Japan and South Korea near trade war

Japan and South Korea are on the brink of a serious trade dispute that could upset the global tech industry.

[scooby-tmyk]

In 1965, an agreement was reached between Korea and Japan settling all compensation claims to the victims of the war worth $800 million at the time. ($6.4 Billion in today). In January 2005, the South Korean government revealed documents that recorded that the Japanese government proposal to the South Korean government to directly compensate individual victims but it was the South Korean government which insisted that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens and then received the whole amount of grants on behalf of the victims. The Korean government never transferred the settlement to the intended recipients.

Then in 2015, the Korean government again demanded more compensation specifically regarding the issue comfort women to which Japan complied and paid up to $500 million. In return, the agreement stipulated that problems concerning property, rights and interests of the two parties and their nationals were to be settled completely and finally. No contention of this was to be made thereafter. However, the compensation paid to the South Korean government never reached the recipients again.

Now in 2019, the South Korean Supreme Court, believe it or not, ruled that Japan should pay further compensation claiming that the victims never received any compensation. Not only did the ruling violate both the 1965 and 2015 agreements, the Koreans essentially blamed Japan for their own government's corruption and incompetence.