Did they really make a claim to it? What possible justification could they have offered to be accorded status as a victor - not a hapless victim, whose own national ineptitude was a necessary, albeit not a sufficient, condition for Japanese success in colonizing it. Even the French made some effort.I should have responded a while ago, but I only recently got access to the archives I needed.

Go here for a different perspective from the idea that Koreans made no effort against the Japanese.

I call it a settlement, because that’s what it was. Article 2.1 of the treaty between Japan and Korea signed in 1965 provides as follows:

The High Contracting Parties confirm that the problems concerning property, rights, and interests of the two High Contracting Parties and their peoples (including juridical persons) and the claims between the High Contracting Parties and between their peoples, including those stipulated in Article IV(a) of the Peace Treaty with Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on September 8, 1951, have been settled completely and finally. (emphasis added)

I also think the language precludes, as a matter of law, any of the shenanigans that Korea now is undertaking as clearly as Article 3 precludes any recourse by Korea to UNHCR or any other int’l tribunal for a hearing of its current demands. Article 3 limits the fora for resolution of any disputes regarding the treaty to “primarily … diplomatic channels”, failing a settlement whereby the only permissible dispute resolution mechanism is arbitration by an ad hoc tribunal of three composed of individual arbitrators designated by each of the parties and a third chosen by them.

Korea’s apparent unwillingness to live up to its own treaty obligations makes a mockery of its attempt to clothe its current demands against Japan with the mantle of the law. It’s another instance of the emperor’s new clothes - a common phenomenon when Korea and anything that remotely resembles the law are involved.

I don’t either.

But Japanese courts have turned down individual claims by former Korean comfort women saying the issue was laid to rest by the 1965. (Any reason Spewer calls it a “settlement”?)

I’d wouldn’t claim to know the law but the issue of compensation is not, or at least is not exclusively, about having Japan pay former colonies and occupied countries (not the same thing) for colonizing and occupying, like the UK would not be doing for the entire commonwealth.

Compensation could/should also be for individuals systematically wronged by the Japanese system. It doesn’t even have to be a nationalist issue - even if Korea was “legally” annexed and some people out there argue that Koreans for the most part didn’t mind colonial rule, there are thousands of people who were made to do forced labor and others who were raped dozens of times daily. There’s a Dutch org of people still pissed about the issue. (http://www.jesinfo.org/)

Here’s a great quote about Japan claiming that it gave compensation. See third paragraph from the end.

Fear not, taxpayers of both countries have been paying compensation ever since. Actually, as a ?? temporary I hope ?? tax payer in France, I’d rather have our gubmint pay each country a compensation, and ship back the hords of Africans, than keep on paying forever.

Then again, it’s not only the former colonies that cost us, but the current ones too, those who *don’t want* independance…

I don’t think that a Japanese pundit/ reporter’s use of the word “compensation” to characterize the 1965 settlement constitutes a claim by “Japan” that it gave compensation.

Did they really make a claim to it? What possible justification could they have offered to be accorded status as a victor - not a hapless victim, whose own national ineptitude was a necessary, albeit not a sufficient, condition for Japanese success in colonizing it. Even the French made some effort.

“Compensation”? The Japanese don’t have to (they certainly didn’t want to then and won’t now)characterize the aid and economic assistance program as compensation. The treaty states quite clearly that the payments and other aid to be made are in settlement of any and all claims, whether of the (South) Korean state or individuals - which is the basis for the Japanese court rulings against Korean claimants. (The same thing is true to some extent in the Korean Agent Orange cases arising out of Viet Nam).

Since Japan wisely (at the time, anyway)declined to negotiate any North Korean demands with S. Korea, of course there’s another chapter to be written in this particular saga of Korean victimhood. Or perhaps there’s not if unification, despite the best efforts of Chung Dong-dumb, comes about either under the aegis of the South or some new entity rather than the North.

Anyone who doubts that Park Chung Hee’s government made herculean (and often shamelessly “squeeky wheel”) efforts should take a look at “Tasks and Times”,the memoir of Lee Yong Won, who was foreign minister at the time. Lee is insufferably self-important and, of course, he is a stalwart defender of the realism of Korea’s agreeing the deal, but neither of these subtracts from the sheer immensity of the effort that he and his colleagues devoted to the task.

Strangely, for several months the public only had access to papers which seemed to confirm the image that some have of Park as a pro-Japanese minion who sold out his country for a handful of silver.

Of course, it is possible that sequence of the releases was random but just (if not more) possible that it was not.

During a visit to Hanoi in 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung expressed regret over Korean actions in the Vietnam War, but he did not apologise.

“>http://perso.wanadoo.fr/patric...../korea.htm

And gee, doesn’t this sound familiar:

In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung came to Vietnam for the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and expressed regret for his country??s role in the war. Vu Hoang Hoa, Binh Dinh??s vice governor, said many in his province felt Kim??s statement wasn??t enough. “Whether there should be an apology is an affair of our governments,” he said. “But what the people heard didn??t go as far as what they wanted.”

“>http://www.koreasociety.org/TK.....202000.htm