South Korea yesterday announced plans to compensate victims of Japan’s forced wartime labor, aiming to end a “vicious cycle” in the Asian powers’ relations and boost ties to counter nuclear-armed North Korea.
Japan and the US immediately welcomed the announcement, but victims’ groups said it fell far short of their demand for a full apology from Tokyo and direct compensation from the Japanese companies involved.
Seoul and Tokyo have ramped up security cooperation in the face of growing threats from North Korea, which is expanding its nuclear weapons program in defiance of UN sanctions.
Photo: Reuters
However, Seoul-Tokyo ties have long been strained over Tokyo’s brutal 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, when about 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labor by Japan, according to data from Seoul.
This does not include the Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.
Seoul’s plan is to take money from major South Korean firms that benefited from a 1965 reparations deal with Tokyo, and use it to compensate victims and their families, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Park Jin said.
The hope is that Japan will “positively respond to our major decision today with Japanese companies’ voluntary contributions and a comprehensive apology,” he added.
“I believe that the vicious cycle should be broken for the sake of national interest,” Park added.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the new plan, telling reporters it would help to restore “healthy” ties.
The plan does not include a fresh apology, although Hayashi said Tokyo stands by a 1998 declaration that included an apology.
Japanese media have also reported that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol could soon visit Tokyo, possibly even for a Japan-South Korea baseball game this week.
However, it remained unclear whether Japanese companies, including those such as Nippon Steel, which were named in the 2018 court ruling, would make voluntary contributions to the new fund.
Nippon Steel said it had no comment on the ruling, adding that “our company’s understanding is that this issue has been resolved by the 1965 Agreement.”
Park said the plan had the support of many victims’ families, adding that Seoul would “see them one by one and consult with them and seek their understanding sincerely”.
However, the plan had already drawn strong protests from victims’ groups.
“It is as if the bonds of the victims of forced labor are being dissolved through South Korean companies’ money,” Lim Jae-sung, a lawyer for several victims, said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“It is a complete victory for Japan, which can’t spare even one yen on the issue of forced labor,” Lim said.
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