Concerns are being voiced in Japan after the organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics expressed their intent to allow the use of the Japanese imperial flag during the games next year.

The Tokyo Shimbun newspaper said the issue has emerged as a new cause of dispute between South Korea and Japan following the organizing committee's statement after a Korean parliamentary committee called for a ban on bringing the Rising Sun Flag into stadiums during the Tokyo Olympics.

The newspaper on Friday also quoted criticism against the Olympic organizers' decision to allow the flag's use.

An expert on Japan's modern history and professor at Meiji University, Akira Yamada, explained that to Korea, the flag is a symbol of Japanese military oppression.

He said that the different attitudes regarding the flag between the two countries exists because in Japan, the colonization of the Korean Peninsula has become a faint memory.

Earlier the organizing committee said it would not ban the Rising Sun Flag during the Olympics as it is widely used in Japan and that the act of raising the flag itself does not constitute political propaganda.
 
Another Japanese professor pointed out that no matter how common the flag may be in Japan, it still represents Tokyo's past expansionism to other countries and does not sit well with a peace festival like the Olympics.