South Korea has announced a new compensation fund for victims of Japanese wartime forced labour or their surviving relatives
, a child of 1940s Korea, dreamed of being a teacher. When her head teacher suggested she study in Japan, the country’s colonial ruler, she enthusiastically agreed. Aged only 13, she forged the necessary documents and left her home in South Jeolla province. She was promptly dispatched not to the promised school in Japan, but to an aeroplane factory run by Mitsubishi, a Japanese conglomerate. “I was worked almost to death and never paid,” she recalls.
It follows a ruling of South Korea’s Supreme Court, in 2018, that two Japanese companies, Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, must compensate South Koreans forced to work in their factories or their surviving relations. Japan’s government contested that decision, arguing that the issue had been settled by a treaty between the two countries in 1965.
The formula reflects how little Kishida Fumio, Japan’s prime minister, felt able to compromise. He fears upsetting the right of his Liberal Democratic Party, which is against any new apology. Mr Kishida hailed the fund as a “return to a healthy relationship”. Within hours, Japan’s trade ministry announced bilateral talks on lifting controls, in place since 2019, on exports of materials for semiconductor manufacturing to South Korea.
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