日本의 保守右傾化와 韓國

Koreans' Response to Right Wing Conservatism in Japan

In september, 2006, Abe Sinzo was inaugurated as the prime minister of Japan. Although he suggests an appeasement policy toward Korea, his nationalistic point of view, mainly pursuing a strong Japan, makes us concerned especially if his most honorable figure is Yoshida Shoin, the pioneer of the modern Emperor system theory. As Japanese society is getting more and more conservative since the 1990s, it is natural that Korean, which was under the Japanese rule in the past, is interested in the situation in Japan. The Korean government has expressed a hard line stance about any discrepancy between two countries, including the history textbooks and Tokdo Island issue. However, could it be possible for the hard line policy to deter the Japanese inclination toward right wing conservatism? As shown in the history, not every country has made political decisions based on reason, facing the conflict with other countries. There are more cases of unreasonable actions. Even if hard line policy superficially succeeds to restrain Japanese right wings, it may possibly strengthen antipathy of Japanese people and even cause regional tension. It is important to prepare effective resolution in order to keep the conditions from worsening. In order words, the Korean government and people should respond to the phenomena in Japan with more realistic diplomatic methods for the sake of Korean national interests. We should thoroughly study the characteristics of Japanese conservatism especially since the 1990s. We should analyse how the Japanese conservatism could survive in the postwar era and how it has changed since the 1990s. In this paper, I reviewed the Japanese attitudes toward conservatism and showed my theory at this point of time. More verification of the theory will be my future task.