SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean authorities are considering creating a national fund to compensate Koreans who were enslaved by Japanese companies before the end of World War II as they desperately try to repair relations with Tokyo. that have deteriorated in recent years due to historical grievances.
The plan, revealed on Thursday during a public hearing organized by the Seoul Foreign Ministry, was met with fierce criticism from victims and their legal representatives, who have demanded that reparations come from Japan.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have been tense since South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 upheld lower court verdicts and ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate Korean forced laborers.
The companies refused to comply with the orders, and the plaintiffs responded by taking legal action aimed at forcing the companies to sell their local assets to provide compensation, a process that South Korean officials fear could lead to a further rift between Seoul and Tokyo. Victims have also demanded that Japanese companies apologize for their ordeals.
Ties between the US’s Asian allies have long been complicated by grievances related to Japan’s brutal rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Koreans were mobilized as forced laborers for companies. Japanese women or sex slaves in Tokyo brothels during the war..
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who took office in May, has been eager to improve ties with Japan as they seek stronger trilateral security cooperation with Washington in the face of North Korea’s growing nuclear threat. .
He met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in November in Cambodia at the first bilateral summit between the countries in three years, where they expressed their commitment to speedily resolve their “unfinished” issues, which clearly concerned the forced labor dispute. .
During Thursday’s public hearing in the National Assembly, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry official Seo Min-jung said her government’s priority is to arrange payments as quickly as possible, noting that many victims of forced laborers are already dead and that most of the known survivors are over 90 years of age.
He said it would be “impossible” to make Japanese companies apologize on behalf of the broader problem of forced labor, which has fueled mutual frustration between the countries for decades.
“It would be important for Japan to uphold and sincerely inherit the touching expressions of apology and remorse that it has expressed in the past,” said Seo, director of Asia-Pacific affairs at the ministry.
Seo said the payments could possibly be handled by the Seoul-based Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan. Shim Kyu-sun, president of the foundation, said the payments could be financed by South Korean firms that benefited from Japanese economic assistance when the countries normalized ties in the 1960s, including steel giant POSCO.
“Japanese companies have reduced much of their economic activity in South Korea and retired (many of their) assets, so it is not even clear whether a liquidation process would be enough to compensate the claimants,” Seo said.
She said government officials planned to meet with the victims and their families in person to explain the payment plans and seek their consent.
Lim Jae-sung, a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the 2018 rulings, accused the government of pushing through an agreement that excessively aligns with Japan’s position and ignores the voices of victims.
“It appears that the finalized plan of the South Korean government is to use the money from South Korean companies such as POSCO to allow the Foundation for Victims of Imperial Japan Forced Mobilization to remove the rights of victims of forced labor to accounts receivable. Lim said. “Japan bears no burden at all.”
The 2018 rulings ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi to provide 100 million to 150 million won ($80,000 to $120,000) each to 15 plaintiffs, including survivors and relatives of deceased victims.
Lim said the amount of compensation finalized by the courts could eventually exceed 15 billion won ($12 million), considering similar cases are still pending.
“Are you planning to raise funds in the amount of 15 billion won entirely from the money of South Korean companies?” Lim asked Seo, accusing the government of rushing toward a deal that would not be supported by the victims or the general public in South Korea.
The hearing was interrupted several times by angry audience members. Some shouted “traitor” at Korea University politics professor Park Hong-kyu, who participated as a panelist, after he said it was unrealistic to expect Japan to apologize and participate in the fund.
A foreign ministry official, who asked to remain anonymous during a briefing with reporters, said the plan presented during the hearing would not necessarily be Seoul’s final proposal to Tokyo.
“Today’s (hearing) was not to announce the government’s finalized plan, but to receive the views of various groups and use this as an opportunity to speed up discussions with Japan,” the official said.
Japan insists that all wartime compensation issues were resolved under a 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two nations, which was accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.
Japan reacted with fury after South Korea’s rulings in 2018 and subsequently imposed export controls on chemicals vital to South Korea’s semiconductor industry in 2019, citing deteriorating trust between the countries.
Seoul accused Tokyo of arms trading and even threatened to terminate a military intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo, which was an important symbol of its tripartite security cooperation with Washington. South Korea eventually backed down and stood by the deal after being pressured by the Trump administration.
Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries refused to enforce the 2018 rulings and appealed again to the Supreme Court after lower courts ordered them to sell their local assets to compensate the plaintiffs.
The Supreme Court has yet to make a decision on whether to allow the liquidation of the companies’ assets to proceed.
