Rising Sun Flag

[4] The flag is controversial in most of the Asia and Pacific nations, mainly in South Korea, North Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, the Philippines, Taiwan and with Allied WWII veterans (mainly in Australia), where it is associated with Japanese war crimes, the Axis of World War II, and Japanese militarism and imperialism.

[9] In the 12th century work The Tale of the Heike, it was written that different samurai carried drawings of the Sun on their fans.

The design of the Rising Sun Flag (Asahi) has been widely used since ancient times, and a part of it was called "Hiashi" (日足/ひあし) and used as the samurai's crest ("Hiashimon" (日足紋)).

The Rising Sun Flag (旭日 旗, Kyokujitsu-ki) has been used as a traditional national symbol of Japan since at least the Edo period (1603 CE).

The flag with the off-set sun and 16 rays is the ensign of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, but it was modified with a different color red.

[23][24][25][26][27][28] Commercially the Rising Sun Flag is used on many products, designs, clothing, posters, beer cans (Asahi Breweries), newspapers (Asahi Shimbun), bands, manga, comics, anime, movies, video games (such as E. Honda's stage of Street Fighter II, although this was removed in the 2021 re-release[29]), World War II video games, as well as appearing elsewhere.

The Rising Sun Flag appears on commercial product labels, such as on the cans of one variety of Asahi Breweries lager beer.

JSDF Chief of Staff Katsutoshi Kawano said the Rising Sun Flag is the Maritime Self-Defense Force sailors' "pride".

[34] The Imperial Japanese Navy used the flag in the early 20th century as Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula, and invaded and occupied parts of China and other Asian countries until its defeat in World War II in 1945.

[35][37] For this reason, there is a widespread view in Japan that Ki Sung-yueng used the excuse of having seen the Rising Sun Flag to justify his racist gesture.

The following year at the 2013 EAFF East Asian Cup, a banner with a slogan about historical issues with Japan appeared on the Korean cheering squad.

[43] According to Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University, "no-one in Japan uses the rising sun flag for any purpose other than romanticizing and rewriting the horrible human rights abuses committed under the Japanese Empire.

Japan announced on October 5, 2018, that it would be withdrawing from the fleet review because it could not accept Seoul's request to remove the Rising Sun Flag.

In September 2019, the Chinese Civil Association for Claiming Compensation from Japan sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban the flag.

[45] According to the Associated Press, the IOC confirmed the receipt of the letter and said in a statement "sports stadiums should be free of any political demonstration.

On the morning of 9 August, the IOC had sent a letter to South Korea indicating that the use of the flag will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

"[49][50] Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut, argued that the rising sun flag should be banned at the 2020 Summer Olympics because the flag "is part of a collective effort to cleanse the history of Imperial Japan’s aggression during the second world war," therefore causing intentional harm to those who suffered under Japanese rule.

[51] She added that it was unsurprising that the South Korean government was the first to raise objections to the flag being waved at the 2020 Olympics, since Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 until 1945.

[55][56] The same newspaper argued that the history of the flag dates back much further than World War II,[57] and that the corporate logo of the Asahi Shimbun, which is praised for being conscientious in South Korea,[58] also uses the rising sun design.