By Xin Ping
On July 22nd, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee released a statement that "strongly regrets" that Japan has "not yet fully implemented the relevant decision", requiring Japan to "take measures that allow an understanding of a large number of Koreans and others brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions". The Committee was referring to Japan's failure to fulfill its promises when applying for the inclusion of the Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage in the World Heritage List in 2015.
It is quite unusual for the international organization to use such strong wording, but words are never as astonishing as the reality. The industrial output from those heritage sites are established on the Japanese militants' exploitation of forcibly recruited labor forces across East Asia during WWII. Japan vowed to be informative about its crimes against human rights in the introduction of the heritage, yet its actions are long gone with the wind at those sites, in particular the Hashima Island, a previous forced labor center and currently a tourist attraction.
During WWII, to compensate for the lack of domestic labor forces, the Japanese government started to forcibly recruit labor forces abroad. It is estimated that the Hashima Island and six other similar sites forcibly conscripted over 60,000 Koreans and tens of thousands of Chinese to work in their coal mines. Data released by the ROK government and Mitsubishi shows that 1442 Koreans and 722 Chinese workers were tortured to death on the island.
Testimony from the survivors described what it might be like to live in the hellish conditions. Workers were compelled to work for at least 12 hours a day 1,000 meters beneath the sea level, where the unbearable temperature and humidity made it increasingly exhausting to continue working. Workers were provided with little water, gross and inadequate food and only an undergarment to wear while working. Any failure to meet the requirements would result in brutal beating and even killing. By contrast, above the sea level, the Japanese were enjoying their colorful and decent lives socializing, dancing and sightseeing, as if the workers were born slaves in another world.
The Hashima Island is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the discussion of forced labor of the Japanese imperialists during WWII. Between 1931 and 1945, over 10 million Chinese workers were forcibly conscripted to work for the Japanese army to build military constructions, roads, mines in harsh conditions. After 1937,when Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China, some 2.89 million Chinese workers from Shandong Province were transported to Northeast China for heavy labor. The Japanese authorities also set up worker training centers in multiple cities, transporting tens of thousands of Chinese workers, including civilians and war prisoners to 135 heavy labor sites across Japan. Most of such evidence was secretly destroyed prior to the surrender of the Japanese empire, leaving only a small part of the immeasurable human right crimes exposed to the spotlight.
The Japanese government made its own decision on what to keep in their history books and what to be introduced as a World Heritage, but history must tell truth from lies when informing our descendants of what really happened to their forefathers. Today, the abandoned industrial complex is also celebrated as one of the most famous "haunted houses" worldwide and a destination for thriller movie-makers. Perhaps that is because far beneath the sea level, the souls of the forced labor never rested in peace.
(The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News Agency, Global Times, China Daily, CGTN etc.. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.)
