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Article: Japanese Politician Enrages South Koreans; Conquest of Peninsula Called `Peaceful Merger'
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- June 6, 1995
- Author:
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With Japan mired in yet another painful debate about this nation's
responsibility -- or lack of it -- for World War II, a top politician
has ignited rage in East Asia by asserting that Japan's brutal
conquest of Korea early this century was a "peaceful merger."
Michio Watanabe, a leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, set off
the latest controversy on Japan's war role with an off-the-cuff
speech at a local political rally Saturday. He said the Japanese
army's 36-year, pre-World War II military rule in Korea was the
result of "a treaty of peaceful merger signed under the auspices of
international law."
Watanabe presumably did not know that these remarks made behind
closed doors would be ...