South Korea’s Supreme Court rulings on wartime labor threaten the legal foundation of the 1965 Japan–Korea Claims Agreement and risk spreading anti-Japan narratives globally.
As asset seizures and international litigation loom, Japan must consider firm responses, including economic sanctions and diplomatic measures.

January 18, 2019
If South Korea still refuses to move to resolve the situation, perhaps Japan should consider claiming from South Korea roughly half of the private assets left behind on the Korean Peninsula.
A chapter I published on November 8, 2018, titled that Japan must respond with a firm attitude including economic sanctions and even severing diplomatic relations, has ranked within the top 31 on Ameba.
The following is from Tatsuya Kato’s serialized column “Unless You Enter the Tiger’s Den” published in the Sankei Shimbun on November 4 under the headline “Should Japan Demand About 2.5 Trillion Yen from South Korea?”
Emphasis in the text and sections marked with … are mine.
According to documents discovered by a private research institute and reported by Sankei Shimbun in 2003, the private assets left by Japanese nationals on the Korean Peninsula at the end of the war amounted to 4.9 trillion yen at the prices of the time of reporting.
This came to mind when a judicial ruling in South Korea overturned the 1965 Japan–Korea Claims Agreement.
The South Korean Supreme Court finalized a ruling ordering Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal to pay a total of 400 million won (about 40 million yen) in compensation to four former wartime laborers.
“The legal foundation of Japan–Korea relations has been fundamentally damaged” (Foreign Minister Taro Kono), and therefore South Korea must repair this.
However, it is said that instead South Korea is exploring Japanese concessions, such as participation by Japanese companies in compensation funds.
This issue fits perfectly into the entrenched cycle that turns bilateral relations into a quagmire, and thus it will be prolonged.
In the process by which such disputes permeate South Korean public opinion,

1. Anti-Japan sentiment awakens memories of the colonial era.
2. Empathy and peer pressure take effect.
3. The issue is reframed as one of “human rights” and pride, and movements are organized.
4. The judiciary and administration, taking public opinion into account, present decisions and policies that effectively endorse it.
5. Demands are then made for Japan to take corrective measures.
   This pattern has been repeated.
   The comfort women issue, the legal battle I myself experienced with former President Park Geun-hye, and even the Rising Sun flag issue are examples.
   In response to the recent ruling, the South Korean government, in the name of Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, stated that it would respect the judicial decision, prepare countermeasures, and hope to develop Japan–Korea relations in a future-oriented manner.
   This means the process has reached stage 4 of the standard pattern, and will next proceed to stage 5.
   It is not often mentioned, but there is a risk that this lawsuit will be expanded globally and used to spread the perception that “Japan does not acknowledge humanitarian crimes and neither apologizes nor compensates.”
   It could become a “second comfort women issue.”
   That is precisely why this time we must sever once and for all their bottomless malice and plausible lies, and thoroughly inform the international community of their misconduct.
   If necessary, we must confront them with a firm attitude that includes economic sanctions and even severing diplomatic relations.
   Japan is a nation where the “Turntable of Civilization” turns and where the highest level of intellect and freedom in the world has been achieved, yet it is subjected to endless extortion and intimidation from a country that remains, in the words of Professor Hiroshi Furuta, morally archaic.
   Therefore we must seize this “archaic ruling” as an opportunity to correct them permanently.
   If that cannot be achieved, then through economic sanctions and even severing diplomatic relations we must correct forever those who align with their anti-Japan propaganda across the world.
   Since the South Korean Supreme Court denied in 2012 the longstanding view that individual claims had been settled by the 1965 agreement, I covered briefings by related lawyers and gatherings of supporters in Seoul during the remanded trials in which Japanese companies lost.
   What was always said there was: “Japan’s colonization itself was illegal. As Japanese, does it not pain your heart that elderly people whose human rights were trampled are not being rescued?”
   Linking the history of colonial rule with human rights has been consistent from the beginning.
   Meanwhile, after this latest victory, a lawyer for the plaintiffs revealed in an SBS interview:
   “It is a serious human rights violation that the Japanese government has indicated that there should be neither compensation nor settlement,” and “If Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal has assets in foreign countries and those countries recognize the Korean ruling, those assets can be forcibly seized.”
   Thus, while framing the issue as one of human rights, they are considering civil litigation in Japan and enforcement procedures in third countries such as Europe, the United States, and Southeast Asia.
   Even if forced execution is not recognized, disputes in third countries may require local responses.
   The burden on the Japanese government and companies will not be small, and misunderstandings about Japanese firms may arise.
   The South Korean government has recognized about 220,000 former wartime laborers (including the deceased).
   If South Korea attacks with “numbers and breadth,” does Japan have countermeasures?
   The Japanese government is currently prepared to bring the case to the International Court of Justice.
   Some argue that it would be meaningless if South Korea does not consent, but “there will arise an obligation to explain non-consent. There are aspects of South Korea’s judicial ruling that do not stand internationally, and its defense will be quite painful. In fact, South Korea has previously pleaded with us not to bring cases such as Takeshima to the ICJ” (a Foreign Ministry official).
   If South Korea still refuses to move to resolve the situation, perhaps Japan should consider claiming from South Korea roughly half of the private assets left behind on the Korean Peninsula.