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| SEOUL — When it comes to South Korea and Japan, historical disputes have long clouded the relationship. The two countries have not had a state visit since 2011 because they couldn’t resolve territorial claims over a set of islets. They’ve argued vehemently over the Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japan’s wartime military. |
| But South Korea appears ready to make nice. |
| In one of the most significant moves to improve ties between the two countries, the government of South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced on Monday that South Korea would no longer demand that Japanese companies compensate their Korean victims of forced labor during World War II. Instead, Seoul will create a government-run fund that it will use to pay the victims directly. |
| The move was seen as a clear indication that improving relations had become a greater priority between Seoul and Tokyo as Washington urged its two most steadfast allies in Asia to work closer together to help it face off with an increasingly assertive China and North Korea. President Biden called the deal “a groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership between two of the United States’ closest allies.” |
| Victims and their supporters in South Korea described the announcement as a “humiliating” concession made by Mr. Yoon in his overzealous drive to please Washington and improve ties with Japan, which colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945. |
| Their main concern is that the money would not come directly from Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel, as stipulated by a 2018 South Korean Supreme Court decision. Both companies were among the Japanese businesses that relied on Korean forced labor during the war and were named in the lawsuit brought before the Supreme Court. South Korea hoped that Japanese companies would contribute to its fund, adding that Tokyo would not oppose if they made voluntary donations. |
| “I am not going to accept money even if I have to starve,” Yang Geum-deok, 94, one of the victims, told reporters on Monday, saying that she rejected the government’s solution because it was not compensation from Japan. |
| The compensation deal was the most notable action taken by either side to try and resolve the festering historical dispute. Japan has insisted that such matters were settled long ago, under a 1965 treaty that established postwar diplomatic ties. The disagreement over the issue has sent relations between the two countries to one of the lowest points in decades. They have retaliated against each other by imposing trade restrictions and boycotts. |
| There was some indication that Japan would deliver its own concessions to Seoul after Monday’s announcement. Both nations’ trade ministries said that they would begin discussions on lifting export controls Japan imposed in 2019 that limited South Korea’s access to Japanese chemicals that are essential to its semiconductor industry. |
| Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in international policy at Stanford University, described the agreement as “a compromise in which the Koreans have given far more than the Japanese” and added that Japan had done “the bare minimum.” |
| By not giving directly to the South Korean victims, Mr. Sneider said, the Japanese government was not doing what was necessary to heal the rift between the two countries. Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, “has been dragged reluctantly to an agreement that he should have been able to reach easily, and he has yet to show the kind of moral leadership that’s really necessary to bring about real reconciliation between Korea and Japan,” he said. |
| Japan offered no explicit apology for the treatment of conscripted laborers but instead pointed to a statement made in 1998 when then-Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi expressed a “deep remorse and heartfelt apology” for the “tremendous damage and suffering to the people of the Republic of Korea” during Japan’s colonial rule. |
| Mr. Yoon has made improving ties with Tokyo one of his main diplomatic goals. Since he took office in May, he has expanded joint military drills with Japan and the United States and asked his people to see Japan as a “cooperative partner” rather than a “militarist aggressor.” |
| Mr. Yoon’s government defended Monday’s proposal as a “broad-minded” and “future-oriented” initiative. Seoul said on Monday that it hoped the Japanese companies that used Korean forced labor would also voluntarily contribute to the new fund. |
| So far, South Korea’s Supreme Court has awarded 15 victims a total of $3 million in compensation, though Japanese companies have refused to pay it. Of the 15 victims, only four have expressed support for the government’s new solution, their lawyers told reporters on Monday. Hundreds of other victims are still suing to be compensated. |
| Lawyers said that the victims who reject the government’s solution will continue their legal battle and attempt to confiscate assets that the Japanese companies hold in South Korea. |
| “Cooperation between South Korea and Japan is vitally important,” Foreign Minister Park Jin of South Korea said at a news conference on Monday announcing the proposal. “We should no longer neglect the deadlock in South Korea-Japan relations and must end the vicious cycle for our national interest.” |
| In Tokyo, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that Japan “appreciates” the South Korean proposal, noting that it was “not based on the assumption that Japanese companies will contribute” to the fund. Neither Mitsubishi nor Nippon have indicated that they would make any contributions. |
| But Japan also has a clear incentive to resolve its political tensions with South Korea, as it does not want to appear as though it is openly resisting Washington’s efforts to bring the three partners closer together. “Korea is now becoming global Korea,” said Nobukatsu Kanehara, a senior adviser at the Asia Group in Tokyo. “So we have to engage Korea more as a strategic partnership.” |
| Seoul’s announcement came after months of negotiations with Tokyo. Mr. Park on Monday said that the Japanese government was unlikely to oppose contributions to the fund by Japanese companies as long as they were made voluntarily. |
| Tokyo has long insisted that all claims arising from its colonial rule — including those involving forced labor and sexually enslaved women — were settled when Japan provided South Korea with $500 million in aid and cheap loans as part of the 1965 treaty. |
| South Korea put some of that money toward building its main highways and key industrial factories, like those owned by the steel-making giant Posco. Those South Korean businesses will be asked to donate to the new fund announced on Monday. |
| “The deal was a concession on the South Korean part in a historical dispute,” said Lee Won-deok, an expert on Japan at Kookmin University in Seoul. “But in the broad context of South Korea’s diplomatic strategy, this may be the only solution it has. Even if the dispute drags on, there is no guarantee that it can find a better solution or win more concessions from Japan.” |
| Mr. Lee said he expected Mr. Yoon to be invited to Japan as part of the deal. When Mr. Yoon meets Mr. Biden during his expected visit to the United States this spring, he will also have more diplomatic leverage, having addressed Washington’s urgent request to resolve such disputes and work more closely with Japan to confront regional challenges, Mr. Lee said. |
| Still, representatives of the political opposition in South Korea called the deal a “capitulation.” |
| “Today will go down as one of the worst diplomatic disasters in the history of South Korea-Japan relations,” said a joint statement from 53 opposition lawmakers. “This is the day when South Korea, a victim country, knelt in surrender to Japan, the perpetrating country.” |
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