By Yi Whan-woo
Japan plans to set up an information center in Tokyo by 2019 to address history of 23 Meiji Industrial Revolution sites granted UNESCO world heritage status, according to diplomatic sources, Monday.
The measure to set up the center 1,000 kilometers from the sites, however, is virtually seen as noncompliance with UNESCO’s recommendation in 2015 when the 23 sites won world heritage status despite Korea’s opposition.
It is also an apparent attempt to cover up the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of Koreans at seven of the 23 sites, including Hashima Island off the coast of Nagasaki, during Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
In 2015, UNESCO granted world heritage status to all 23 sites under the condition Japan correctly addressed the slave labor issue of the Koreans at the seven, by measures including opening an information center. But it did not state where such an information center should be set up.
An estimated 57,000 Koreans were forcibly taken to Japan and toiled under extreme conditions at the sites to produce coal and steel and also to manufacture ships as well as other equipment for the Japanese military.
If the information center is installed in Tokyo, visitors to the seven sites will hardly learn about the conscripted labor of Koreans. The sites are located across eight prefectures but none are in Tokyo: For instance, Hashima Island is approximately 1,000 kilometers from the Japanese capital.
“It’s anybody’s guess whether visitors to the UNESCO heritage sites will learn about the dark history related to the Meiji Industrial Revolution, unless they spend extra time and money to come to Tokyo to only visit the information center,” a Japan expert at the Sejong Institute said on condition of anonymity.
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which handles the information center, initially considered Kyushu Island as a candidate site for the center, according to sources.
The sources claimed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s office then insisted on opening it in Tokyo.
What information the center will provide is likely to be controversial as well, because Abe’s Cabinet is focusing on promoting the 23 sites as evidence illustrating Japan’s rapid industrialization -- as the first non-Western nation to do so -- rather than highlighting the conscripted workers.
The Asahi Shimbun reported last week the information center will address various historical facts, such as Korean workers on Hashima Island, but did not mention whether the information will state that they were coerced into labor.
During World War II, Korean workers at Hashima Island were isolated from the outside world and suffered frequent tunnel collapses, gas explosions, falling rocks and other harsh work conditions.
Koreans were also forced to build military supplies such as warships and torpedoes at the Nagasaki shipyard.