Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Japan urges South Korea to drop wartime compensation demands
By MARI YAMAGUCHI TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
48 Comments
Login to comment
noriahojanen
The headline is a bit misleading as the plaintiff can still seek compensations from its home Korean government (and the Japanese government doesn't oppose such a solution). The Japanese FM Motegi didn't say a word "to drop demands."
It's a Korean domestic issue, having nothing to do with Japanese government as well as private entities.
Fighto!
Its not rocket science. It went into the bank accounts of nototiously crooked Korean politicians. Every living ex President of SK is behind bars right now. That's an indication of how corrupt they are when it comes to money.
Coffee
South Korea has no intention of improving ties with Japan. It dissolved the comfort women foundation formed by Japan and lied about consulting the U.S. before threatening to scrap GSOMIA, putting millions of lives at risk of nuclear war.
South Korea's only priority is victimizing itself and indoctrinating its people to hate. It's the only country where people will set themselves on fire at protests, break into the Japanese embassy, and try to put stickers in classrooms saying “This device was made by a war criminal”.
The hypocrisy makes me ashamed to be Korean.
vanityofvanities
I feel Koreans very different from Japanese is that Japanese never reveal or revealed they had comfort women among their families. In Japan, they were called "pan pan," "only-san" etc. They became "comfort women" to GIs during the occupation era to help their families or to save themselves. It was and is a big embarrassment and something never to reveal. Putting statues of "comfort women" and "statues of forced laborers" openly near the Japanese embassy in South Korea and at many places in the world is a big, big embarrassment and disgraceful thing not only to Japan but also to South Korea too.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
@NadègeToday 07:18 am JST
Frankly, it is because of people like you that this problem never gets solved. Every time Korea breaks the rules, too many people lose their sense of priorities and give them a pass because "those poor, poor women".
I think if the outside world has the correct priorities, and make it clear to South Koreans that they already had their bite at the cherry, in fact more bites at the cherry than they should, and can no longer impose any justiciable obligations over the issue, we might actually get somewhere.
Brats cannot be spoiled.
Fighto!
And break internaional law? The entire free world, except for SKs puppetmasters China and NK, would then sanction Seoul if that happened. Samsung, Hyundai and KIA banned. Their export driven economy would be crippled.
BTW why should Japan change? They have done everything right. No more apologies or money for SK.
ReasonandWisdomNippon
Issues South Korea has with Japan in 2021.
-Don't like 1965 aggrement.
-Don't like the 1995 women's fund.
-Don't like 2015 comfort women deal.
-Don't like over 50 apologies over decades.
-Don't like the name and tried to change Sea of Japan.
-Illegally occupied island of Japan in the 50s, refused to go to court, refused to talk about it.
-Doesn't like GSOMIA pact tried to quit. Not reliable or dependable.
-Target Japanese plane in Japan Sea. They don't like our planes and ships in Japan Sea.
-They Boycott everything Japanese especially in Korea, many Japanese companies shut down because of it.
-Teaching young Koreans to hate Japan, never forgive, never accept compensation or apology. Walk on Japanese flag, burn Japanese flag, destroy Japanese products as a form of patriotism.
-Building comfort Women statues worldwide, newest one in 2020 Germany Berlin.
South Korea; The most Anti-Japan country in the world! The only Asian country to receive compensation and apology multiple times is S. Korea!! Not Even All of Korea, just Half! North is not even covered!
Falco
So true. But hey, at least Japan doesn't repeatedly ask America for money seventy years later.
tooheysnew
Whine, whinge, moan.
it’s like a Korean Groundhog Day.
It’s been over 75 years now - How much time needs to pass before a country can move on ?
Can Congo demand money from Belgium for the atrocities that happened to them ? - just over 100 years ago.
Maybe countries should sue Egypt or Rome for the way they were treated 1000’s of years ago.
noriahojanen
Much unlike the Korean plaintiff, Japan's A-bomb victims and their families have never demanded compensations from the US government or private entities. Instead, in respecting the international agreement (the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty) they sought and received compensations or equivalent treatment from their home Japanese government.
Has the UK government ever publicly apologised and compensated to its former colonised nations around the globe over its past few century-old rule?? How about France or Spain? Don't lecture Japan, the country has moved ahead in this regard.
OssanAmerica
You really should study the subject before posting. The term "Comfort Women" negates nothing. It is the term used out of respect for individuals in the Military Prostitution System. Prostitution did not have the same discriminatory image in the Orient as in the West. It is not a euphemism or any attempt to negate anything.
Comfort Woman in Japanese is Ianfu 慰安婦. The very same term is used in South Korea Ianbu 위안부to describe the many South Korean women who, under their government's direction serviced the US Military troops during the Korean War.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-military/former-korean-comfort-women-for-u-s-troops-sue-own-government-idUSKBN0FG0VV20140711
kennyG
Umm No. The free world(The ideal world you wish which doesn't exist yet) is to side with the truth, not with the one-sided lunatic narrative. Thank you very much for using the term " war crime" which is supposed to mean inhumane crimes against civilians of opponents as opposed to " crimes during war”
So please tell us all. What were the fundamental difference between comfort women for Imperial Japanese Army and UN/US soldiers after 1945?
kennyG
Most of those poisoned with fake narrative mostly created by Chong Dae Hyp would never be able to answer to this question I know.
OssanAmerica
Total nonsense. The two purposes of the IJA Comfort System were to prevent Rapes and STD.
"The interrogations further show that the health of these girls was good. They were well supplied with all types of contraceptives, and often soldiers would bring their own which had been supplied by the army. They were well trained in looking after both themselves and customers in the matter of hygiene. A regular Japanese Army doctor visited the houses once a week and any girl found diseased was given treatment, secluded, and eventually sent to a hospital."
https://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html
Get a life.
YuriOtani
Kuruki, the people of the Ryukyu Kingdom were told to get over it. The people of Korea need to live in the present and put the past where it belongs in the past.
ReasonandWisdomNippon
Why would S. Korea ever change? ? ?
They always win. Always get their way for decades now!
If you always win in a relationship, you always get your way!! Why would any change ever happen??
We make it impossible for Koreans back home to say Don't be Anti-Japan to other Koreans!! We fuel the anti-Japan fire with our apologies and compensation.
YuriOtani
Korea is just distracting their public from their problems. High unemployment and covid but their government just gave the evil Japanese a fat lip!
aomorisamurai
I'm not too well read in on "who did what" regarding this entire matter, but weren't there agreements in both 1965 and 2015 to put an end to this? Were the comfort women actually compensated for what they were put through? Where did all of that money go?
Kaerimashita
If Korea is oo concerned for these victims, why not give them the money already and then carry on their Japan baiting nonsense? not like they are poor and can't afford.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
@Alan HarrisonToday 03:58 pm JST
All right. Suppose the police arrest you and take you in front of a judge. He immediately declares you guilty of murder and sentences you to capital punishment. Is that "not illegal"? It would also have been "made in a court of law".
If you are not willing to say that would have been legal, then we must accept that there are other parameters to determine whether a decision is legal, even if it is made "in a court of law".
OssanAmerica
South Korean Court rulings are biased against Japan.
"Park Yu Ha, a professor at Sejong University in Seoul, was also fined 10 million won (about $8,000) for citing false information in her 2013 book "Comfort Women of the Empire," thereby defaming the honor of the women forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese military.
The Seoul High Court decision followed a January acquittal of the Japanese literature scholar by the Seoul Eastern District Court on the grounds that freedom of expression is a basic right guaranteed by the constitution."
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2017/10/f8ae46b2215c-s-korea-author-found-guilty-of-defaming-former-comfort-women.html
However, we can start looking for a change in Moon's position as the Biden Administration shortly, as Biden was VP when Obama pressured South Korea to agree to the "Permanent and Irreversible" 2015 Comfort Women Agreement. Which Moon ripped up.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
@Alan HarrisonToday 06:12 pm JST
In other words, you agree that just because it purports to be a court of law doesn't mean its decisions must be correct and legal, and there are objective elements an outsider can assess to decide whether the decision is lawful or not. Similarly, the lawfulness of the South Korean court's action can be assessed via such parameters as Sovereign Immunity, or how well it matches up with the closest case law on the subject from an international court (ref the ICJ judgment on a similar issue after the Italians, just like the Koreans, tried to "test the limits")
@mobius217Today 05:22 pm JST
The free world will have a lot more to think about than that, at least if they want to maintain any kind of consistency. They will have to consider whether their own precious Sovereign Immunity is threatened. Whether they can accept another country's court firing unilateral commands at themselves.
thepersoniamnow
Korea should have a victims card sticker on their passports.
Desert Tortoise
It is illegal on several grounds, but most importantly jurisdiction. A court in one country cannot legally impose sanction on another country. Period. Second is the 1965 Treaty that established diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea under which all debts and reparations were supposed to be settled for all time, and third is the 2015 agreement in which Japan formally apologized and made yet another payment to South Korea with wording that said the payments were to be the final settlement of the comfort woman matter. A court in South Korea cannot overturn a treaty unilaterally unless the South Koreans intend to abrogate the treaty.
Fighto!
Until the Koreans stop presenting themselves as victims, stop bullying Japan, drop money demands, start respecting international law, and respect the fact that this issue was settled in FINALITY decades ago, there will NEVER be improved relations with Japan.
Stay the course, Japanese govt. You are doing a great job. Don't back down one inch to the nation that hates you - South Korea.
kyushubill
South Korea needs a waaaaaaaambulance and a box of tissues for their issues.
Wolfpack
Remember and learn from the past. Don’t wallow in it.
kennyG
Umm No. Don't Google search. Unless your families were ACTUALLY raped and murdered, their royal bloodline ended, their culture destroyed, gun pointed at their head for speaking their language, and experimented as human test subjects, or had STD from 100s of men that raped them on a daily basis. Or the tattoos that were forced on to their bodies whenever they disobeyed, Or that missing limb that was chopped from them being naughty, please shut up
Cogito Ergo Sum
@Fighto!
Also an affirmation that the Judicial system is independent and works well , and that nobody is above the law in South Korea. So much unlike some other countries where politicians just take a deep bow and pshh...! They're gone..even with the most egrigeous of sins.
Desert Tortoise
You might be in for a rude surprise. I think most of the world would avert their eyes from yet another South Korea/Japan food fight. From the standpoint of probably most uninvolved nations these incessant spats get tiring and no nation is going to relish being forced to chose sides on this. Both parties have engaged in obnoxious behavior at some point so no one really wants to make one a winner and the other a loser. There are no beauty queens in this pageant.
bokuda
Add some solitary confinement, torture and forced confession; And you'll have the Japanese MOJ.
Alan Harrison
All right. Suppose the police arrest you and take you in front of a judge. He immediately declares you guilty of murder and sentences you to capital punishment. Is that "not illegal"? It would also have been "made in a court of law".
If you are not willing to say that would have been legal, then we must accept that there are other parameters to determine whether a decision is legal, even if it is made "in a court of law".
Hi Kazuaki.
The senario you have cited would not constitute a court of law. Law requires the parameters of Actus Rea and Mens Rea (although your senario seems to be applicable when it comes to Rule of Law in Japan ie. guilty, detain, defendant must prove innocence).
foreignbrotherhoodarmy
Japan will do anything not to recognize their atrocities.
mobius217
Actually, the free world will side with Korea. The free world does not want to tolerate war crime deniers that are so prevalent in Japan. By escalating this dispute, more people around the world will get to know of Japan's dark side.
Yeah sure. Apologise, then immediately go to worship dead war criminals enshrined in Yasukuni and brainwashing Japanese youth with false history. The standard formula that LDP crooks have used all the time.
u_s__reamer
The mantra of unrepentant right-wing J-governments: DON'T MENTION THE WAR!
Do the hustle
35 years of military rule is not gonna go away quickly. Perhaps the South Koreans should stop their claims for compensation outside international court rulings, but the Japanese should also stop downplaying, denying and ignoring the atrocities committed against the South Korean people during their 35 year imperial military rule. They left some mighty deep scars that will never heal nor will they ever go away.
Alan Harrison
Japan's foreign minister accused South Korea on Monday of worsening already strained ties by making "illegal" demands for compensation for the sexual abuse of Korean women and use of forced laborers during World War II.
The term "illegal" demands seems rather peculiar. The decision has been made in a court of law, so I don't see how it can be illegal. The word "demand" seems a bit exaggerated, other translations use the word "should". Unlike Japan, SK do not take hostages to obtain compensation, and therefore I cannot see how or what international law is being violated here by SK.
Kuruki
I wonder how fast some of these commenters will "get over it" if their families were raped and murdered, their royal bloodline ended, their culture destroyed, gun pointed at their head for speaking their language, and experimented as human test subjects?
5 years? 10 years?
Or maybe you'll remember it forever because you'll have STD from 100s of men that raped you on a daily basis? Or the tattoos that were forced on to your body whenever you disobeyed? Or that missing limb that was chopped from you being naughty?
Who are you to tell an entire nation to get over it? If you do a quick Google search into what Japan did during that war, you will NEVER forget about it.
Wolfpack
I wish the Korean government would take care of the remaining women who were victims during the war. Their were a lot of victims in WWII. No compensation can make up for the suffering. There are many in Japan who still play the victim over the atomic bombings. But hey, playing the victim card is a global phenomenon nowadays. Everyone wants to claim they are a victim of some historic slight or other. That way people can feel superior and self righteous- even when they themselves were not victimized by anyone but in their imaginations.
Alan Harrison
@Alan HarrisonToday 06:12 pm JST
In other words, you agree that just because it purports to be a court of law doesn't mean its decisions must be correct and legal, and there are objective elements an outsider can assess to decide whether the decision is lawful or not. Similarly, the lawfulness of the South Korean court's action can be assessed via such parameters as Sovereign Immunity, or how well it matches up with the closest case law on the subject from an international court (ref the ICJ judgment on a similar issue after the Italians, just like the Koreans, tried to "test the limits")
Not all legal decisions can please everybody. That is why SK, like most developed nations have a Court of Appeal.
bokuda
if you don't agree with the sentence, you can appeal.
-You must prove your innocence!!- is the Japanese style of justice, isn't it?
Kuruki
This is so unproductive by the Japanese government.
Obviously, Korea won't stop until it receives the proper recognition of the events of war and proper compensation for war victims (and rightfully so).
As Japan is the aggressor of the war, they need to do better than simply urge Korea to drop demands...
mobius217
Sell all Japanese assets in Korea. The Japanese need to be humiliated on the world stage. Its the only way Japan will change.
Jsapc
It's hard to move on when the guilty party refuses to admit it did anything wrong.
As an example, Germany handled its horrible legacy in the best way possible.
Japan really didn't. It almost did, and then a bunch of right-wing idiots came and stayed in power.
They actually should.
bokuda
That's the best course of action.
Japan has ever only reacted to extreme actions.
Nadège
"**CONFORT WOMEN" IS TO BE BAN AND ILLEGAL ?**
°
Japan is not stupid, there will be demand from South Corea until women obtain a guaranty that war rape is recognize war crime; and like in France, that calling them willing whore end up with the liar in prison or under under money compensation.
Japan commit sex war crime. They use the few real whore to hide the war rapes. then, for half a century, they called them "confort women" and do scandal because women don't obey the agreement passed between males from both country protecting males reputations in war. So Japan need to bring some real advancement to the file. Money is not enough. Today, we know, rape is a murder where is the women is left alive and living with severe damage to the brain and taking 10 to 20 years to heal from. This is many unborn children in their life when there is any.
This is too about the truth for Japanese women who where their husband and fiance surprise rape victim. It is about healing many women in Japan too. Because a surprise rape is may be more psychological, but in rape the damage is to the brain too. And "war rape victim" and wife betrayed have more in common that they could hope to have. The wife had to endure years with spouse who made pass themselves for "willing whore users" instead of "rapists" - many girls children in the victims normaly in the profil. Trust me, those Japanese women need the closure too.
°
Solution
°
Japan's diet need to vote a law forbidding public to call them "confort women" and negate the war crime. The diet need to vote for 3 years prison and 150 000 dollars amend fees like in all war crime negation. This is about equality between female victims, and male victims.
Japan need to understand he needs to show regret by improving the law, and let the victims speak their truth. The proofs are on the table. And i am sure, Japan have the rape crime from america too to speak about.
°
NadAge