Statue removal exposes Yoon's strategic miscalculation

The Yoon Suk-yeol government issued a statement on Thursday saying that it is considering replacing the statues of General Hong Beomdo, in the campus of the country's top military academy and in front of the national defense ministry's headquarters building, with those of General Paik Sun-yap. General Hong, who fought against the Japanese invaders from the late 19th century to the 1940s, is a Korean national hero. General Paik, who was pro-Japan before Tokyo surrendered in 1945, is known for his service during the Korean War in the early 1950s.

This move is apparently in line with the Yoon government's efforts to reconcile with Tokyo, so as to affirm the solidarity of the United States-Japan-ROK security ties in East Asia.

But the Yoon government has much more to do than demolishing old heroes and promoting new ones, as that means a big and complicated project to change the starting point of the modern history of the ROK from the Korean people's fight against the Japanese colonialization and invasion starting from the 19th century to the Korean War.

That means Japan will have been transformed from a historical enemy to an ally in the US camp together with the ROK, while China and the North of the Korean Peninsula are transformed from an ally and a brother fighting the Japanese invaders together to historical foes.

In other words, the Yoon government is distorting the history of the Republic of Korea, feeling no qualms about introducing historical nihilism to the nation, which is dangerous and carefully guarded against by almost all countries for it causes public confusion, social division and national instability.

The ROK society should be extremely vigilant with regard to Yoon's plan to replace the statues. It is by no means a small change, but a sign that his government has already become reckless in manipulating the country to suit its "value diplomacy" under the disguise of raising the ROK's profile on the world stage.

What Seoul is doing is actually the opposite. It is downgrading the ROK from a key regional player to another pawn of the US. It is now trying to castrate the country's history in which the nation has long taken pride. The question is whether the so-called democratic governance system in the country has the self-correction mechanism to prevent the government from abusing its power to hijack the whole nation to foot the bill for the strategic miscalculation of a few politicians.