TOKYO — South Korea’s supreme court ordered Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industry on Thursday to compensate 10 South Koreans for forced labor during Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
It is the second such ruling in a month, in an issue that has already poisoned relations between the United States’ two closest allies in Asia. Experts said it complicates efforts to present a united front against the threats posed by North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s increasingly aggressive regional diplomacy.
Japan maintains the issue of forced labor was fully settled in 1965 when the two countries restored diplomatic ties and Tokyo made a compensation payment to Seoul for its 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
But elderly victims of forced labor have been pursuing their own claims through the courts for years, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in supported their right to claim compensation after he took office last year.
Last month, South Korea’s supreme court made a landmark ruling in favor of South Koreans seeking compensation from Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal. With at least 10 more cases involving more than 900 plaintiffs still awaiting final judgement, the implications for Japanese companies which have invested heavily in operations in South Korea are still being digested.
Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kono, called Thursday’s decision “extremely regrettable and totally unacceptable,” and said Tokyo would consider taking the case to international arbitration.
“The decision completely overthrows the legal foundation of the friendly and cooperative relationship that Japan and the Republic of Korea have developed since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965,” he said in a statement.
Thursday’s case involved five men and five women who worked for Mitsubishi in 1944 building ships and aircraft for Japan’s war effort, although one woman has since died and was represented by a relative.
Upholding two separate lower court decisions, the supreme court ordered Mitsubishi to pay 80 million won ($71,000) to the men, and between 100 and 150 million won ($89,000 to 133,000) to the separate group of women.
South Korea’s supreme court rejected the argument that the 1965 treaty had resolved the issue.
“The treaty does not cover the right of the victims of forced labor to compensation for crimes against humanity committed by a Japanese company in direct connection with the Japanese government’s illegal colonial rule and war of aggression against the Korean Peninsula,” the court said in a statement.
The five women, including 87-year-old Yang Geum-deok, were forced to work at a Mitsubishi aircraft factory in Nagoya, Japan, under harsh conditions. Yang says she was frequently beaten by her Japanese supervisor at the factory, and told local media earlier this week she wanted the ruling to address “70 years of resentment.”
The women filed a claim for compensation in Japan in 1999, finally losing at the nation’s highest court in 2008. They then took the case to a court in South Korea.
The 1965 treaty between the two countries said issues related to past “property, rights and interests” were settled “finally and completely,” and that no further claims by the governments or peoples should be made.
Japan says that has been the basis of their bilateral ties ever since, and the anger in Tokyo has been palpable.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the first ruling last month “impossible in the light of international law” while Kono did not disguise his displeasure this week in response to a report that South Korea’s foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, was considering a visit to Japan.
“It would be a problem if she is coming for the sake of coming,” he said, according to domestic media.
Japanese media have also been outraged, reporting that the issue has put relations between the nations “in serious jeopardy,” and warning that any attempt to seize the assets of Japanese companies operating in South Korea over the compensation awards could dramatically undermine business ties and even force Japanese companies to pull out of the country.
But in South Korea, the response has been equally vehement. Ruling Democratic Party spokesman Hong Ihk-pyo has called for an apology and compensation not only from the companies but also from the government of Japan, while a spokesman for the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said Japan should no longer “stick to tongue-lashing and impudence” and offer a sincere apology to the victims.
Experts said the issue could also encourage North Korea to claim more money from Japan as compensation if relations between the two nations are ever restored.
Japan’s relations with South Korea have been poor for years, but have deteriorated sharply in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, Japan’s TV Asahi canceled an appearance by leading K-pop band BTS, after a photo went viral showing one of its members wearing a T-shirt that appeared to celebrate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. South Korean politicians backed the band and criticized the banning.
Then, last week, South Korea said it was shutting down a foundation created to help “comfort women” who were forced to work in brothels for Japan’s military during World War II.
The foundation was funded by Japan as part of a 2015 agreement that was supposed the put the issue to rest finally and irreversibly, but Seoul’s decision effectively voided that deal and reopened the issue.
This week, a group of South Korean lawmakers traveled to a small island disputed with Japan in the East China Sea, provoking another strong rebuke from Tokyo. The islets, which lie roughly halfway between the two countries, are called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, and controlled by South Korea.
Experts said the dispute between the two nations would not have any immediate impact on efforts to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear program, with Seoul and Washington playing a leading role in negotiations and Japan in the background.
But Bonji Ohara, a national security expert at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo said it was important Tokyo and Seoul maintained close ties in case of any military tensions or confrontation with North Korea.
Nor is the lack of a united front between two of Asia’s most prosperous democracies the sort of backdrop Washington would wish for.
“It matters a lot having our two leading allies in Asia not getting along,” said Matthew Goodman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There are a lot of challenges from North Korea to China to upholding the rules-based international order. These are two rules-based market economies that could and should be working more closely together to defend that approach.”
Min Joo Kim in Seoul and Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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