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.
The Unification Church has definitely been in the headlines recently due to its link to the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:
The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, better known as the Unification Church, claimed that the church and its members in Japan faced death threats and hate crimes following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Korea Times
The threats were reactions to “abusive” donation practices of the church, founded by self-claimed messiah Moon Sun-myung in 1954 in Seoul.
Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspected gunman in the assassination of Abe during a campaign speech in the city of Nara on July 8, confessed to police that he came to hold a grudge against the former prime minister for his alleged link to the church. Yamagami’s mother reportedly made a huge donation to the Unification Church that forced her into bankruptcy.
In a statement released on Monday, the church’s headquarters in Korea blamed media outlets for what it called “inaccurate and biased” news reports, following a news conference hosted by a group of Japanese lawyers on July 12 that it claims triggered a raft of hostile media coverage against it.
Since then, the church noted that several media reports have been produced solely based on comments from the members of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales of Japan, a group that represents former Unification Church members and their families.
You can read more at the link, but Yamagami’s mother was reported to donated $720,000 of her family’s inheritance to the church and then proceeded to go bankrupt a few years later.
This is a tricky issue that the Yoon administration is likely not going to win any domestic political points from even if they come up with a resolution. This issue is just too easy for the political opposition to demagogue:
The top diplomats of South Korea and Japan agreed Monday on the need for an early resolution of the long-running dispute over Korean victims of wartime forced labor.
Foreign Minister Park Jin and his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, held talks in Tokyo to discuss ways to mend soured bilateral ties and settle historical feuds stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea. Park arrived earlier in the day in his first official visit to Japan since taking office in May.
During the talks, Park said the Seoul government will make efforts to draw “a reasonable solution” related to the force labor issue and the two sides shared the view that the issue needs to be promptly resolved, Seoul’s ministry said in a release. (….)
Possible solutions suggested by observers include the creation of a fund with contributions from Korean and Japanese firms or the South Korean government compensating the victims on behalf of the Japanese companies.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It is absolutely bizarre that Shinzo Abe who was demonized by many in South Korea ends up being killed by a Japanese citizens angry because he believed Abe was friendly with a Korean church:
The man who fatally shot former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told police that his mother had made a “huge donation” to a religious body, and he harbored a grudge against the group, which he believed was associated with the Japanese leader, investigative sources said Saturday.
A day after the death of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, one of the sources also quoted Tetsuya Yamagami as saying something to the effect of “initially, I intended to attack an executive of the group” but decided to target Abe instead.
Japan Today
You can read more at the link, but it has now been reported the religious body that Yamagami was angered with was the Unification Church:
The Unification Church also known as the “Moonies” had ties to Shinzo Abe:
The Unification Church was founded in 1954 in Seoul by Sun Myung Moon who claimed to be the messiah. It has approximately 3 million members worldwide. In the U.S., it is known as the Moonies where it was famous for young church members who left school and careers to devote themselves to the church, especially fundraising, offering flowers in exchange for donations. (…..)
In Japan, the church is known as Touitsu Kyokai 統一教会 where it is famous for its mass weddings, including one in 1988 marrying 8,000 Japanese among the 13,000 brides and grooms that hadn’t even met each other until just before the ceremony.
Medium
You can read more at the link, but Abe had spoken at Moonie events before and the church provided his political party with campaign workers. It appears this was all enough to send Yamagami over the edge to target Abe after his mother gave the Unification Church an unknown amount of money that he probably thought should have gone to a loser like himself.
Very shocking news out of Japan yesterday that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed by an assassin. Even odder about this assassination is that the killer says he did not do it for political reasons:
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the victim of a fatal gun attack while taking part in a campaign event for the House of Councillors election in Nara City on Friday. He was 67.
After being shot at around 11:30 a.m., he was confirmed dead at 5:03 p.m. at Nara Medical University Hospital in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, where he was transported by ambulance and a medical helicopter immediately after the attack.
According to doctors, Abe suffered a wound deep enough to reach the heart, and when he was brought to the hospital, he was in cardiopulmonary arrest, making rescue quite difficult.
He had two gunshot wounds to his neck. The medical team tried to stop the bleeding and gave him a large amount of blood through transfusions, but his heartbeat did not resume, the doctors said at a press conference on Friday evening.
Police sources had earlier said Abe was shot from behind in the upper back and elsewhere. Two shots were heard, according to witnesses.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, of Nara City, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder at 11:32 a.m. Yamagami is believed to have shot Abe at close range and a gun has been recovered, according to a police officer.
“I had no grudge against former Prime Minister Abe for his political beliefs,” Yamagami was quoted as telling the police during questioning, according to Nara prefectural police sources.
Yomiuri
You can read more at the link, but according to NHK they are saying Yamagami was dissatisfied with the prime minister and that is why he decided to kill him, but it was not because of his politics. Supposedly Yamagami thought Abe had ties to an organization he has a grudge against. The whole thing is bizarre which may mean this guy might just be a nut job trying to make himself famous like so many of the loser mass shooters we have in the U.S.
This sounds like a positive encounter between President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida:
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol talked briefly with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a gala dinner for NATO summit participants in Madrid on Tuesday and expressed hope for the future-oriented development of relations between the two countries, officials said.
The encounter, which lasted three to four minutes at the dinner party hosted by Spain’s King Felipe VI, began as Kishida offered greetings to Yoon with congratulations on his inauguration and the local election victory of Yoon’s ruling party, according to Yoon’s office.
Yoon said in response that he wishes Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party good results in Japan’s upcoming upper house elections.
“After the upper house elections, I and my aides plan to resolve pending issues between Korea and Japan as early as possible and move forward in a future-oriented manner,” Yoon was quoted as telling Kishida.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It has been nearly five years since the last trilateral meeting, so it is great to see this coordination happening again:
President Yoon Suk-yeol will hold a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Spain this week on the sidelines of a NATO summit, his office said Sunday.
The trilateral summit, set for Wednesday in Madrid, will be the first such gathering in four years and nine months since the last meeting was held in September 2017 on the margins of a U.N. General Assembly. No trilateral meeting has since taken place amid badly frayed relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
