Papers refer in detail to the background against which the Japanese imperialists cooked up the treaty.

The Japanese imperialists were not pleased with the movement for bourgeois reform which occurred in Korea entering the 1880s and worked hard to torpedo it overtly and covertly. They did so because they were afraid that success in such movement might scuttle their plan for turning Korea into a monopolistic colony.

Resorting to a double-dealing tactics, the Japanese imperialists promised the enlightenment forces of Korea to provide them with funds and weapons for reform to tickle their fancy but they broke that promise under a groundless pretext.

Meanwhile, they cunningly hinted troops of the Qing Dynasty which entered Korea at the request of the conservative group that a great event (bourgeois reform) might occur.

When the Kapsin Coup for the bourgeois reform took place in 1884, the Japanese imperialists betrayed the enlightenment forces, driving the coup into a failure and hatched a sinister plot to invade Korea with it as a momentum.

The Japanese resident minister set fire to the legation and spread the rumor that "the fire was set by Korean rioters." Japan mobilized armed forces for aggression under the pretext that it suffered "damage" during the coup.

Japan worked out a "proposal for negotiations" peppered with lies and shifted all blames onto the Korean Feudal Government.

The Japanese imperialists faked up the above-said treaty by dint of threat and blackmail on January 9, 1885. By fabricating the treaty they wrested a huge amount of reparation from the Korean Feudal Government and provided conditions for subjugating Korea politically, economically and militarily.

Rodong Sinmun says Japan has shunned the settlement of its past crimes, denying the acts of aggression up to this date. It urges Japan to settle its past as early as possible.

Minju Joson says that Japan can never write off all the crimes it committed against the Korean nation in the past despite the flow of time.