hankyoreh

People pay tribute to Korean victims of the atom bomb blast at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Aug. 5. (AP/Yonhap News)

There are no signs of compromise in South Korea and Japan’s protracted dispute over a ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court that ordered Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labor during the Japanese colonial occupation. It would be extremely difficult to reach a compromise that could simultaneously satisfy both sides: Seoul is set on abiding by the Supreme Court’s ruling and Japan wants to preserve the “1965 system.”

There have been only two times since the Supreme Court made its ruling in October 2018 that a concrete solution to the dispute has been proposed. The first proposal was made by the South Korean government on June 19, 2019, when South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) suggested that South Korean and Japanese companies (including the defendant in the lawsuit) make voluntary donations that could be used to pay reparations to the plaintiffs as required by the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Examined in detail, this proposal shows that the South Korean government was willing to make considerable concessions in order to reach an amicable conclusion to its conflict with Japan. MOFA specified that the reparations would have to consist of “voluntary donations” by companies from the two countries out of respect for the Japanese government’s position that the two countries’ right to make claims had been “completely and finally settled” in their 1965 agreement.

Two proposals from Korean side failed to produce agreement

By regarding the Japanese company’s donations as being “voluntary,” the South Korean government was partially relaxing the critical compulsory element of the Supreme Court’s ruling. In short, the South Korean government adopted a flexible interpretation under which the ruling could be regarded as carried out as long as the plaintiffs actually received money paid by the Japanese defendants.

But Japan rejected this compromise plan, since it would effectively force the participation of Japanese companies, even if their participation was nominally voluntary. Japan went even further on July 1, 2019, when it retaliated against South Korea by tightening export controls on strategic items, including hydrogen fluoride.

On July 15, South Korean President Moon Jae-in lashed out at the Japanese government for “abruptly taking one-sided measures without engaging in deliberations or any other diplomatic efforts.” Since then, the South Korean government has requested that Tokyo change its attitude and made even more generous offers that would guarantee government participation, but those efforts have reportedly not borne fruit.

The second proposal — included in a bill submitted by Moon Hee-sang, then National Assembly speaker, in December 2019 — was to set up a fund at the Memory, Reconciliation, and Future Foundation that would be supported by donations from companies and individuals in South Korea and Japan. The key provision in the bill, found in Article 11, is that the foundation would not require Japanese companies to take part in its fundraising campaign in Korea and other countries. Because the bill almost completely guaranteed that Japanese companies’ participation would be voluntary, it managed to spark interest in Japan.

But this time around, serious questions were raised in Korea about whether the Supreme Court’s ruling could be regarded as having been fulfilled if the defendants’ participation was not guaranteed. Then on Dec. 18, the attorneys for the plaintiffs and a group supporting their lawsuit released a statement opposing the bill in which they said that “it’s not the job of our legislature to absolve the perpetrators of responsibility and compel the victims to be reconciled.” In the end, the bill was scrapped at the close of the 20th session of the National Assembly.

The Japanese press expressed considerable regrets about this second proposal’s failure, observing that it had been viewed favorably in Japan. While an identical bill has been resubmitted to the National Assembly, there’s little chance of it becoming law, at least for now.

As the standoff drags on, there are indications that the two countries may soon find themselves in another spat similar to the one in July 2019, which has prompted numerous calls for compromise in Japan. In an editorial on Aug. 5, the Nikkei warned that if the liquidation of the Japanese companies’ assets in South Korea leads to another economic tussle with Seoul, “Japan could not emerge unscathed.” The newspaper expressed its hope that the two sides would “refrain from words and actions that incite conflict and work together to find a comprehensive solution.”

Kazuhiko Togo, a former bureaucrat in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former ambassador to the Netherlands, is among several who have suggested the compromise option of Japanese companies participating voluntarily in a fund and expressing an apology, which is the approach taken previously with Chinese workers.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]