Japan-South Korea Basic Treaty

1, All issues between Japan and South Korea were solved completely by Japan-South Korea Basic Treaty (1965)

 

Japan and South Korea signed the treaty in 1965 to settle the past

 “Japan-SouthKorea Basic Treaty (1965) “ 

More exactly, this treaty is called “Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation”

By this treaty, Japan paid $300M free compensation ($300M in 1965 is equivalent to ~$6.5B economic power value of that income or wealth in 2012 [calculated at http://www.measuringworth.com]) and loaned $200M at low rate for long-term.  In those days, the national budget of South Korea government was $350M, indicating how big the financial aid from Japan was.    

 In the Article II of the treaty, it is noted that “The High Contracting Parties confirm that the problems concerning property, rights, and interests of the two High Contracting Parties and their peoples (including juridical persons) and the claims between the High Contracting Parties and between their peoples, including those stipulated in Article IV(a) of the Peace Treaty with Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on September 8, 1951, have been settled completely and finally.”  Thus, all issues between Japan and South Korean individuals and parties (government and companies) were solved completely by this treaty.  

I also describe in Chapter 06 about the compensation and apology from Japan for Dutch former Comfort Women victims done by Japanese government.

Judging from a common sense in international relations, apology and compensation by Japan means that Japan accepted its crimes.  However, please understand Japanese mentality.  When Japanese have conflict with other people, they tend to apologize soon to recover good relation even if they don't think they are so bad.  Such mentality has been developed in agrarian society for over ten hundred years.  Such tendency in person on person relation are very good only between Japanese.  

It was bad mistake that Japan applied its mentality to international relations and easily apologized for the issue of comfort women, by which other countries misunderstood that Japan committed extremely-terrible crimes against human rights, although the truth was nothing more than the fact that a part of military officers and soldiers violated military law and committed crimes against human rights.  Anyway, Japan handled its past mistake with sincerity.  The consequence is shown below. 

Through “San Francisco Peace Treaty” (1951) and “the Protocol between the Japan and the The Netherlands Relating to Settlement of the Problem Concerning Certain Types of Private Claims of Netherlands Nationals” (1956), the Peace Treaty legally settled the post-war issues between Japan and the Netherlands, and the above-mentioned Protocol between the two countries confirmed that the Government of the Netherlands would not make any claim against the Japanese Government later than that.

In spite of receiving $10M at 1956 value that Japan paid to the Netherlands by the above protocol, the Dutch nationals established the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts (JES, established in the Netherlands in 1990) demanding that the Japanese Government recognizes legal responsibility and pays compensation for war victims including comfort women.  It began a campaign demanding about $20K dollars per person.

After long negotiations, it was agreed that medical and welfare assistance was to be provided for the individuals and the total amount of the fund from the Japanese Government was ~$255M.  Both countries signed in this agreement in 1998.  On the same day, the then-Prime Minister of Japan, Ryutaro Hashimoto sent a letter to Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Willem Kok, expressing the Japanese Government's feelings of apology and remorse for the comfort women issue.  As explained in Chapter 10, the letter brought former comfort women a great solace.

Japan also compensated and apologized for former Comfort Woman victims from other countries, i.e., Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia through Asian Women’s Fund as shown in Chapter 06.  Those victims claimed that they were forced to become Comfort Women by Japanese armed forces against their will. 

2, South Korea government stole compensation for individual citizens

A story later than the settlement by the treaty

In the treaty, Japanese government actually proposed to the Korean counterpart to compensate individual victims directly, but South Korean government insisted that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens and then received the whole amount of grants on the behalf of victims.  However, the South Korean government used most of the grants for economic development, failing to provide adequate compensation to victims and had not disclosed the facts for 40 years.  This is the reason why the majority of South Koreans believe that Japan has not compensated, yet.  

In addition to the compensation and government low-rate loan to South Korea from Japan by the treaty in 1965, Japan has been offering economic and technological assistance to South Korea.  The following URL of Japan ministry of foreign affairs indicates that the sum of economic and technological assistance until 1998 reached total $3.6B for loan assistance (including $200M government loan by the Japan-Korea treaty [1965]), $234M for free grant aid and $914M for donations for technical cooperation, which are equivalent to at least $20B~$30B at present day money value.  

                          Economic and technological assistance to South Korea from 1965 to 1998

Here is the table indicating economic and technological assistance to South Korea from Japan in each year from 1965 through 1998 (unit: ￥100M).

In 1997, South Korea and other Asian countries fell into a currency crisis.  The economy of South Korea was saved by total $55B financial aids from the world, to which IMF, Japan and the US contributed by $21B, $10B and $5, respectively.  $10B from a single country was the largest aid.  The South Korean government also has not disclosed these economic aids from Japan to its citizens at all, yet.  Instead, they are highly enthusiastic in speaking evil of Japan in the US, Europe, UN, etc.   Whatever Japan does for South Korea, any issues underlying the past history between the two nations would never end at all.