[Column] Time for reconciliation and cooperation

Lee Ha-kyung
The author is a senior columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.

President Yoon Suk Yeol has used up all his cards against Japan. He has been accused of starting the car with the doors open to break the ice with Tokyo by proposing to compensate the victims of the wartime forced labor through a public fund led by Korea on behalf of the Japanese companies.

The move helped remove the biggest obstacle in bilateral relations and led to a summit in Tokyo for the first time in 12 years. Japan lifted curbs on its exports of chip-making materials to Korea and restored the General Security of Military Information Agreement (Gsomia) with Tokyo. But Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stopped short of mentioning the forced labor issue and skipped a formal apology.

Japanese companies that have been ordered to pay damages won’t be joining the fund to compensate Korean victims, either. Tokyo has claimed a “complete victory” while Koreans feel the settlement “shameful.” The Korean president finds himself in the middle of a minefield.

Japan does not seem to understand the root of the bitterness of Koreans. As specified in the 1943 Cairo Declaration, Koreans were nearly enslaved by Japan for 36 years of colonial rule. Therefore, Korea wanted to participate in the 1945 San Francisco Peace Conference among the Allied Powers determining the war reparations. To gain legitimacy, Korea argued that it had been at war with Japan before the outbreak of World War II and the government in exile in Shanghai, China had fought hard for independence against Japan. On Jan. 26, 1951 in the middle of the Korean War, Chang Myon, the Korean ambassador to the U.S., finally received a promise from John Foster Dulles, a counsel to U.S. Secretary of State at that time, to support Korea’s participation in the peace settlement with Japan. But Korea ended up being excluded from the negotiations to sign the Treaty of San Francisco with Japan in September 1951 among 48 nations due to the opposition by Britain and Japan. It was clearly unjust and woeful for Koreans.

Upon receiving the draft of the San Francisco Peace Treaty on March 27, 1951, Japan started working meticulously before notifying its official position to the U.S. on April 4. In the meantime, the draft of the treaty laid idly on the desk of South Korean officials handling the affair due to the ongoing war with North Korea. After discovering unfavorable provisions for Korea from Japanese media, Hong Jin-ki, a senior official at the Ministry of Justice at the time, reported them to President Syngman Rhee who had let down his guard from blind faith in General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of United Nations Forces in Korea. Seoul hurriedly sent to the U.S. a letter expressing a determination to attend the negotiation and explaining its position on territory and damage claims in May, a month after Japan did so.

Under the peace treaty, Korea and Taiwan were declared areas out of Japan’s colonial rule. In other words, the Allied Powers categorized the two countries as “former colonies.” As a result, Japan was cleared of the illegality of its colonial rule and the liability for legal reparations and atonement. To make matters worse, the use of Korean labor became “legitimate,” as Korea was a part of Japan at the time.

The humiliation and wretchedness did not stop there. Even while warring with Japan, the U.S. established the Far East division at the State Department from 1942 to prepare a “soft postwar peace” with Tokyo to bring the country back to the international stage. There was no room to engage Korean demands.

In October 1951, a month after the signing of the treaty in San Francisco, Korea and Japan entered direct negotiations to settle outstanding bilateral issues. Japan demanded the right and claims over the assets 500,000 Japanese left in Korea after the war. Japanese had 85 percent of all assets in Korea at the time. The representative of Japan even argued that it had reparation rights as the country had done “beneficial works” during the colonial period. Hong Jin-ki, who headed the talks for Seoul, retorted that the rights of countries freed from colonial rule came first according to international law. Tokyo ended up withdrawing its claims for “war reparation.”

The Basic Treaty for normalization of the diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo was concluded on June 22, 1965, nearly 14 years after the talks began. Korea received $300 million in grants and $200 million in loans, the seed money for South Korea’s economic development.

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President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shake hands before having an extended summit in the official residence of the prime minister in Tokyo, Mar. 16. [YONHAP]

Over the issue of colonial rule, however, Japan said it’s already “ineffective.” The two parties had agreed that all treaties or agreements concluded between Korea and Japan before 1910, including the annexation treaty which led to the colonial rule through 1945, to be “already null and void.” Korea claimed the treaties should be “void in the first place.” But the Japanese government reported to its parliament that although the treaties were no more, they had existed and were valid during the colonial period. Again, there was no atonement from Japan, which rubbed salt on Koreans.

The 2018 ruling from the Supreme Court declaring that the colonial rule was illegal and therefore Japan had the duty to compensate the plaintiffs for the forced labor was a bombshell for Japan. Tokyo still remains in denial over the compensation issue based on the Basic Treaty in 1965.

There had been some developments to the 1965 regime. Japanese leaders have apologized 50 times. In the joint declaration after the 1998 summit between Kim Dae-jung and Keizo Obuchi, the Japanese prime minster expressed “a deep remorse and heartfelt apology” for the “tremendous damage and suffering” Japan had caused to the people of Korea during the colonial rule. Although Tokyo had not formally acknowledged the illegitimacy of the colonial rule, it had partly admitted to the injustice in a show of some conscience and reason.

President Yoon has taken a brave move even going against the public sentiment. Japan must respond with equal sincerity. But his solution based on third-party compensation for the forced labor did not gain legislative approval. Therefore, it could face lawsuits by surviving victims. Yoon must work harder to persuade those victims. He must hear out the rants and rage from them and explain why the move is necessary for the nation. Only when he acts with sincerity towards the victims can the negative public sentiment ease.

Both Korea and Japan must initiate an epoch-making dialogue. European nations fought two world wars, but they have reconciled and established an economic and security union. Korea and Japan also must usher in a new era of reconciliation and coexistence.