Native Koreans need to stop relying on receiving validation from westerners regarding their view of the Japanese already. Westerners, in general, are Japanophiles who play favorites and lack the innate ability to see from a perspective outside their western egocentric viewpoint, biased towards the colonial apologist narrative.

What DOES work is our ability to exert our own cultural soft power and nurture diplomatic relations with non-Asian nations in order to slowly inculcate a positive interest regarding how Korea came to be a successful nation despite all the hardships and odds. Wider and long lasting support means that more people are going to get a much broader understanding of the historical context of why Koreans have the kind of relations it has with their neighbors.