SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s most sensible court has ordered two Japanese corporations to financially compensate more of their wartime Korean staff for forced labor, upholding Thursday their questionable 2018 verdicts against corporations that caused a massive setback in relations between the two countries. Asian neighbors.
But observers say Thursday’s resolution is unlikely to hurt bilateral relations much, as Seoul and Tokyo, now ruled by other leaders, are seeking partnerships in the face of unusually demanding situations, such as North Korea’s growing nuclear threats and China’s growing assertiveness.
The Supreme Court ruled that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will have to offer between 100 million and 150 million won ($76,700 to $115,000) as payment to each of the four plaintiffs, all of whom are heartbroken relatives of their former painters who were forced to work for the Japanese War Corporation of 1910-1945. Colonial domination of the Korean Peninsula. The court also said that Nippon Steel Corp. The government was ordered to pay 100 million won (about $76,700) to each of the seven Korean plaintiffs, also all of whom are bereaved parents, for similar colonial-era forced labor.
“I felt so sad when I heard the name of (my father) being stated as the deceased at today’s trial, but I was still really glad that we won — though it’s a bit late,” said Joo Soon-ja, daughter of the late Joo Seok-bong, a forced laborer, as she held her father’s large framed photo.
In two separate verdicts in 2018, South Korea’s most sensible court ordered Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to compensate a total of 15 other Korean employees for forced hard labor. This infuriated Japan, which insisted that all payment problems were already solved by a 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized their diplomatic relations. But South Korean court rulings in 2018 said the treaty cannot save Americans from reimbursement for forced hard labor because the use of such personnel by Japanese companies constituted “illegal acts opposed to humanity. “» related to the illegal colonial profession of Tokyo and its war. of aggression.
In Thursday’s ruling, South Korea’s Supreme Court cited that argument in one of the 2018 verdicts, saying it paved the way for “judicial therapy for those suffering from forced hard labor in the Republic of Korea. “Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, called the move “absolutely unacceptable,” saying it obviously violated the 1965 treaty.
The disputes that arose through the 2018 decisions led the two countries to downgrade their mutual industrial status, and the previous liberal government in Seoul threatened a pact to share military intelligence. Their strained relations have confounded U. S. efforts to build more powerful Washington-Seoul-Tokyo. trilateral cooperation to deal with demanding situations posed by North Korea and China.
The Seoul-Tokyo relations, however, began thawing after South Korea’s current conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced in March that his country would use a local corporate fund to compensate forced labor victims without demanding Japanese contributions. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later expressed sympathy for the suffering of Korean forced laborers during a Seoul visit. The two countries revived high-level talks and withdrew economic retaliatory steps against each other.
On Thursday, the two countries held their first high-level economic talks in Seoul in about eight years and agreed to work together to achieve truly comprehensive cooperation in relationship-based economic sectors, according to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.
Eleven of the 15 former forced laborers or their families implicated in the 2018 sentences had accepted payment under Seoul’s third-party payment plan, but the other 4 still refuse to accept it, according to Lee Kook Un, leader of their group. . He said another 70 damage suits filed through more than 10 Japanese corporations were still pending in South Korean courts.
Lim Soosuk, a spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters on Thursday that the government would also try to compensate Korean claimants related to Thursday’s ruling through the third-party reimbursement system. He said the South Korean government would also continue communications with Japan.
Choi Eunmi, a Japan expert at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said Thursday’s resolution “is unlikely to cause major disruption in Korea-Japan relations” because South Korea has already decided how to handle such verdicts. with the establishment of the National Reimbursement Fund.
Choi said that because some people suffering from hard and forced labor refuse to accept payment under the third-party reimbursement formula, the South Korean fund has not fully solved the problem. But he said it’s an attempt by a long-term South Korean government to strengthen the formula. it would damage South Korea’s credibility in Japan and seriously worsen bilateral relations.
Yoon’s push to improve ties with Japan drew strong backlash from some of the forced labor victims and liberal opposition politicians, who have demanded direct compensation from the Japanese companies. But Yoon defended his move, saying it’s essential to boosting ties with Japan to jointly cope with North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal, the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and global supply chain challenges.
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Associated Press editors Jiwon Song in Seoul and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.