Japan summons South Korean ambassador over wartime labour payment

Japan’s vice-foreign minister yesterday summoned South Korean ambassador to Japan Yun Duk-min to protest a compensation payment by a Japanese company related to the issue of forced labour during the country’s decades-long occupation of the Korean peninsula before and during World War 2.

This was revealed by top government spokesman Yoshimasa

Hayashi.

Bilateral ties have improved under South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who last year unveiled a plan to compensate victims without direct involvement from Japan.

The family of a South Korean victim who won such a case against Japanese shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen in December received money from the firm this week.

The money was retrieved from a deposit provided by the firm to a court in Seoul, after South Korea’s top court in December ordered Hitachi Zosen to pay 50 million South Korean won in compensation to the victim.

The indirect payment — the first of its kind — drew condemnation from Japan, which said the forced labour dispute was settled in a 1965 treaty.

Around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced wartime labour by Japan, according to data from Seoul, not including women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.

Japan argued that the 1965 treaty, which included a reparation package of US$800 million in grants and cheap loans, extinguished victims’ right to sue.

Yoon’s domestically unpopular moves to bury the historical hatchet are an attempt to confront growing military threats from North Korea jointly with Japan.

Over the past year, he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have resumed regular high-level talks, with Yoon in Tokyo in April and Kishida travelling to Seoul in May.