Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea
Encyclopedia
The Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

: ; Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

: , , Hanil Gibon Joyak) was signed on June 22, 1965 to establish basic relationship between
Japan-Korea relations
Korea-Japan relations are the relations between Korea and Japan. In a modern context, these relations pertain to three states: Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. Japan and Korea have had cultural interactions for over a thousand years and direct political contact almost as long...

 Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and the Republic of Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 (South Korea).

History

In his 1974 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

 lecture, Eisaku Sato
Eisaku Sato
This article is about the Prime Minister of Japan. For the governor of Fukushima Prefecture of Japan of the same name, see Eisaku Satō ....

 explicitly mentioned the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea. He described "the guiding spirit of equality and mutual advantage and the realistic approach of seeking to establish friendship with close neighbors" as significant aspects of the extended negotiations which produced this bilateral agreement.

Treaty provisions

This diplomatic agreement established "normal" diplomatic relations between two East Asian neighbors. The original documents of this agreement are kept respectively by Japan and Korea.

Recision

The 1965 Treaty of Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea also declared that:

It is confirmed that all treaties or agreements concluded between the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

 and the Empire of Korea
Korean Empire
The Greater Korean Empire was an empire of Korea that succeeded the Joseon Dynasty.In October 1897, Emperor Gojong proclaimed the new entity at Gyeongungung Palace and oversaw the partially successful modernization of the military, economy, land system, education system, and various industries...

 on or before August 22, 1910 are already null and void
.

Language

The treaty is drafted using English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

, and each are considered authentic. In case of and "divergence of interpretation," the English language version shall be deemed authoritative and prevailing.

Compensation

In January 2005, the South Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that South Korea agreed to demand no compensations, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loan
Soft loan
A soft loan is a loan with a below-market rate of interest. This is also known as soft financing. Sometimes soft loans provide other concessions to borrowers, such as long repayment periods or interest holidays. Soft loans are usually provided by governments to projects they think are worthwhile...

s from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.

The documents also recorded that the Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period, at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person. However, the South Korean government used most of the grants for economic development, failing to provide adequate compensation to victims by paying only 300,000 won per death in compensating victims of forced labor between 1975 and 1977. Instead, the government spent most of the money establishing social infrastructures, founding POSCO
POSCO
POSCO is a multinational steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South Korea. It is the world's third-largest steelmaker by market value and the most profitable Asia-based steelmaker....

, building Gyeongbu Expressway
Gyeongbu Expressway
The Gyeongbu Expressway is the second oldest and most heavily travelled expressway in South Korea, connecting Seoul to Suwon, Daejeon, Gumi, Daegu, and Busan. It has the route number 1, signifying its role as South Korea's most important expressway...

 and the Soyang Dam
Soyang Dam
The Soyang Dam, also referred to as the Soyanggang Dam, is an embankment dam on the Soyang River, northeast of Chuncheon in Gangwon-do Province, South Korea. The purpose of the dam is flood control, water supply and hydroelectric power generation. Construction on the dam began in 1967 and was...

 with the technology transfer from Japanese companies.

The documents also reveals that the South Korean government claimed that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens who suffered during Japan's colonial rule while rejecting Japan's proposal to directly compensate individual victims and receiving the whole amount of grants on the behalf of victims.

As the result, there have been growing calls for the government to compensate the victims since the disclosure of the documents. A survey conducted shortly after the disclosure showed that more than 70 percent of Korean people believe the South Korean government should bear responsibility to pay for those victims (ibid.). The South Korean government announced that it will establish a team to deal with the appeals for compensation, although "It has been the government's position that compensation for losses during the Japanese occupation has already been settled".

Japanese officials had reportedly not been in favor of the South Korean government disclosing the documents because they were concerned about repercussions the disclosure of such diplomatic documents would have on bilateral normalizations talks with North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

, who reportedly wants more than $10 billion as compensation for its share. Japan has generally refused to pay damages to individuals, saying it settled the issue on a government-to-government basis under the 1965 agreement.

External links

  • Wikisource, Treaty text in English; Japanese; Korean
  • Wikisource, Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning Fisheries
  • Wikisource, Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation
  • WIkisource, Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Legal Status and Treatment of the People of the Republic of Korea Residing in Japan
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