Japan’s prime minister expressed sympathy for the suffering of Korean forced labourers during Japan’s colonial rule, as he and his South Korean counterpart on Sunday renewed resolve to overcome historical grievances and strengthen cooperation in the face of shared challenges such as North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Comments by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his second summit in less than two months with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol are closely watched in Seoul.
Yoon has faced domestic criticism that he had preemptively made concessions to Tokyo without getting corresponding steps in return. Kishida’s statement, which avoided a new, direct apology over the colonization but still sympathised with the Korean victims, suggests he felt pressure to say something to maintain momentum for improved ties.
“And personally, I have strong pain in my heart as I think of the extreme difficulty and sorrow that many people had to suffer under the severe environment in those days,” Kishida told a joint news conference with Yoon, referring to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
“Japan and South Korea share various history and development, and I believe it is my responsibility as prime minister of Japan to cooperate with President Yoon and the South Korean side as we follow through the effort of our predecessors who have also overcome the difficult times,” he said.
Kishida arrived in South Korea earlier Sunday for a two-day visit, which reciprocates a mid-March trip to Tokyo by Yoon and marks the first exchange of visits between the leaders of the Asian neighbors in 12 years.
The back-to-back summits were largely meant to resolve the countries’ bitter disputes caused by the 2018 court rulings in South Korea that ordered two Japanese companies to financially compensate some of their aging former Korean employees for colonial-era forced labour.
Japan has refused to abide by the verdicts, arguing that all compensation issues were already settled when the two countries normalized ties in 1965.
The wrangling led to the countries downgrading each other’s trade status and Seoul’s previous liberal government threatening to spike a military intelligence-sharing pact. The strained South Korea-Japan ties complicated US efforts to build a stronger regional alliance to better cope with rising Chinese influence and North Korean nuclear threats.
In March, however, Yoon’s conservative government took a major step toward mending the ties by announcing it would use local funds to compensate the forced labour victims without demanding contributions from Japanese companies.
Later in March, Yoon travelled to Tokyo to meet with Kishida, and the two agreed to resume leadership-level visits and other talks. Their governments have since taken steps to withdraw their economic retaliatory steps against each other.
Yoon’s push, however, drew strong backlash from some of the forced labour victims and his liberal rivals at home, who have demanded direct compensation from the Japanese companies. Yoon has defended his move, saying greater cooperation with Japan is required to jointly tackle North Korea’s advancing nuclear programme, the intensifying US-China strategic rivalry and global supply chain challenges.