In the previous century, Japan fabricated all sorts of illegal and fraudulent documents in a bid to reduce Korea to its complete colony. Among them is the “1907 seven-point treaty.”

Japan, which militarily occupied Korea by cooking up the “1905 five-point treaty” in a brigandish way, tried in every way to deprive the feudal Joson dynasty of its nominal right of home administration.

Japan judged that it should first get rid of Emperor Kojong in order to tighten their control over the internal affairs of Korea and create favourable conditions for swallowing it up. It began to put its judgement into practice.

It gave rise to the world-startling incident of emissaries to The Hague.

Emperor Kojong dispatched three emissaries to the Second International Peace Conference which was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1907 to disclose illegality and invalidity of the “1905 five-point treaty” and injustice of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea. Japan availed itself of the incident to forcibly dethrone Kojong and to a large extent seize Korea’s right of home administration.

At a meeting with Kojong in July 1907, Ito Hirobumi, first resident-general of the “residency-general in Korea” set up by Japan, said in a thinly veiled threat that Japan had the right to declare a war against Korea as the incident was tantamount to denial of Japan’s “right to protect Korea” and open declaration of war, and that Kojong should take full responsibility for that. He went on to send a message to the Japanese foreign minister, urging the Japanese government to make a prompt decision on adopting a treaty so as to seize Korea’s right of home administration by lawful means.

Having ousted Kojong at last through tenacious coercion and schemes, Japan made Sunjong enthroned in place of Kojong and sent its foreign minister to Korea to fabricate the “seven-point treaty” intended to deprive Korea of its right to home administration.

In fact, the “seven-point treaty” was no more than enacting as law what the residency-general in Korea was enforcing until then, and it was originated from a scheme to “legalize” all the arbitrary acts of the residency-general.

According to the “treaty”, the Korean government shall be guided by the resident-general as regards the improvement of administration and earn his prior approval in case of amendment to rules and implementation of a major administrative measure. It shall also get the consent of the resident-general for the appointment of its high-ranking officials and appoint the Japanese recommended by him as its government officials.

The “seven-point treaty” totally seized Korea’s right of home administration ranging from jurisdiction to legislation, administration and personnel management.

Given that the “1905 five-point treaty” had stripped the Korean feudal government of its right to diplomacy, the “1907 seven-point treaty” is nothing but a fraudulent document unilaterally adopted by Japan, not by both sides.

The “treaty” was cooked up devoid of sanctions, signature and sealing of the Emperor, the top sovereign of the feudal Joson dynasty.

Thus, Japan unhesitatingly faked such fraudulent documents to reduce Korea to its complete colony and enforce brutal colonial rule over it, inflicting untold misfortunes and sufferings on its people.

Notwithstanding this, the successive Japanese authorities have denied and covered up their past wrongdoings, and they are now openly resorting to embellishment and justification of their history of aggression.

The thrice-cursed crimes committed by Japan can never be covered up even with the passage of time and the replacement of generations, and there can be no statute of limitations for the hideous state-sponsored crimes against the Korean nation.

The Korean people will never forget what Japan had committed during its military rule over Korea, but settle accounts with the latter without fail.

So Kyong Hyok