Assemblywoman Han Jeong-ae: "Government Should Reject Additional Registration of Japanese Modern Industrial Facilities as Heritage"

As the Japanese government has largely failed to fulfill the promises made when registering the 'Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage,' including the Hashima (Gunkanjima) coal mine, a site of forced labor of Koreans, as a World Cultural Heritage in 2015, opposition parties have pointed out that the South Korean government should completely reject any additional World Heritage registrations.

Han Jeong-ae, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju, reporter doso7@

On the 5th, Han Jeong-ae, a member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, issued a press release stating, "In August last year, Japan rejected South Korea's request to explicitly mention 'coercion' during the UNESCO registration negotiations for Sado Mine, and in November, they made the Sado Mine memorial ceremony half-hearted. Furthermore, Japan did not reflect our rightful and legitimate demands to correct historical distortion in the follow-up measures regarding Gunkanjima," criticizing, "Ultimately, it has been proven that Yoon Seok-yeol's pro-Japan humiliating diplomacy has finally failed." She urged, "The government must officially declare its opposition to any additional World Heritage registrations as long as Japan does not fulfill the promises it has made to the international community."

Earlier, on the 31st of last month (local time), the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (hereinafter the Committee) published on its website Japan's follow-up report related to the Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage. This was in response to the Committee's September 2023 decision requesting Japan to submit progress on "continuous dialogue with concerned countries and additional measures to strengthen heritage interpretation strategies" by December 1, 2024, so that the World Heritage Centre and advisory bodies can review them.

Since the 2015 registration, the South Korean government has demanded ▲the exhibition of testimonies from Korean forced mobilization victims ▲a comprehensive historical explanation that many Koreans were forcibly mobilized and subjected to harsh labor conditions ▲the removal of exhibits unilaterally installed by Japan at the Tokyo Heritage Information Centre that legitimize the Japan-Korea annexation.

However, these demands have not been realized for eight years. The request to exhibit testimonies of forced mobilization victims was only met by placing Korean-language testimony booklets on shelves rather than actual exhibits, and the demand to explain the history including forced labor of Koreans was not reflected.

In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed regret again through a spokesperson's statement, saying, "We express our regret once more that the repeated decisions of the World Heritage Committee and the follow-up measures promised by Japan itself have not been faithfully implemented," and urged, "We once again call on Japan to promptly and sincerely carry out the relevant follow-up measures as it promised to the international community."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.