Protesters Rally Against President Yoon’s Call to Improve Relations with Japan
This should be no surprise that protesters would come out against trying to improve relations with Japan:
Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol gave a key address, calling Japan a partner for South Korea’s regional security and economy, some hundreds held a rally on Independence Movement Day on Wednesday, urging him to keep his promise of resolving historic disputes with the neighboring country including the one over sexual slavery during its 1910-45 rule of Korean Peninsula.
In the late morning chill, around 200 civic activists gathered near the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul, holding paper cutouts of yellow butterflies — a symbol of victims representing a wish to escape from violence and fly — chanting “apologize,” and demanding compensation from Japan.
The protest was a part of the 1,585th weekly rally protesting Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II that has been held for the last 30 years.
Lee Yong-soo, a 93-year-old victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, took over the microphone, said she still has a faith in President Yoon, and demanded his administration to send the matter to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
“The then-presidential-candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was the third person to visit me, and he said he would resolve the comfort women issue even if he wasn’t elected. His words touched me,” she said. “I don’t think that he lied (at that time), and I will believe in him.”
Watching Lee’s tearful speech, 63-year-old Kim Deok-yeon said he has participated in the demonstration since last year to raise awareness, especially among the younger generation.
“These people were forced to become sex slaves of Japan’s wartime brothels, but Japan seems reluctant (to take responsibility). As a Korean citizen, I couldn’t stand my anger toward Japan for committing such atrocities,” he said, referring to the victims as “survivors of a dark part of history.”
Kim stressed the importance of educating Korean students about undistorted facts in and out of the country, lamenting Japan’s recognition of Dokdo as part of its territory.
“History doesn’t lie — it has everything recorded down. Now is a time to properly educate the younger generation about our country’s past so that the same history will not repeat itself in the future,” he said, hoping young people would create a change.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link, but if this 63 year old man really cared about sex slaves then what is he doing about modern day sexual slavery of Korean women in China right now?
According to one report the sexual trafficking of Korean women is a $105 million industry in China. Imperial Japan was obviously wrong about trafficking Korean women 80 years ago which they claim was resolved with the payments made in the 1965 Normalization Treaty. The Japanese government had apologized even started a victim compensation fund before the prior President Moon shut it down for political reasons. Restarting this victim compensation fund appears to be the route that President Yoon is trying to go again, but we will see what happens.
Yoon called for good relations with Japan?
He must be an honest president if the Japanese aren’t gathering comfort women off Dokdo in the East Sea of Japan…
…which they always seem to do when there is ruling party scandal.
Silly Koreans, always looking to the past than future. Why Japan got the advantage in the first place. Japan decided to move into the future; Korea clung to the past.
Is that really true though? Japan still stuck in 1990s lost decade bubble that’s long been deflated, still doing business with faxes, stamps, and floppy disks, thinking that they’re still the greatest race in Asia – at a time when the rest of the world has moved onto digital era – and now the fourth industrial revolution AI era including the self-driving electrified auto era.
What Advantage Japan has got, other than a cheap Yen? Do you really think when China and Taiwan go to war, Japan will be there for you militarily? Lol. The US is on it’s own if it wants a war in East Asia.
Korea Man is right.
Japan has somehow lost its way on many things.
…while Korea moves towards a well-planned future.
There is a lesson in there for everyone.
Bonus Thought:
I have had a really negative outlook over America’s future… but I am starting to see the War in Ukraine as a good investment in America.
Sure, getting the homeless off the streets sounds like a good goal… but funding the continuation of the war with all the old military equipment not good enough to keep but too good to throw away really benefits the middle class more. And, of course, it benefits the rich.
I was please to see the latest EU economic results.
They are buying amazing amounts of American energy at some really amazing prices. High energy prices mean their companies are not competitive. Business closures are several times the previous record highs since records have been kept.
Somebody has to pay for the debt America racked up for those 11 carrier groups and stealthy aircraft.
Might as well be smug little Eurotrash and whatever greedy little Ukranians are still around when they lose the will to fight… or more likely, the ability.
In the Asian side of things, there is a bit of a worry NK might be encouraged to attack SK. War is not the problem. But social and economic disruption is.
That would really play into America’s plan of getting companies to move to America… through blowing up pipelines in Europe or encouraging the destruction of factories and supply chains in Asia.
Things are moving. Let’s see who moves with them.
Good luck world.
Yes, Chickenhead, we’re well aware of what America is doing right now, destroying the world’s supply chain and the world economy through blackmail, threats, and outright thefts, that only countries like China would be proud of – all for your own benefit.
No country should even trust nor even work with these c*nts. Also the US dollar needs to be stopped as a reserve currency when it’s weaponized like this.
“all for your own benefit.”
Koreaman, you silly thing.
It isn’t for MY benefit.
Any benefit to me will be a side-effect… and likely an unwanted side-effect. Prosperity and empowerment for Americans is not high on any political or economic agenda.
This is not even really being done by America.
It is a conspiracy of shared values by corporatists, globalists, bankers, industrialists, old money, the ruling elite…
…which have decided which basket to put their eggs in for many reasons…
…and they are likely correct.
One of those reasons is America is an ideal place to maintain continuity of business in the event of a world war… which will likely be heavily fought in Europe and East Asia.
Everyone who is anyone knows that must come… and the losers will pay for the financial sins of the winners.
“Yes, Chickenhead, we’re well aware of what America is doing right now,”
Do you think any leader in Europe does not? Do you think nobody on the board of Samsung realizes what is going on?
It isn’t that they are powerless to stop it.
They are driving it.
But they want you to think it is the fault of “America”… which doesn’t even exist in the way they want you to think it does.
While you whine about “America”, your own companies betray you for future market share and your politicians betray you for the promise to be known as someone of global importance.
You and your people are ignorant to this happening before your eyes…
…though not as ignorant as Americans who yell diverity and equity… then throw open their borders and destroy the middle class to unknowingly prepare a pool of hungry low-paid workers doing jobs robots cannot yet do for the companies moving from Europe and Asia.
These are problems you cannot solve… especially by complaining to me.
These are not problems you can even manage.
The details will be messy as competing factions fight amongst themselves for advantage and dominance… but the over-all result has been decided.
The strategy for success here is to accept what cannot be changed and find your place to thrive in it.
Just knowing what is happening gives you an edge over all those who do not.
…at least if you put effort into preparing instead of complaining.
As I said the Setnaffarians and GI Korea are only interested in keeping Yoon in power because he gives them what they want.
So they will look the other way when it comes to his and his cronies’ corruption as long as they get what they want.
As for those who criticize Yoon, they will call them “chinabots” and such in a fruitless attempt to debase them and hopefully undercut them.
Chinabots always toss out insults, change the subject, engage in Freudian Projection, and always with the same tempo.
It’s laughable.
They might even think it will save them. But they should look at who new communist/ fascist/ socialist leaders kill first. It’s always the “useful idiots”.
All this effort to draw attention away from China’s Moon Rover having broken down, Xi’s failure to control the narrative on the Sino Sinus Syphilus, and the rest of the massive failures of the nose-picking CCP.
Oh well.
Is America flawed? Sure! And our freedoms make sure it’s published. Not so with CCP flaws.
Best go make sure you’re fully boosted so your QR code stays green, eh wot?
What are these activists doing about the women in room salons, hostess clubs, glasshouses, barbershops, and coffeehouses across South Korea now?
Nothing.
Why?
Because that sweet, sweet, CCP money is getting to their leaders to help weaken the CCP’s external enemies.
These activists ought to be given the Korean version of being tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarring_and_feathering