The South Korean Supreme Court yesterday upheld rulings ordering two Japanese companies to compensate South Koreans who were forced to work under Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation, a decision that immediately sparked a protest by Tokyo.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the South Korean Supreme Court’s ruling upholding orders for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Nippon Steel Corp to compensate victims and their relatives contravened a 1965 treaty.
“This is a clear violation of the Japan-South Korea Claims Agreement, and is extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable,” Hayashi told reporters during a regular news conference.
Photo: AP
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not immediately available for comment.
Both Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries called the South Korean court’s decision “regrettable” and said that the issue of South Korean laborers had already been resolved by the 1965 agreement between the two countries.
Disputes over forced labor and wartime sex abuse have soured relations between Japan and South Korea for decades.
In an effort to mend ties with Tokyo, conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced in March former forced laborers would be compensated through an existing public foundation funded by South Korean private-sector companies.
Yoon’s plan for resolving the cases was hailed by US President Joe Biden as “groundbreaking” but faced a backlash from some victims and South Korea’s main opposition party, and cases have continued to move forward.
In two separate cases dating back to 2013 and 2014, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel were ordered to pay 1.17 billion won (US$896.2 million) to 11 victims or their relatives.
“It’s a significant case that shows a diplomatic compromise between South Korea and Japan won’t make the issue of forced labor go away,” said Kim Yeong-hwan at the Center for Historical Truth and Justice, a civic group helping the forced labor victims.
The decision also reaffirms a 2018 ruling acknowledging the former laborers’ right to reparation was not terminated by the 1965 treaty and rejecting Tokyo’s position, Kim said.
Some victims were between 13 and 14 years old when they were forced to work at an aircraft factory for eight to 10 hours a day without pay in 1944, the group said.
All the plaintiffs involved in the litigation have since died except for one family member, the group said.
The court ruling came as senior South Korean and Japanese diplomats were due to hold high-level economic talks in Seoul yesterday for the first time in eight years in a further effort to improve ties as the countries are drawn closer by shared geopolitical concerns.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home