He has had school textbooks changed to deny that Japan committed war crimes against Korea. He has stated that systematic rape of Korean women never happened. That massacres of Koreans living in Japan never happened. He is trying to anger Korea by preventing exports of Japanese materials to Korea and reduce Korean imports by tightening restrictions.
He was primarily behind the change in textbooks used in many Japanese schools that teach kids that Dok-do Island belongs to Japan, and that Korea is occupying the island illegally. In historical documents in Japan and Korea, it always belonged to Korea. Only in recent history, does Japan claim rights. It seems that to many conservative Japanese politicians that everything in the Sea of Japan belongs to Japan. That is why we don't want to call it the Sea of Japan. It was never called the Sea of Japan in Korean or Chinese history. It was Westerners who listened to Japanese that started to call it the Sea of Japan.
If you teach Japanese kids that a Korean island is theirs and that it is being occupied illegally, then you are starting a conflict, a potential war.
Why?
He feels that Japan is crippled by not having a full military. It is only allowed to have a defense force by constitution. He wants to change the constitution. A slight majority of Japanese are against this.
The only probable way to persuade Japanese to change the constitution seems to be to make South Korea an enemy and have it withdraw from defense pacts that it has with Japan. That would make US Japan's sole ally in the region. Against both Koreas, China, and Russia. That would probably convince Japanese that they need a full military.
Maybe that's happening behind the scenes.
Koreans rarely talk about boycotting other countries, but there is a lot of talk about boycotting Japanese and Japanese related goods. Except Japanese restaurants in Korea, since they are usually owned by Koreans.
