[이데일리 장영락 기자] The payment of compensation for victims of forced labor during the Japanese occupation, which has been controversial since the beginning, has been finalized. The presidential office insisted on the inevitability of a government solution, citing “the limits of the Japanese government” and “the trauma of the Japanese government.”
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On the 6th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a compensation solution centered on a plan to compensate victims of forced labor through donations from domestic companies. Since the announcement was initially discussed, there was a backlash in Korea because it excluded the apology and compensation liability of the perpetrator companies, but the government confirmed it as the final plan through discussions with Japan. Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, not Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, welcomed the solution proposed by the Korean government, saying, “Thank you to the Korean government.”
A high-ranking official in the presidential office is said to have emphasized the inevitability of this solution in a related inquiry that day. Regarding the process of announcing the solution, the official said, “South Korea and Japan did not prepare a joint text, and it was concluded that discussions between the official governments of the two countries were over on the forced labor solution itself, which Korea had been discussing with Japan for more than six months. Korea University announced its position, and Japan also announced its position.”
The official added, “In the end, at this point today, the Japanese government thought it had reached the final limit of what it might do, so the two governments announced their respective positions.” It is said that the Korean government made a judgment that it would have been difficult for the Japanese government to take a forward-looking response beyond this solution.
The official also argued that the Japanese side seems to have taken a passive attitude because of the agreement on the issue of comfort women victims between Korea and Japan, which was virtually broken in 2018. He said, “Because we unilaterally dismantled and destroyed the Healing Foundation in 2018, the Japanese side had a difficult and important agreement with Korea, but it seems that they had the trauma of thinking that this might be overturned within three years.”
“It is natural that Japan is concerned regarding how the information announced today will be overturned by any government in the future, and therefore, we will continue to persuade and lead Japan according to our implementation process, the responses of the affected parties, and the response of the political world. It is important to have the power to go,” he said. Since Japan is concerned regarding the possibility of breaking the agreement once more, the South Korean government should implement the agreement well and continue to persuade Japan.
As such, while the government was concerned regarding Japan’s ‘low posture’, the victims of conscription, such as Grandmother Yang Geum-deok, and the victim’s group strongly criticized the government’s behavior by refusing to accept the solution right away. They are in a position that it is difficult to understand the diplomatic behavior of the Korean government, saying that it is “Japan’s complete victory.”
