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Seems the hostilities between those two countries are increasing. The main problem seems to be Japan's unwillingness to finally recognize its war crimes and apologize for them. Unlike Germany, Japan has never dealt with its fascist past. So, SK has canceled some fund that was supposed to make the issue of the Korean women forced into prostitution go away, because the victims' relatives did not agree with it.
Japan is pissed because that dark chapter of their history just won't go away. So they decided to stop shipping important electronic components to SK. Not sure how this will escalate.
Then there is the fact that Japan has resumed hunting whales, violating international consensus.
And the two countries are disputing a couple of islands both claim.
Maybe it is time to slap some sanctions on Japan. What are agreements and conventions good for when anyone simply abandons them in order to be able to violate them legally?
This has nothing to do with Japan's 'unwillingness to finally recognize its war crimes and apologize for them."
It has everything to do with political grandstanding and using the past as excuse to engage in petty bickering.
The comfort woman foundation was a bilateral agreement between the governments of Japan and South Korea to finally put to rest the comfort women issue. In fact I posted about it on this forum when it happened. Nearly 1 billion yen was given to the foundation in order to compensate former victims of Japan's imperialism. Of 47 former comfort women who were alive at the time the foundation was established, 36 opted to and 34 of them received cash payments. 71 relatives of 199 dead victims opted to receive cash, out of those 58 did receive it. That is not to say all survivors accepted it of course, but it is absolutely untrue that all victim's relatives did not agree with it. Certainly no amount of money can compensate such suffering, but again, not every victim or their relatives refused the compensation.
The reason why the Japanese government is putting restrictions on shipping elements to South Korea is due to the South Korean courts decision earlier this year ordering Japanese companies to compensate former war laborers at Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi. The Japanese government's main point is that any such issues were settled in the Normalization treaty between the two countries established in 1965, in which Japan gave billions in compensation to South Korea. And, in fact, the government of Japan has a point. One of the things the Japanese government wanted to do in 1965 was to individually compensate the Korean victims of its colonial and wartime aggression. The South Korean government refused this request, and instead used such money to fund its own public works projects. When this was made known decades later, it caused some measure of outrage.
I am not at all saying or inferring anything negative about the victims of Japan's past aggression. Their stories certainly need to stay alive to highlight the horrors of what can and has happened. And I am not saying the government of Japan is faultless in many things it has done.
But there are a lot of opinions floating around out there that does not reflect the intricacies of what is happening now besides "Japan is bad, other nations are good."
Personally, I feel these laborers should be compensated, but I do not agree with how everything has happened on both sides. But does the government of Japan not have a right to feel the way it does? Now the South Korean courts are talking about seizing intellectual property of these companies not only in South Korea, but other countries in Europe where these companies operate. Why is that fair? And the government of Japan has asked the government of South Korea to engage in talks with an international third party to help settle these issues, which the South Korean government has ignored.
I think younger people in SK feel very little hostility towards Japan. However, the Chinese really don't like Japan, so there's that. I think China vs. Japan is a far greater issue.
I think younger people in SK feel very little hostility towards Japan. However, the Chinese really don't like Japan, so there's that. I think China vs. Japan is a far greater issue.
Some of those forced prostitutes actually were Chinese.
Most anti-whaling is based in silly "whales are people too" sentiment. The only good reason for hunting bans in to prevent endangerment which could lead to extinction, and Japan is only hunting non-endangered species of whales.
Most anti-whaling is based in silly "whales are people too" sentiment. The only good reason for hunting bans in to prevent endangerment which could lead to extinction, and Japan is only hunting non-endangered species of whales.
That's nonsense. Most of the world has come to the conclusion that extremely highly developed animals should not be hunted regardless of their numbers. That goes for whales/dolphins, elephants, great apes and probably some more species. Hardly anyone claims those are people. Except maybe Spain, where great apes enjoy human rights to a certain extent.
I think younger people in SK feel very little hostility towards Japan. However, the Chinese really don't like Japan, so there's that. I think China vs. Japan is a far greater issue.
Japan still officially has administrative right over the diaoyu which the us erroneously gave to japan but should have returned to China after wwII. China will not allow japan to have the diaoyu.
Japan still officially has administrative right over the diaoyu which the us erroneously gave to japan but should have returned to China after wwII. China will not allow japan to have the diaoyu.
Nope Swede. Studied in china for a bit so got the Chinese side of things, not just the western biased bs that are being spoon fed on a daily basis to many of you folks, China has plenty of uglies, like yulin etc. but I call a spade a spade. Diaoyus really do belong to china. The Japanese lost them when they unconditionally surrendered and promised to return all stolen and occupied territories back to China.
The Chinese coastguard ships are patrolling the islands now anyway so the islands are de facto under joint control between China and japan.
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