The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    Luxury brands continue hiking prices in Korea

  • 3

    INTERVIEW'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series

  • 5

    China flags consequences of Yoon's stronger coupling with US, Japan

  • 7

    Napoli's Kim Min-jae named Serie A's best defender, makes Team of the Season

  • 9

    Senior citizens land low-wage jobs after retirement: report

  • 11

    Pyongyang as lived experience: existentialism and identity in North Korea

  • 13

    US, China trade blame as hopes for military dialogue fade

  • 15

    Defense chiefs of S. Korea, US, Japan to meet in Singapore amid NK threats

  • 17

    House lawmakers urge US to rally allies over China's Micron ban

  • 19

    S. Korea, Japan agree to prevent recurrence of maritime dispute

  • 2

    BTS producer encourages anticipation for future messages from group

  • 4

    India train crash kills over 280, injures 900 in one of nation's worst rail disasters

  • 6

    From hip-hop idols to global superstars, BTS shatters records over decade

  • 8

    Wall Street leaps, nearly escapes its bear market after strong jobs report

  • 10

    LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 1How hiking Jeju's 437km of trails changed my life

  • 12

    'The Roundup: No Way Out' tops 3 mil. admissions

  • 14

    UN official calls out Security Council for inaction on N. Korea

  • 16

    Reasons to talk about North Korea

  • 18

    PHOTOSTrain collision in India

  • 20

    EU's top diplomat discusses Ukraine's ammunition needs with S. Korea

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
Mon, June 5, 2023 | 18:31
Guest Column
A deal that shouldn't be
Posted : 2016-01-05 16:55
Updated : 2016-01-07 15:13
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link
By Choi Sung-jin
Senior writer


Despite ― or rather because of ― the Dec. 28 agreement between Seoul and Tokyo on the "comfort women" issue, victims and their supporters will conduct a far larger, and angrier, weekly protest meeting here Wednesday.

That alone should be sufficient to revisit ― and revoke ― the hurriedly sealed, half-baked settlement.

It was President Park Geun-hye who had vowed not to reach an accord unless victims and the public accept it. Apparently most, if not all, of the 46 former comfort women alive and a majority of Koreans oppose it, as polls show. President Park has reneged on countless pledges she has made, but this should not be the case this time.

Yes, the agreement seems to have gone one or two steps ahead of the previous accords: Japan's prime minister acknowledged the Imperial Army's involvement in running military brothels by coercing and coaxing an estimated 200,000 girls and women, mostly from Korea, into sexual slavery, and expressed remorse and an apology for that. In addition, Japan will put some $8.1 million, from the government budget, into a fund to be administered by Korea.

So the two key conditions ― direct apology and compensation ― have been met for the two nations to leave the past behind and move forward, say Japanese officials and even some foreigners sympathetic to Tokyo. If Korea demands more, it will amount to little more than moving the goalposts, yet again, they argue.

I can hardly disagree more.

For an international accord to carry any significance and ensure practicability, the parties involved should not just stick to its phrases but respect the spirit within it. Of this the Japanese leaders have displayed agonizingly little. The first thing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly did after reaching the agreement was reaffirm the "final and irreversible" settlement of the issue. More than a week later, Abe's top diplomat was still bent on making the removal of the statue symbolizing the comfort women in front of the Japanese embassy an established fact.

So, behind the "tatemae" (the Japanese word for external display) of mea culpa, the "honne" (inner feeling) of these officials and many other right-wing nationalists was saying, "Have our words plus some money, and don't come again. There should be no more apologies whatsoever, or even discussion of it." Abe took extra care to make all moves in indirect ways ― the apology was conveyed by his foreign minister and through calls to President Park, not the victims. Even the compensation fund is not in Japan's name but Korea's.

All this shows why the Park administration should stop urging Tokyo to carry out the agreement as it is now but start it all over. No grave war crimes, let alone the largest trafficking of women, including minors, in history, and most brutal (what could be crueler for women than repeated acts of sex against their will?) abuses of human rights, should be dealt with in this way. The core truth of the comfort women problem is the Japanese state's responsibility for coercing numerous women into sexual servitude. For Tokyo to be free from that liability, it must acknowledge facts, apologize, compensate, ascertain truth, set up memorials for historical education and punish those responsible.

Japan has done few of these, at least not in the way victims can accept and most neutral and conscionable academics recognize as conforming to common legal sense established internationally.

Skeptics ― including one Korean professor educated in Japan ― say some became comfort women on their own, for money and/or out of misperceived patriotism. They may be right or wrong. Yet such exceptions do not weaken the need to properly deal with this issue and only explains why the two governments should restart from the ground up. Cheong Wa Dae says rejection of the agreement means returning to 25 years ago, when the comfort women first came forward, and the compromise deal is the best they can give to these aged victims before they die.

Again, cancellation of the accord is exactly what these aged women want, who think that a bad deal is worse than no deal. And it would matter little whether they are in this world or in the other if a genuine solution ― unequivocal acknowledgment of the state's responsibility, a direct apology from the prime minister to whoever may be the last surviving comfort woman, and appropriate compensation in both its nature and amount ― fully restores their dignity as human beings.

In many ways, the ongoing fiasco was of President Park's own making by unnecessarily setting the deadline, saying the two nations can ill afford to waste anymore time for restoring friendly ties to cope jointly with threats from the communists, China and North Korea. It was what her father, former President Park Chung-hee, said in 1965 when he hurriedly wrapped up normalization talks to get $800 million from Japan, not as compensation but as consolation or even congratulation, required for demonstrating economic changes to justify his illegitimate snatch of political power through a coup. Then, like now, U.S. coercion played a crucial role, too.

Korea is not what it was 51 years ago, and its two allies ― Japan and the U.S. ― should not be, either, in settling this last historical and humanitarian homework of World War II left undone.

President Park may try to visit the remaining comfort women and persuade them to accept the deal as the last resort. She must not do this, though, she must tell her Japanese counterpart to do what he should do.

Choi Sung-jin is The Korea Times' senior writer. He can be reached at choisj@ktimes.com.

 
wooribank
Top 10 Stories
1[LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 1] How hiking Jeju's 437km of trails changed my life LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 1How hiking Jeju's 437km of trails changed my life
2S. Korea, Japan agree to prevent recurrence of maritime dispute S. Korea, Japan agree to prevent recurrence of maritime dispute
3Korea sees record-high number of flu patients for late spring Korea sees record-high number of flu patients for late spring
4Election watchdog under fire for refusing to accept inspection Election watchdog under fire for refusing to accept inspection
5Korea denies discussion with EU on sending ammunition to Ukraine Korea denies discussion with EU on sending ammunition to Ukraine
6Concerns rise over Samsung SDS' growing intra-group transactions Concerns rise over Samsung SDS' growing intra-group transactions
7Korean bio firms to seek new opportunities at int'l convention in Boston Korean bio firms to seek new opportunities at int'l convention in Boston
8K-food transforms global culinary industry K-food transforms global culinary industry
9Shipbuilding stocks rally over hope for 'super cycle' Shipbuilding stocks rally over hope for 'super cycle'
10Deep-rooted problems push nurses to handle doctors' duties Deep-rooted problems push nurses to handle doctors' duties
Top 5 Entertainment News
1Baritone Kim Tae-han wins Queen Elisabeth Competition Baritone Kim Tae-han wins Queen Elisabeth Competition
2Busan Film Festival accepts director Huh Moon-yung's resignation Busan Film Festival accepts director Huh Moon-yung's resignation
3[REVIEW] 'The ODD Of Love' concert: Taeyeon shows why she is among K-pop's top vocalists REVIEW'The ODD Of Love' concert: Taeyeon shows why she is among K-pop's top vocalists
4[INTERVIEW] 'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series INTERVIEW'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series
5'HyeMiLeeYeChaePa' producer Lee Tae-kyung hopeful of second season 'HyeMiLeeYeChaePa' producer Lee Tae-kyung hopeful of second season
DARKROOM
  • Turkey-Syria earthquake

    Turkey-Syria earthquake

  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group