Tag: forced labor

It seems like momentum is building to resolve the forced labor issue between the ROK and Japan:

Foreign Minister Psrk Jin said Monday he believes a summit with Japan will take place once thorny issues, like Japan’s wartime forced labor, are resolved.

“I anticipate that a summit between South Korea and Japan will likely be held when desirable resolutions for ongoing issues, like wartime forced labor, are prepared,” Foreign Minister Park Jin told a parliamentary interpellation session.

Acknowledging that bilateral ties between the two countries are unlikely to recover without such a resolution, Park said the government will aim to find a “reasonable measure” for both countries while respecting the opinions of the victims.

When asked about possible measures to mend ties, Park said the government is reviewing many options such as former National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang’s proposal to launch a fund for the victims backed by both companies and people of South Korea and Japan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the forced labor issue between South Korea and Japan:

Here is the latest from the Imperial Japanese forced labor issue with South Korea:

Japan has protested a South Korean court order on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to sell assets in order to pay compensation to two women subjected to forced labor for the company during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula during 1910-1945. Foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that the ruling a day earlier by the Daejeon District Court in South Korea was a “clear violation of international law.” “We must avoid serious impacts on Japan-South Korea relations,” Motegi said, describing the court’s decision as “truly regrettable” during a regular news conference in Tokyo.

Relations between the two countries, both important U.S. allies in North Asia, have been dogged by the bitter legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation, and ties soured in 2019 due to a dispute over export controls which has yet to be resolved.

The Daejeon District Court in South Korea ruled on Monday that Mitsubishi Heavy should sell two patents and two trademarks, according to a support group for the women, who are both in their nineties.

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link, but Tokyo believes this issue was resolved with the 1965 pact where $500 million from Japan was given to South Korea.  The ROK government at the time could have compensated everyone back then with that money, however it was instead used for the overall development of the country such as improving infrastructure.  The money ultimately helped with the country’s economic development at the expense of direct compensation to those effected by Japan’s colonial rule.  This is why Japan is so strongly against the court rulings they feel they have already paid compensation.

With that all said when is the ROK government going to launch lawsuits on behalf of victims of North Korea’s kidnappings and provocations in far more recent times than Japan’s colonial rule that began over a century ago?

Here is the latest on the Korean wartime forced labor lawsuits against Japanese business firms:

 A local court on Monday dismissed a damages suit launched by 85 South Korean victims of wartime forced labor in Japan and their families against 16 Japanese companies, saying the plaintiffs don’t have litigation rights.

The Seoul Central District Court said South Korean wartime forced laborers cannot claim individual legal rights to damages from Japan, while deciding to reject their collective suit.

The 85 forced labor victims and their families started their damages suit against 16 Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., Nissan Chemical Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., in 2015.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it is interesting how this ruling is the complete opposite of what the Korean Supreme Court ruled for in favor of compensation for a different lawsuit a couple of years ago.

I seriously doubt the Moon administration will cut any deal with the Japanese on the forced labor issue because what will the Korean left campaign on in the Parliamentary elections next year? They need this issue as a distractor from the economic woes facing the country and the Cho Kuk corruption mess:

 From creating a fund to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor to entrusting a civilian panel with addressing the thorny issue, a flurry of proposals are raising cautious hope for a thaw in frosty ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

Diplomatic circles, scholars and media in both countries have put forward the ideas while Seoul and Tokyo have been exploring a diplomatic off-ramp — or at least a path for de-escalation — through a series of high-level or working-level talks in recent months.

“These proposals illustrate the resilience of the Seoul-Tokyo relationship at work, when both countries apparently feel fatigued about their ties having long been on a collision course,” Nam Chang-hee, a professor of international politics at Inha University, said.

This week, Japan’s Kyodo News reported that Seoul and Tokyo are weighing the idea that the government and companies in South Korea, with the participation of Japanese firms, set up a fund under the name of “economic cooperation,” not as compensation for forced labor.

Seoul’s foreign ministry rejected the report as “untrue,” while reiterating its “openness” to searching for a solution “acceptable to the victims and people of both countries.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what I think is going on is that each side trying to create the appearance that they are the ones that are being reasonable by trying to work towards a solution knowing full well one will not be agreed upon.

Here is a really good interview from BBC Hardtalk with South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Kang Kyung-hwa. Hat tip to Korea Sparkling:

I am not used to news commentators asking good and informative questions. Kang made the point that the current trade dispute is about the South Korean court ruling on compensating forced laborers, not North Korea export controls as Japan claims. I think everyone agrees on this point and the Japanese are using the North Korean export issue as its legal cover to put pressure on the ROK government on the forced labor issue.

In my opinion Kang did not explain very well how the 1965 Treaty is no longer relevant in regards to settling compensation claims. She kept saying it was the South Korean Supreme Court that came up with the ruling, not the ROK government. However, it is the ROK government that can settle the compensation issue by paying the compensation claims with the money given to the ROK in 1965 by Japan. If they did that to begin with this current trade dispute would not happen. Instead they want to confiscate Japanese property in South Korea.

I believe the Japanese are responding hard on this issue because they want to prevent compensation claims coming from other countries that they have already had settlement agreements with if they paid the South Korean claims. The ROK government knows that Japan is not going to pay the compensation, but are using the dispute for domestic political purposes to obscure their bad economic policies, corruption, and other issues.

I would have liked to have had Foreign Minister Kang asked if she thinks Chinese property should be confiscated if victims of Chinese aggression during the Korean War demand it.

The interview then goes on to talk about the US-ROK alliance and North Korea. Hardtalk asks Kang if South Korea has been sidelined in the negotiations with North Korea as well as the upcoming US-ROK cost sharing talks. Kang says that is not the case, but does not make a very convincing argument. For the cost sharing issue she says that a reasonable amount needs to negotiated for the upkeep of US troops that can pass through the National Assembly. The reported amount that the US is looking for would not make it through the National Assembly.

The interview is pretty long, but I recommend watching the whole thing. I would be surprised if Foreign Minister Kang appears on the show again considering the grilling that she received.

For those that have not been following this issue, the Japanese side does not dispute the forced labor claim, what they dispute is that they already paid compensation with the 1965 treaty. Instead of handing out money for individual compensation, the ROK government used the money to develop the economy instead.

A South Korean court said Wednesday it has ordered the seizure of local assets of a Japanese company after it refused to compensate several wartime forced laborers, in an escalation of a diplomatic brawl between the Asian neighbors.
Japan called the decision “extremely regrettable” and said it will push for talks with Seoul on the issue.
In a landmark ruling in October, South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs forced to work for the company when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula in 1910-45.

But the company refused to follow that ruling, siding with Japan’s long-held positon that all colonial-era compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic relations between the two governments. Japanese officials said they could take the issue to the International Court of Justice.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but is the ROK government going support someone who makes a compensation claim against China for their role in the destruction of South Korea during the Korean War that killed tens of thousands of South Koreans?

By the way Joshua Stanton over at One Free Korea makes a good point, I wonder how much the sagging Moon administration approval ratings have to do with this?

I haven't read the news today. Are the South Korean president's approval ratings down? https://t.co/Tway5G267Y

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) January 9, 2019

This could get ugly very quickly if the South Korean government decides to forcibly seize assets from Japanese companies to pay for these court rulings:

South Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule have begun taking steps to seize the assets held in South Korea by a Japanese firm implicated in the Japan’s wartime crime. 

The lawyers for Lee Chun-sik and three other South Koreans forced to work for Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation recently asked a local court in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province to issue a writ of execution to have the company’s assets in the country seized. 

The company reportedly holds eleven billion won worth stocks of PNR, a joint venture with POSCO. 

In late October, South Korea’s Supreme Court had ordered the Japanese firm to compensate the four victims 100 million won each. 

Following the top court’s decision, the victims’ lawyers requested that the company answer how it will compensate, but has yet to give a reply.

KBS World Radio

The major issue here is that the Japanese government says that all compensation claims were paid for with the 1965 pact that saw $500 million from Japan given to South Korea. The ROK government at the time could have compensated everyone back then with that money, however it was instead used for the overall development of the country such as improving infrastructure.  

The money ultimately helped with the country’s economic development at the expense of direct compensation to those effected by Japan’s colonial rule.  This is why Japan is so strongly against the court rulings they feel they have already paid compensation for.

With that all said when is the ROK government going to launch lawsuits on behalf of victims of North Korea’s kidnappings and provocations in far more recent times than Japan’s colonial rule that began over a century ago?

Here is the latest dust up between Korea and Japan:

“It’s very regrettable that the Japanese government is continuing to respond excessively to our judiciary’s ruling, and (we) call for its restraint,” the foreign ministry’s spokesman, Noh Kyu-duk, said at a press briefing.

He said it’s natural for an administration to respect a court decision in a democracy.

The ministry called in Japan’s ambassador to Seoul, Yasumasa Nagamine, to deliver a direct protest message.

The ambassador did not answer a reporter’s question while entering the ministry building in Seoul.

The gulag system in North Korea has two purposes, fear of going to one of these camps helps to keep the population in line and they provide slave labor for the state.  So you have a regime that has implemented modern day slavery and yet the North Koreans are welcomed in international events such as the Olympics.  Why aren’t the North Koreans completely shunned from international events like South Africa was during the Apartheid era for its human rights abuses?:

The brutal treatment meted out to North Korea’s political prisoners has been well-
documented, but a new report coming out Thursday, based on satellite images, portrays the extensive network of “reeducation” camps for less severe violations of Pyongyang’s penal code.

These camps are situated throughout the country, both on the outskirts of cities and in huge compounds in the mountains. Conditions are severe but come with the possibility of release.

The camps are run not by the secret police, who operate a separate system for political prisoners, but by the Ministry of Public Security. They are an important pillar of the regime of Kim Jong Un, a means by which the North Korean population is kept permanently cowed.

The world is transfixed with the nuclear threat from Kim’s regime, but it is ordinary North Koreans who suffer every day, said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which compiled the report.  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but this is why I have a hard time taking the ROK’s criticisms of forced labor in Imperial Japan over 70 years ago seriously when it will not condemn the forced labor of Koreans happening today.  North Korean human rights should not be an issue that is forgotten for political expediency.