The following is from the following book, which is a must-read for all Japanese citizens and people around the world.
The emphasis in the text is mine.
P182
Seki
Yes, during the reign of Daewongun, they even erected stone monuments here and there to exclude foreigners.
From my point of view, this is the way of maintaining one's pride by asserting one's ethnic absoluteness and thoroughly humiliating other ethnic groups, which has been handed down from the Yi Dynasty to today's Korea.
Japan happens to be the barbarians and the barbarian people for Korea today.
Lee
In short, the Korean people think of the world in terms of their own values.
As Mr. Seki says, there is the Chinese Empire, and then there is the region of Zhongyuan, which the Chinese Empire rules, and then there are countries on the outer rim that pay tribute to China.
Korea was able to pay tribute to China by escaping from the barbarian tribes and became a "small China. There is even a song called "Little China," which says, "It's not China, but it's little China.
For a long time, there was a belief that Japan belonged to the barbarian tribe in the world of Chinese and Korean values and imaginations, while Koreans belonged to the civilized circle.
However, since Japan defeated the Qing Dynasty, the suzerain nation that the Korean ruling class adores, it was really puzzling. They thought that something wrong was going on.
There was still a sense of refracted superiority over Japan and a relic of the old Sadaejuui about China.
I feel like they still haven't broken free from that worldview.
Seki
Moreover, Korea is probably Sadaejuui to China and bows down.
In return, it makes fun of some ethnic group from above.
It is how they balance things out.
Lee
That's the basic structure.
There are many articles and books by modern Korean intellectuals that portray Japan as a brutal race.
Moreover, they tend to despise Japan in their own way because they think they are governing the country with proper culture and knowledge, not with barbarism like Japan's Bushido, which does something by force.
So, at the bottom of their hearts, they believe that Korea was made a colony of Japan in the modern era not because Korea became corrupt, weak, and helplessly fallen, but because Japan is a country that only knows power.
Seki
Yes, yes.
Lee
For Koreans, there is a resentment that they were beaten by barbarians even though they are a country that values culture and knowledge. There is such a refracted feeling.
President Moon Jae-in still insists that Japan's colonial rule was illegal because the Korean Empire at the time signed up to be a colony of Japan, but they did so under the threat of force.
In Bushido, it doesn't matter if you are intimidated by force or not; you lose when you sign.
But in Korea, they don't think so. They are lingering.
Their values are fundamentally different.
Japan is powerful but morally inferior.
Lee
In the long history of Korea, the civilian government has always been much higher than the military government, at best, and there may be a tradition that Korea was a country ruled by the civilian government.
Seki.
He loses power and does not recognize the legitimacy of authority. Instead, they despise power from a higher place. That is precisely what Cheng–Zhu school is.
Li.
That's what the Southern Song Dynasty was all about.
Seki
Yes. The Southern Song Dynasty is in the same position as the later Joseon Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty lost half of its country to different ethnic groups (such as the Meoshen), and even the emperor was taken away and defeated by force.
That's why it is very much in line with Cheng–Zhu school's philosophy to stand above the other party in the world of ideas and thoughts and maintain the pride of the Baekmin by saying, "You people have nothing but power.
The Joseon Dynasty still needs Cheng–Zhu school. In the mind of the ruler, Chosun will be saved by Cheng–Zhu school.
Lee
With that, they are morally superior, and Japan is powerful but ethically inferior.
That mental structure persists.
Seki
Because they are morally superior, they only recognize the other side as ethically superior. That's why it despises others so thoroughly in their minds.
In the first place, there is no point in keeping promises to them because they are not at the same moral level.
The judge that they are not from the same world. There is no way they can keep a promise to a barbarian.
That's why they don't care about the promises they made to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, even if it reneges on them later.
They think that the other party (the Japanese) is a barbarian anyway.
Lee
So, at the bottom of their heart, they feel relieved when they confirm that the other side is barbaric and unreasonable, which is probably why Koreans constantly tell them to apologize.
"Apologize" may not be a way to get along, but to confirm that the other person is evil.
Seki
That is the same kind of mentality that China has toward the U.S. these days.
By its admission, China is still losing economic, military, and technological power to the U.S.
But at the end of the day, the Chinese think, "They (Americans) are still savages with no culture.
Li
Americans are barbarians.
Seki
Recently, there was extraordinary evidence that the Chinese decided that Americans were barbarians.
It was a meeting between the top U.S. and Chinese diplomats held in Alaska, U.S.A., on March 19, 2021.
Lee
There was, wasn't there?
Seki
The top diplomat, Yang Jiejing, a Communist Party Political Bureau member, and Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister went from China.
The meeting took place in the United States, so they were guests from the Chinese point of view. However, the Americans did not provide them with food.
So they ate dinner and lunch on their own at the hotel. Yang ate instant noodles.
At the same time, the Chinese side made much of the fact that it was an insult.
They said, "Americans don't know the minimum etiquette of a civilized society. So they are barbarians.
The following week, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came to China, Wang Yi deliberately set up a grand banquet to welcome him.
He took the trouble to post a photo of the banquet to show that "we are a civilized nation and have the courtesy to entertain guests.
That's how they think they beat the Americans.
Lee
It may sound hilarious, but this is the logic that the Chinese people follow.
Seki
It does. It probably goes the same way in North Korea and South Korea.
Lee
But if you think about it, they will have a fierce battle, and if the Americans entertain the Chinese bureaucrats, they won't be able to fight for the national interest.
So if they don't eat the food they brought with them, it has no idea that they can't have a fair discussion.
In 2002, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi flew into Pyongyang to retrieve Japanese citizens North Korea had kidnapped, he brought rice balls with him.
Kim Jong-il, the supreme leader of North Korea, prepared a grand banquet to discourage his opponent's will to fight, but Koizumi refused.
If China wants to talk to the U.S., it will have to do so.
Seki
Returning to the Southern Song Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty is pitiful, but from my point of view, it was the Cheng-Zhu school that ruined Korea the most.
In addition, the other is the spiritual victory method. It said it lost in its ability but mentally beat others.
The basis for this is the belief that we are on a cultural high.
This mental structure is terrific.
Li
So, in Lu Xun's novel, The True Story of Ah Q, the Chinese people's bad habits and wrong mental structure are directly expressed in the person of Ah Q.
He is the one with the mental victory method.
There is a scene where he slaps his cheek and says, "The hand is mine; it is the other person who is struck.
Seki
So erecting statues of comfort women here and there would essentially be like slapping themselves on the cheek.
But since they think it is Japan that is being slapped, they are happy with this.
Lee
Yes, yes.
Seki.
They think it is the Japanese who should be ashamed for erecting that statue.
For them, because it's Japan who got hurt, when in fact they insulted their grandmothers.
Lee
It is just the above mental victory.
They have such a mental structure because they accepted Chinese culture in a different form than Japan.
Seki
So Japan inherited the essence of Chinese culture, while Korea received the worst parts of Chinese culture.
