Opinion by Sue Mi Terry and Max Boot: South Korea takes a brave step toward reconciliation with Japan
Politics offers few profiles in courage — which is why John F. Kennedy could write a whole book on some notable exceptions. On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol moved to add a new chapter by taking a brave step toward resolving a long-festering, historical dispute with Japan.
During World War II, in the last phase of a brutal colonial regime that began in 1910, Japanese forcesnearly 750,000 Korean men as forced laborers and 200,000 women as “comfort women” to serve Japanese soldiers. Though Japan and South Korea resumed diplomatic ties in 1965, the relationship has been a tense one — a cold peace more akin to the Israeli-Egyptian relationship after
than the close German-French cooperation since 1945. Anti-Japanese sentiment remains a strong force in South Korean politics, and Japan has been reluctant to disown its wartime past as fully as Germany has.The last major attempt at resolving historical disputes occurred under Yoon’s fellow conservative, President Park Geun-hye, who concluded a 2015 agreement with Japan to compensate. But progressive President Moon Jae-in scuttled that agreement as soon as he took office in 2017.
Then, in 2018, the Korean Supreme Court ordered two major Japanese companies — Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — toto wartime laborers. The companies refused, arguing that Japan had already given $500 million in aid and loans to South Korea in 1965 to resolve all wartime claims.
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