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A celebratory mood erupted in late July in the town of Aikawa, on Sado Island off Japan's west coast. Hundreds of people cheered as they watched a livestream of the moment the town's gold mine was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “The islanders' dream has finally come true,” Mayor Watanabe Ryugo said. The moment also signaled a possible improvement in diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea.
The Sado mines have a 400-year history. However, when discussing the mines, government officials tend to focus on the Edo period (1603-1868), arguing that the mines' uniqueness lies in the mining technology developed during Japan's isolationist policy. This ignores an ugly side of history: Imperial Japan forced at least 1,500 Koreans to work in the mines during World War II. The Japanese government downplays this, as well as other wartime atrocities, such as Korean sex slaves (or “comfort women”) who worked in Japanese military brothels.
Historian David Palmer of the University of Melbourne in Australia stresses the importance of the Sado mines to Japan's empire-building. The conglomerate Mitsubishi acquired the mines in the late 19th century. Sado's gold was traded for Western weapons and helped Japan win the Russo-Japanese War. “It's absurd to reduce this place to just a display of Edo-period antiques,” Palmer says.
At a tightly choreographed UNESCO meeting on July 27, the South Korean delegation approved the listing, saying it accepted South Korea's request to convey “both the light and the dark” sides of the mining history through exhibits.
After the meeting, an exhibition was quickly opened on Sado showing how Korean workers were treated in the mines. But while it described them as working in “harsh working conditions,” the term “forced labor” was not used. Historian Takeuchi Yasuto says that by downplaying the forced nature of the labor, the new exhibition “only reaffirms the government's previous position.” In South Korea, activists and opposition politicians criticized President Yun Seok-yol's government for making concessions to Japan. Despite the uproar on Sado, the rift between Japan and South Korea over the war is far from resolved.
