By Yuji Hosaka
Professor at Sejong University

Japan's intent to use the "rising sun" flag at the competition venues of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and Paralympics is reigniting the dispute over the flag between Korea and Japan.

On voices in Korea urging a ban on the use of the flag for being a symbol of Japanese militarism, the Japanese government and the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games argue that "the rising sun flag has been widely used nationwide in Japan" and for Korea to let it go. Instead, the issue has triggered more controversy.

What worries Korea is that the rising sun flag has been the official flag of the Japanese military since 1870; both the Japanese army and navy used it when invading other countries. For this reason, the flag is considered the same as the Hakenkreuz, or the flag of Nazi Germany.

After World War II ended, the Allies thoroughly dealt with the management of Germany but that of Japan was conducted rather loosely compared with the former's case. In particular, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the title held by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, rejected requests from other countries such as Australia to execute the Japanese emperor. Instead, the emperor was allowed to live and retain his authority to smoothly govern the Japanese people.

MacArthur's SCAP also declined requests from the Allies to remove the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of the militarism that made Japan continue the war. Instead, the U.S. military authority turned the shrine into an ordinary religious corporation.

Due to the deepening of the Cold War in Northeast Asia and the outbreak of the Korean War, the SCAP reversed its policy of democratization in Japan and instead began to release Japanese extreme right figures, who were considered similar to Nazis in Germany. This was because the U.S. needed Japan to be an anti-communism fortress. In the process, Japan never received the proper punishment for a country guilty of war crimes, and no action was taken against the rising sun flag. The flag has since served as the banner of the Japanese navy, whose official title is the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF).

The rising sun flag started to incite controversy in Korea after 2000, when Japanese cheering groups used the flag to support their national team in soccer games between both countries. Before that, few Koreans were aware of the flag. Because soccer has so many crazy fans, the flag, once forgotten in Korea, began to provoke controversy when used in the sport.

When Koreans saw Japanese cheering squads using the rising sun flag to support their national squad, they began to consider it a ridicule of Korea and blasted it as a symbol of Japan's invasion ambition. As a result, the flag was banned at soccer stadiums during games. Why do Japanese bring this flag, a symbol of invasion, to soccer games that have nothing to do with politics or the military? Koreans are greatly angered over this.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and thus started the Pacific theater of World War II, Gen. Hideki Tojo was then prime minister of Japan. At the Tokyo War Crimes Trial after the war, 28 defendants were found guilty and classified as A-list war criminals. Among them, 16 were from the army and three from the navy, thus the former military branch had a stronger reputation for war crimes than the latter.

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF), modeled after the old Japanese army, was clearly aware of the separation from the old Japanese army, which led the Japanese military in the Pacific theater of World War II. The use of a star-shaped symbol was considered an inviolable taboo in the JGSDF. This gesture implies reflection, though inadequate, by the JGSDF for Japan's past war of aggression.

The JMSDF, however, remains strongly connected to the old Japanese navy probably because of the deep involvement of old naval brass.

Among the traditions the JMSDF still follows include not only use of the rising sun flag but also eating curry on weekends. Its band has also preserved many other traditions of the old Japanese navy such as performing military songs sung during Japan's war of aggression. This point apparently triggered the issue.

Use of the rising sun flag by the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) is regulated by the enforcement of the SDF Law under Japan's Peace Constitution. Changing the flag would require revision of the law, but such an amendment is apparently impossible under the right-wing Abe administration, which claims that Japan's war of aggression was "a war of liberating Asia."

The Japanese side insists that the flag's design has been widely used in history. This, however, is merely an extended interpretation.

After the start of Japan's warrior society in the 12th century, a few warriors in Kyushu used to use a pattern similar to that of the rising sun flag as their military symbol, but overall, the flag was not widely used.

Since it was used as a military flag, the rising sun flag also has an origin of aggression. This flag provided a general pattern in Japan after 1870, when the old Japanese army used the pattern with 16 rays as its military flag. In 1889, the old Japanese navy selected for its flag another rising sun design with the sun in a slightly different position.

Fellow war crime-committing country Germany, however, banned the use of the Nazi flag Hakenkreuz. Today the German military uses the iron cross symbol, a tradition passed down from German knights since the 12th century. Germany was able to exclude the use of the Nazi flag while protecting its traditional pattern. This could be because the iron cross design is internationally accepted as a general emblem in Christian areas. Yet to say the rising sun pattern is a historically accepted tradition like that of the iron cross is unconvincing. This is because during Japanese history, only a few generals and not the general military used the pattern as a military symbol.

Ultimately the heart of the issue is that allowing the use of the rising sun flag inside Tokyo Olympic Stadium on an international stage is a major political provocation.

Japan's allegation that the use of the rising sun flag at its upcoming Olympics is not political thus makes no sense. Why does Tokyo want to use a flag that symbolizes aggression at a sporting event that is enough to cause trouble?

This will do more harm than good for Japan.

Hosaka teaches political science at Sejong University in Seoul. As a naturalized Korean of Japanese descent, he is also director of the Dokdo Research Institute.

Translated by Korea.net staff writer Yoon Sojung.