March 1 marked the 100th anniversary of a speech given by a student in a Seoul park declaring Korean independence. To commemorate the event, South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivered an address in which he called for strengthening bonds between Japan and South Korea, which are severely frayed at present due to diplomatic frictions, most of which are related to Japan's colonial rule of the peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

Moon's tone of reconciliation was grudgingly noted by the Japanese government, although the Foreign Ministry took issue with the number of people Moon said had been killed in the uprising sparked by the 1919 declaration, saying there is still no historical consensus about the matter. Some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party complained that the ministry's message wasn't strong enough. In any case, the ministry had issued a travel advisory to people planning trips to South Korea, warning Japanese about possible demonstrations on March 1.

If the government is concerned about how many people were supposedly killed in the uprising, it should be noted that it has never said anything about the roots of the March 1 Movement, and neither does the press. The current administration never talks about the colonial period except to maintain the narrative that Japan's annexation of the peninsula was legal at the time, and the media goes along with this vague version of history. The public, as a result, knows very little about it, since it is only sketchily covered in history classes, if at all.