South Korea on Monday unveiled a plan for resolving a long-festering disagreement with Japan over wartime labor—a move hailed by Tokyo—bringing the two neighbors near to a dramatic enhancement in ties that have been clouded by times of distrust and literal grievances. South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin announced his plan at a news conference, saying that finances for compensating wartime sloggers under Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula would be raised by “voluntary” private sector donations and paid to a South Korean foundation in place of Japanese companies.
President Joe Biden hailed the plan as a new chapter of cooperation and cooperation between two of the United States’ closest abettors and said he looked forward to enhancing trilateral ties. Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “are taking a critical step to forge a future for the Korean and Japanese people that’s safer, more secure, and more prosperous,” Biden said in a statement. The plan still drew immediate counterreaction from former forced labourers and their sympathizers.
They demand direct compensation from the Japanese companies and a fresh reason from the Japanese government. “It’s a complete palm out by Japan, which has said it can not pay a single yearning on the forced labour issue,” Lim Jae- sung, a counsel for several victims, said in a Facebook post on Sunday, citing original media reports of the deal. The main opposition Democratic Party meanwhile denounced the plan as “amenable tactfulness”. “It’s a day of shame,” An Ho- youthful, a prophet for the party, said in a statement. “Japanese companies bogged down in war crimes entered indulgence without indeed budging, and the Japanese government managed to remove trouble by having the grace to repeat once statements”.
Grievances continued to mould, and in 1995, also-Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement admitting the suffering caused by Japan’s “social rule and aggression” and made a “profound reason”, specifically to the women forced into sexual slavery, who are euphemistically known as “ comfort women”. Decades later, in 2015, the two countries reached a new agreement on the “ comfort women ” issue, with Tokyo setting up a 1 billion yearning($9.23 m) to help the victims.