South Korea to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labour

South Korea has controversially agreed to pay compensation to its own citizens who were forced to work in Japanese factories during World War Two.

Seoul’s proposal aims to resolve a colonial grievance that has long hindered relations between the nations.

Officials on both sides hailed the proposal as a breakthrough on Monday.

But Korean victims have criticised the plan, saying it does not hold Japan accountable.

About 150,000 Koreans were forced to work in factories and mines in Japan in the war, due to Japan’s colonisation of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945.

On Monday, protesters in Seoul held demonstrations outside South Korea’s foreign ministry to condemn the plan by their government, which will see South Korean companies pay into a public fund for victims.

Meanwhile, Japan’s government welcomed South Korea’s move away from demanding two Japanese firms pay compensation.

Previous South Korean governments had attempted to make Tokyo pay reparations.

In 2018, South Korea’s supreme court ordered Japanese companies to compensate 15 victims of forced labour. But the companies – among them Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel – refused, sparking further animosity.

However South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, elected last year, has aimed to mend relations with Japan – another US ally in the region. The US has pressed both nations to improve their relations.

US President Joe Biden called the deal “ground breaking” on Monday. South Korea’s foreign minister Park Jin told reporters: “If we compare it to a glass of water, I think that the glass is more than half full.”

Japan’s foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi also welcomed the plan, saying the Japanese government would allow domestic firms to join the public fund. He also expressed hope that political and cultural exchanges between the neighbouring countries would expand.

The deal should allow both nations to overcome a huge obstacle in their relationship – and thereby co-operate more closely on security, at a time when mutual threats posed by North Korea and China are increasing.

Seoul’s plan proposes that South Korean companies who benefitted from a 1965 post-war treaty will pay donations. The fund of $3m (£2.5m) will be distributed among 15 families.

Since 1945, there have been a series of long-standing bilateral disputes. Tokyo maintains that the 1965 treaty, which included a reparations package of about $800 million in grants and cheap loans, settled all claims relating to the colonial period. However Seoul has long disputed this.

There was also the issue of compensation for Korean “comfort women” who were enslaved in wartime brothels.

In 2015, a deal was penned to resolve the comfort women issue with a Japanese apology and the formation of a billion-yen fund for survivors.

However a bitter diplomatic row ensued three years later when Seoul dissolved the fund on the grounds that it did not to do enough to consider victims’ concerns.