History has numerous records proving criminal acts of foreign aggressors against other countries and nations. However, among them we cannot find such vicious and cunning criminal acts as those committed by the Japanese imperialists in Korea.
One of them is the Japanese imperialists’ act of marking Korea’s name in English.
Originally, the English mark of Korea’s name was “Corea” and most of all countries in Europe including Korea used it since the mid-13th century. Korea’s name was marked plainly as “Corea” in the “Corea-US Treaty” of 1882, that is, before the Japanese imperialists occupied Korea, the “Corea-England Treaty” of 1883, the first treaty on England-Japan Alliance of 1902 and on the international arena.
However, coinciding with the occupation of Korea by the Japanese imperialists in the early 20th century, its mark was changed into “Korea”. That is, “C”, the first letter of its former English mark was replaced with “K”. This is the result of cunning and evil act of Japan. Since long ago, it has been an international custom to arrange countries’ names according to their English letters. According to the custom, the name of Korea whose first letter is “C” is on the third place, but the name of Japan whose first letter is “J” is on the 10th. This gave offence to Japan. As Korea, the target of its aggression, was placed before Japan in arranging the countries’ names in the international arena, the Japanese imperialists replaced “Corea”, the English mark of Korea’s name with “Korea” by using every possible cunning and mean method.
The Japanese imperialists began to use “Korea” in the “Katsura-Taft Agreement” made between the US and Japan in July 1905, just before their occupation of Korea, instead of “Corea”, the English mark which they had used in the first treaty on England-Japan Alliance in 1902.
The Korean people will never forget all the criminal acts made by the Japanese imperialists in Korea but revenge upon them a thousand fold.
