Japan and South Korea top businesses push to leave behind a difficult
history
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[March 17, 2023]
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Ju-min Park
TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) -Business leaders from Japan and South Korea
pledged on Friday to work more closely on chips and technology, seeking
to put behind years of acrimony over wartime history that have stoked
South Korean public anger.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met executives from both countries
in Tokyo as he makes the first visit there by a South Korean leader in
12 years. On Thursday, Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
promised a reset in relations and dined on a dish of omelette served
over rice called "omurice".
The strain between the neighbours and U.S. allies had been a deepening
concern for the United States, which wants to present a united front
against China's rising power and threats from North Korea's expanding
missile programme.
Washington has worked to improve commercial diplomacy with both
countries, focusing on areas such as chips, where South Korea and Japan
are critical players, in an attempt to blunt China's growing
technological might.
There was "a lot of room for cooperation" between Japan and South Korea
in semiconductors, batteries and electric vehicles, Yoon said at
Friday's meeting.
"Both governments will do everything to create opportunities to interact
and do business with each other," he said.
Business lobbies of both countries said they would together finance a
"future oriented" fund of about 200 million yen ($1.5 million) for
research into securing rare resources, tackling supply chain challenges
and youth exchanges.
It is unclear whether those efforts will be able to escape the pull of
history, given the backlash in South Korea, where many feel Japan has
not sufficiently atoned for abuses during its 1910-1945 colonisation of
the Korean peninsula, including the use of forced labour.
The newly announced funding project appeared to allow Japanese companies
to help pay for programmes that could benefit South Korea without
forcing corporate Japan - or the Japanese government - to backtrack on
the long-held stance that the compensation issue was settled under a
1965 treaty.
Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea's main opposition Democratic
Party, said Yoon "sold out our country's pride, the victims' human
rights, and the justice of history, all of that, in exchange for a bowl
of omurice".
LAWSUITS
Relations between the two countries plunged to their lowest in decades
when South Korea's Supreme Court in 2018 ordered Japanese firms to pay
reparations to former forced labourers. Fifteen South Koreans have won
such cases, but none has been compensated.
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South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol
joins Masakazu Tokura, chairman of Keidanren, the Japan Business
Federation, and Kim Byong-joon, acting chairman of the Federation of
Korean Industries, as they attend a Japan-Korea Business Roundtable
meeting in Tokyo, Japan on March 17, 2023. PHILIP FONG/Pool via
REUTERS
Companies such as steelmaker Nippon Steel Corp and industrial group
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd have been a target of lawsuits by
former labourers.
A turning point came this month when South Korea said its own
companies - several of which benefited from the 1965 treaty - would
compensate forced labourers.
Yoon's support has fallen since that announcement, with his approval
rating now at 33% amid public dissatisfaction over his handling of
relations with Japan, a Gallup Korea poll showed on Friday.
"Japan has maintained its position that the wartime forced labour
issue has been settled," said Yuki Asaba, a professor at Doshisha
University and an expert on Japan-Korea relations.
"It is likely that Japanese companies will show their sincerity by
providing funds to the fund created by Japanese and Korean business
groups," Asaba said. "This is the biggest goodwill gesture."
U.S. RELIEF
The better ties are undoubtedly a relief for the United States,
which has pressed for reconciliation, seizing on the opportunity
presented since Yoon's inauguration in May last year. His
left-leaning predecessor had taken a harder stance against Japan.
Both Yoon and Kishida had acknowledged that their relationship was
"at a fork in the road", U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said
in a statement.
"The historic events of the last two weeks clearly show the two
leaders boldly chose the path of partnership, and they are to be
commended for the choice."
The strategic importance of the region was driven home on Thursday
as North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile to
demonstrate a "tough response posture" to joint U.S. and South Korea
military drills.
Japan said its self-defence forces conducted joint air drills with
the U.S. military over the Sea of Japan on Friday.
U.S. Deputy State Secretary Wendy Sherman sent thanks to both South
Korea and Japan for their efforts to ensure security in the
Indo-Pacific, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
($1 = 132.9400 yen)
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Ju-min Park; Additional reporting
by Satoshi Sugiyama and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo and Hyunsu Yim and
Josh Smith in Seoul; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gerry Doyle,
Robert Birsel)
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