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| Members of a civic group opposing National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang's proposed bill on a possible compromise with Japan over the forced labor issue protest in front of the National Assembly on Yeouido in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap |
Seoul, Tokyo still at odds over historical issues
By Jung Da-min
National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang's proposal of a bill on a possible compromise deal to close a compensation issue on wartime forced labor has been questioned for its feasibility. The speaker's proposal includes compensation for surviving South Korean victims of forced labor during Japan's occupation of the Korean Peninsula, as well as the victims of Japan's sex slavery during the wartime era.
Speaker Moon has been active in presenting various ideas that could end the "compensation issue." The key takeaways of Moon's idea was a plan to collect "donations" from Japanese and South Korean businesses, and financial contributions from individuals from the two countries to provide funds.
But with South Korean plaintiffs still demanding compensation and full apologies from Japanese companies, which were key defendants in the suits, it remains uncertain whether the speaker's proposal will receive public support in South Korea.
While Moon finalized his plan to suggest the drafted bill at the Assembly next week, civic groups continued their protests in front of the Assembly.
Moon's policy team had proposed taking the remainder of the 6 billion won (about $5 million) Japan had provided to create the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation set in 2016 to compensate South Korean victims of sex slavery. However, due to the controversy it stirred, he scrapped the plan. The South Korean government disbanded the foundation in June this year at the victims' request.
The bill includes enshrining in Korean law the setting up of a compensation fund from contributions by the two governments and companies of the two countries, which include Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as well as others not related directly through "voluntary participation." It also expects citizens of the two countries to donate to the fund.
The plaintiffs seized assets here of Nippon Steel and other Japanese companies following last year's Supreme Court rulings ordering the companies to compensate the surviving South Korean victims of forced labor. Necessary procedures for their sale are underway.
However, political analysts believe the feasibility of Moon's proposal is "quite low," given the stark differences on the matter between Seoul and Tokyo, the Assembly and civic groups. The analysts said the Japanese government remained skeptical about whether the South Korean stakeholders would reach an agreement on the proposal.
"The problem is that there is no internal unity on this proposal among South Koreans themselves," said Bong Young-shik, a research fellow at Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies, who also specializes in Seoul-Tokyo relations. "There are gaps not only among the victims but also between the National Assembly and Cheong Wa Dae and I wonder if we could discuss, at this point, whether Tokyo would accept this or not."
Bong said even if the Korean government succeeded in reaching a compromise deal through agreements among the stakeholders, the other issue was whether the Japanese government would pay serious attention.
He said the Japanese government had a low level of confidence in the Korean government for its policies dealing with this historical conflict. Japan's previous attempts to solve the issue ― which included the Asian Women's Fund in 1994 and the 1 billion yen (10 billion won) deal in December 2015 involving the Japanese government budget ― had all been nullified by South Korea.
"From the Japanese government's standpoint, if it agrees to the South Korean government's request, especially if it follows South Korean civic groups' request, it could open a floodgate where it would receive enormous bills from around 120,000 victims," Bong said.
Yang Ki-ho, a professor at Sungkonghoe University's Department of Japanese Studies, said Moon's proposal lacked measures to implement the South Korean Supreme Court's compensation rulings, in that it did not guarantee official apologies.
Yang also said he doubted if ordinary citizens of the two countries would donate to the fund, when they had little sympathy for the proposal.
"From my point of view, it is highly likely that it would be concluded that the South Korean government would make up for much of the fund," Yang said.
Regarding recent Japanese media reports that said the Japanese government showed a "positive" reaction to Moon's proposal, Yang said it could have gained more favor from Japanese politicians as a compromise.
What should the proposal also include?
Yang said Speaker Moon's proposal would receive public support if the bill includes detailed plans to receive an official apology from the Japanese government.
"There are two key things in order for Moon's proposal to receive support from civic societies, which are including the measures to receive official apology from the Japanese side and to implement the South Korean Supreme Court's orders through official procedures," Yang said.
"Without guaranteeing such measures, the proposal would fail to receive support from within the ruling party itself and fail to be passed at the National Assembly."
In February this year, the speaker drew much criticism from Japan for saying an apology from then-Japanese Emperor Akihito would resolve key bilateral disputes mostly over the sex slavery issue.
Bong said the key point in negotiations between the two governments would be about whether they would acknowledge the individual's right to claim compensation from Japanese firms. The South Korean government said in 2005 that the 1965 treaty normalizing relations between Seoul and Tokyo did not cover individual claims in three categories including sex slavery, the Koreans of Sakhalin forced to work there by Japanese imperial authorities and Korean victims of atomic bombs.
"The idea of last year's South Korean court rulings is to include other Korean victims of forced labor into those in the categories whose individual rights to claim compensations are acknowledged," Bong said. "In this sense, we could discuss how to solve the issue of forced labor and sex slavery at the same time."
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