Japan continues with its impudent attempt to hide the aggressive character and intrinsic nature of the “flag of rising sun shedding rays” stained with blood from the human butchery during its wars of aggression.

Disputing that it is an invalid and harsh criticism to say that “flag of rising sun shedding rays” is a “symbol of aggression and militarism” and there is a need to send off accurate information towards the international community, the Japanese authorities have reportedly posted on September 24 an explanation about the “flag” in Thai language on the official website of their foreign ministry in addition to the already posted versions in English, French and Spanish languages.

The explanation said, among other things, that “‘flag of rising sun shedding rays’ was long used at home as a flag of congratulating big catch of fish or delivery of baby.” This is a distortion of the Japanese aggressive history of having used the “flag”, a war criminal flag, and a deceit against the world people.

And this is a mockery of and an insult to the global justice and peace, and ethics and morality.

Japanese attempt of this sort seeking to distort and justify its crime-woven history cannot be construed otherwise than as a shameless misdeed, and a graphic manifestation of its wild ambition for militarism.

Negating history and distorting truth is a feature peculiar to Japan and its long established pernicious habit.

In 1875, the Japanese ship “Unyo-maru” invaded Kanghwado, and in 1894, the Japanese army made a surprise attack on the royal palace of Korea, and in 1895, the Japanese army murdered in broad daylight the empress of sovereign state Korea, and moreover, it slaughtered over one million innocent Korean people during its occupation of Korea, to include its bloody suppression of the March First Popular Uprising in 1919, all of which had been committed by flying that “flag” at the front. Will the Japanese authorities say that all of these were for congratulating “big catch” or “delivery of babies”?

Is it also to celebrate “big catch” or “birth” that “warriors of Imperial Army” of Japan had provoked July 7 Incident, tying the “flag” onto their bayonets and started surprise attack on warships at Pearl Harbor, attaching the “flag” to their foreheads?

It is endless to refer to every detail of the dirty history associated with that “flag”.

Japan is seeking to fly such a bloodstained “flag” even at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

If Japan flies this cursed and hateful “flag” at the festival of peace, this will certainly be an unbearable insult to our nation and adding again to the wounds of grudge still smoldering in the hearts of the Asian people who had suffered from the aggression of Japan in the past.

No country will fall into a cunning trick of the Japanese authorities seeking to embellish the “flag of rising sun shedding rays” – an equivalent of Nazi flag – as if it is a “flag of congratulating big catch or delivery.”

Japan should not make a laughing stock of itself before the world by making a preposterous sophistry that the “flag of rising sun shedding rays” is a “flag of congratulating big catch or delivery.”

Min Kyong Mu

Researcher of Institute for Studies of Japan

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea