A
statue of a girl symbolising "comfort women" in front of the Japanese
Embassy in Seoul
The foreign ministers of South
Korea and Japan said Monday they had reached a deal meant to resolve a
decades-long impasse over Korean women forced into Japanese military-run
brothels during the second world war, a potentially dramatic breakthrough
between the neighbours and rivals.
The deal, which included an
apology from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a 1 billion yen ($8.3
million) aid fund from Tokyo for the elderly former sex slaves, could reverse
decades of animosity and mistrust between the thriving democracies, trade
partners and staunch US allies.
The issue of former Korean
sex slaves, euphemistically known as “comfort women,” has been the biggest
source of friction in ties between Seoul and Tokyo, with animosity rising
precipitously since the hawkish Abe’s 2012 inauguration.
Japan appeared emboldened to make the overture
after the first formal leaders’ meeting between the neighbours in 3 ½ years, in
November, and after South Korean courts recently acquitted a Japanese reporter
charged with defaming South Korea’s president Park Geun-hye refused to review a
complaint by a South Korean seeking individual compensation for Japan’s
forceful mobilisation of workers during colonial days.
Many South Koreans feel
lingering bitterness from the legacy of Japan’s brutal colonial occupation of
the Korean Peninsula from 1910-1945. But South Korean officials have also faced
calls to improve ties with Japan, the world’s No. 3 economy and a regional
powerhouse, not least from US officials eager for a strong united front against
a rising China and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles that could
target the American mainland.
China has also been calling on South Korea to help
with its campaign to make the world more aware of its suffering during the
Japanese invasion, successfully having documents on the Nanking massacre listed
in Unesco’s Memory of the World register. A deal between South Korea and Japan
would help Abe sap China’s efforts, while allowing Park to ease worries in the
US that her country is pivoting too much toward China.
“Park’s definitely been
feeling the pressure from the US and needs to do more to dispel lingering
doubts about whom she’s siding with,” said Yang Kee Ho, a professor of Japanese
studies at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul.
“For Abe, these talks have the purpose of
preempting China’s comfort women pitch.”
Japanese Foreign Minister
Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, made the
announcement after their closed door meeting Monday.
Yun said the agreement is
final and irreversible as long as Japan faithfully implements it promises.
“Abe, as the prime minister
of Japan, offers from his heart an apology and reflection for everyone who
suffered lots of pain and received scars that are difficult to heal physically
and mentally,” Kishida told the same news conference.
There has long been
resistance in South Korea to past Japanese apologies because many here wanted
Japan to acknowledge that it has a legal responsibility for the women. Japan,
for its part, had long argued that the issue was settled by a 1965 treaty that
restored diplomatic ties and was accompanied by more than $800 million in
economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.
Historians say tens of
thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to
front-line military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. In South
Korea, there are 46 such surviving former sex slaves, mostly in their late 80s
or early 90s.
Better relations between
South Korea and Japan are a priority for Washington. The two countries together
host about 80,000 US troops and are members of now-stalled regional talks aimed
at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions in return for aid.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg Photo: Kyodo
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