as two other related companies, seized.
In 2019, Japan’s removal of South Korea’s “favored trade partner” status and imposing of export controls to South Korea saw damage to the global economy, as South Korean major companies such as Samsung took a hit.
While the two nations have fought against one another for centuries, the 2021 Summer Olympics presents a unique opportunity for the two nations, and subsequently the greater Asian continent, to heal. With even the international governing body of soccer, FIFA, having banned the displaying of the “rising sun” flag and the Asian Football Confederation having sanctioned Japan for it’s fans’ use of the flag, it is rather obvious that the Olympics will be a more welcoming and cooperative environment if this “rising sun” flag is banned.
While each and every flag holds meaning to certain groups of people, some such as the Confederate “rebel flag” in the United States or the flag of Nazi Germany are reminders to millions of a history of pain and intolerance. Similarly, Japan’s “rising sun” holds no place in the Olympics, a celebration of athletic talent regardless of nationality or race, or the world at-large.
Japan is a beautiful country with a rich and vibrant landscape, culture, and history. With the nations of Asia stuck in the past at the hands of the previous generations’ crimes and mistakes, banning a flag with a history of horror and pain will allow the people of South Korea and Japan, as well as the other victims of the Japanese Empire’s expansionist initiatives, to celebrate each other’s rich histories, cultures, and athletic talent come 2021 and beyond.
