As the Moon Jae-in administration allowed the seizure of Japanese corporate assets over wartime labor lawsuits, the Sankei Shimbun editorial column criticized the contradiction of insisting that economic exchange should be separated from politics.
This essay revisits the true meaning of the 1965 Japan–South Korea Claims Agreement and the rights Japan relinquished at that time.

March 30, 2019
The five hundred million dollars in economic assistance should also be returned, recalculated in today’s currency value.
Unless we say at least that much, they do not seem likely to understand.
This morning’s Sankei Shimbun once again proved that it is the newspaper that represents Japan today.
The following is from the front-page column Sankei Sho.
If this were a comedy routine, it would be the moment when one performer finally restrains the other, saying “Enough already.”
On the 28th, South Korean President Moon Jae-in invited representatives of Japanese companies to the presidential office and declared the following to the Japanese side, which had expressed concern about the deterioration of Japan–South Korea relations.
“Economic exchange should be viewed separately from politics.
I hope economic exchanges between companies will become more active.”
▼Who has the nerve to say such a thing.
This remark came while, in the so-called wartime labor lawsuits, the plaintiffs are moving to seize the assets of Japanese companies and may cause damage to those companies through asset liquidation.
Moreover, despite the Japanese government requesting consultations to resolve the issue, the Moon administration has taken no action whatsoever.
▼Was it not the incompetence of South Korean politics—or rather the deliberate tolerance of anti-Japan actions by politics itself—that produced the present situation.
In any case, South Korea seems to have completely forgotten that the Japan–South Korea Claims Agreement it now disregards under the shield of its Supreme Court ruling is a bilateral agreement.
▼Under that agreement, Japan abandoned all claims concerning the enormous assets it left in Korea, as well as claims related to Japanese fishermen who were captured and killed after South Korea unilaterally established the Syngman Rhee Line in 1952 and drew a boundary across the high seas.
Do they wish us to reopen those issues.
▼Until the agreement was concluded in 1965, South Korea had seized more than 300 Japanese fishing vessels and detained over 3,000 fishermen for long periods.
Some fishermen were even killed during those seizures, including by gunfire.
Compensation for those fishermen was paid by the Japanese government in accordance with the spirit of the agreement, but Japan could also demand payment from South Korea.
▼Japan could also demand compensation for assaults, looting, and other illegal acts suffered by Japanese citizens on the Korean Peninsula after the war, and demand an official apology from the South Korean government and punishment of those responsible.
The five hundred million dollars in economic assistance should also be returned, recalculated in today’s currency value.
Unless we say at least that much, they do not seem likely to understand.