August 16, 2020. Citing a Sankei Shimbun editorial responding to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s remarks on the wartime labor issue, this article examines the 1965 Japan–ROK Claims Agreement, Japan’s $300 million in grants and $200 million in loans, individual compensation, the comfort women agreement, and the responsibility of governments to honor international commitments.

2020-08-16
The following is from an editorial published in the Sankei Shimbun today under the title, “Does South Korea Not Want to Improve Relations with Japan?”
It is an editorial that demonstrates why the Sankei Shimbun is now one of the most sensible newspapers in the world.
In a speech on the 15th, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said of the South Korean Supreme Court ruling ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation in the so-called wartime labor issue that it “has the highest legal authority and enforceability.”
The South Korean government also stated that it respects judicial rulings and that “the door to consultations” with the Japanese government remains open.
That is tantamount to saying that it will leave untouched the serious problem created by the ruling.
South Korea must understand that there can be no improvement in relations with Japan under such circumstances.
At the Japan–South Korea summit last December, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged President Moon to present a solution under South Korea’s own responsibility.
Yet President Moon has presented no concrete response.
He merely pretends to engage in dialogue.
It is profoundly insincere.
The so-called wartime labor issue is an accusation by the South Korean side that violates international law.
There were people from the Korean Peninsula who worked under the National Requisition Ordinance from September 1944 onward, but this was not unjust forced labor.
It was lawful labor mobilization accompanied by the payment of wages, and people from mainland Japan worked under the same system.
At the time of normalization of diplomatic relations, Japan and South Korea agreed under the Claims Agreement that all claims issues had been “settled completely and finally.”
Under the agreement, Japan provided South Korea with $300 million in grants and $200 million in loans.
The $300 million in grants included funds intended to resolve compensation for individual damages.
If individual compensation is sought, it is the South Korean government that should make those payments.
President Moon said in his speech that he sought “an amicable solution acceptable to the victims,” but the victims are on the Japanese side, including the companies against which these accusations have been made.
The problem created by the South Korean judiciary in disregard of the international rule that agreements between states must be honored must be resolved within South Korea, and a solution must then be presented to Japan.
It is the South Korean government, which represents the country externally, that should take the lead in doing so.
It was also President Moon who further complicated the comfort women issue.
On the 14th, he stressed that South Korea would seek “an acceptable solution until the grandmothers [former comfort women] say, ‘That is enough.’”
This tramples upon the December 2015 Japan–South Korea agreement.
That agreement confirmed the “final and irreversible resolution” of the comfort women issue.
Yet the Moon administration, which subsequently came to power, did not honor the agreement and dissolved the foundation supporting former comfort women, which had been funded using the one billion yen contributed by Japan under the agreement.
On both issues, President Moon invokes human rights, but rather than imposing an unjust burden on Japan, why does he not address the real and grave human-rights violations committed by North Korea?
＊That final passage should be addressed, just as it stands, by the Japanese people also to opposition parties such as the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, to the Asahi Shimbun, NHK and others, to so-called cultural figures who agree with them, to so-called human-rights lawyers, so-called citizens’ groups, and to the United Nations.