Japan–Korea disputes
Today, Japan and South Korea are major trading partners, and many students, tourists, entertainers, and business people travel between the two countries.
Subsequent lawsuits in South Korea have had contradictory results as to whether Japan and Japanese companies are still liable for individual compensation from their action during the occupation.
[16] Japan had viewed the Treaty as having been the final instrument of compensation, while the South Korean government backed the ruling of its highest court.
[17] In July 2019, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe accused the government of South Korea of not having an "appropriate response to its breach" of the treaty.
Survey evidence suggests that Japanese citizens with conservative ideologies and hierarchical group dispositions tend to resist issuing apologies.
[32] Later, the People's Republic of China and South Korea requested help in finding the dead bodies of kidnapped Chinese and Korean laborers for proper burial.
[citation needed] The situation prevented China and South Korea from appropriately coordinating their efforts, and they have only identified a few hundred bodies.
[38] In 2010, Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan expressed "deep remorse" for the removal of artifacts,[39] and arranged an initial plan to return the Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty and over 1,200 other books, which was carried out in 2011.
[42] In November 1990, the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan [ko] was established in South Korea.
[44] In July 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution calling for Japan to apologize for forcing women into sex slavery during World War II.
[41][45] On December 13, 2007, the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding that the Japanese government apologize to the survivors of Japan's military sexual slavery system.
[46] On December 28, 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye reached a formal agreement to settle the dispute.
[47] The announcement came after Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida met his counterpart Yun Byung-se in Seoul, and later Abe phoned Geun-hye to repeat the apologies already offered by Japan.
In South Korea, popular debates about "cleansing history" (Korean: 내역(과거)청산; RR: gwageo cheongsan; MR: kwagŏ ch'ŏngsan) focus on finding and recriminating "collaborators" with Japanese colonial authorities.
On August 10, 1951, a secret correspondence currently known as the Rusk documents was sent to South Korea communicating the then U.S. position on issues of territorial sovereignty in the Peace Treaty explaining why the U.S. believed Liancourt Rocks were Japanese territory: "This normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands Branch Office of Shimane Prefecture of Japan.
Called "Tsushima" in Japanese and "Daemado" in Korean, this island was recorded on the Chinese history book as a territory of Japan from ancient times.
[75] In 2010, a group of 37 members of the South Korean congress formed a forum to study Korea's territorial claims to Tsushima and make outreach efforts to the public.
It was mentioned in the Gishiwajinden (魏志倭人伝 [ja]) (a chapter of volume 30 of Book of Wei in the Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms) as part of Wa (Japan).
Since the 1950s, many prominent politicians and officials in Japan have made statements on Japanese colonial rule in Korea which created outrage and led to diplomatic scandals in Korean–Japanese relations.
[84] In 1997, Shinzō Abe, then a member of the House of Representatives and former Prime Minister of Japan, stated: "Many so-called victims of comfort women system are liars ... prostitution was ordinary behavior in Korea because the country had many brothels.
"[80] In 2007, Hakubun Shimomura, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Japanese government, stated: "The comfort women system existed, but I believe it was because Korean parents sold their daughters at that time.
[90] The issue remains unresolved, but Japan has insisted on an explanation of what happened to their citizens as a precondition for normalizing relations with North Korea.
Archeological evidence shows that Korea has historically acted as a cross-roads through which, as part of a long history of contact, several important Chinese innovations in culture and technology were transferred to Japan.
[96] In 1976, Japan stopped all foreign archaeologists from studying the circa 2nd century BC Gosashi tomb in Nara Prefecture, believed to be the resting place of Empress Jingū.
[citation needed] In 2008, Japan allowed controlled, limited access to foreign archaeologists, but the international community still has many unanswered questions.
It is claimed that two or three of the leaders of the smaller organized crime syndicates found on a list of more than twenty such groups as specified by the National Police Agency in Japan may be ethnic Koreans.
[112] In October and November 2018, there was a decision by the Supreme Court of Korea and many high courts in the country that ordered many Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nachi-Fujikoshi Corporation, and Nippon Steel to compensate the families of South Koreans who were unfairly treated and illegally forced to supply labor for World War II war efforts.
[113] The Japanese government then, in retaliation, announced they would tighten chemical exports which are vital to South Korean semiconductor industry, such as Hydrogen Fluoride, resist, and fluorinated polyimide on July 1, 2019.
[117] Immediately after Japan announced its plans, the South Korean government swiftly condemned the decision and summoned the Japanese ambassador to Seoul to issue a strong protest.
[126][127][128] The dispute escalated further in June 2021 as the South Korean parliament adopted a resolution condemning Japan's waste water discharge plan, which had passed with support across the political spectrum.
