SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27366, 3 June 1954, Page 6

SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN

Strained Relations Still Exist ALLIANCE IN PACT UNLIKELY (From a Reuter Correspondent) TOKYO. Long-standing bad relations between Japan and South Korea makes it unlikely that these two countries could, in the forseeable future, work together in any Pacific treaty organisation. The two countries have tried to settle their differences at the conference table twice since 1951. From October, 1951, until April, 1952, delegates from the two countries were deadlocked about fishing rights in Korean waters, Japanese claims to property in South Korea and the status of Korean residents in Japan. The talks broke down but were resumed in April, 1953. They continued until October 21, when the Korean delegates walked out after the chief Japanese delegate, Mr Kanichiro Kubota, had made statements which he refused to withdraw. In recent statements, President Syngman Rhee said South Korea was willing to resume talks “at a moment’s notice.” However, he said, Japan would have to take the initiative by withdrawing Mr Kubota’s statements. In a recent statement to a local newspaper, President Rhee said that at the time the talks broke down, “it was represented as the Japanese Government’s view that the Republic of Korea’s existence as a sovereign State independent of Japan was contrary to international law because it was effected before the signing of the (Japanese) peace treaty, that removal of Japanese from Korea also violated international law, that 85 per cent, of all property in Korea taken from the Japanese by the American occupation force and later given to the Republic of Korea still belongs to the Japanese in spite of Japan’s acquiesence to the transfer through ratification of the peace treaty.” However, the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s version of what took place at the talks was different. According to the Foreign Ministry, Mr Kubota, in reply to Korean questions about property rights, stated that under international law Korea was part of Japan at the time of surrender in 1945. Therefore Japanese private property in Korea could not be disposed of as “overseas property” as claimed by the Korean Government.

Mr Kubota had also said that before the Japanese peace treaty came into effect Japan was an occupied country. Therefore Japan could not recognise the sovereignty of any states which came into being during the occupation until after At regained its own sovereignity. The Foreign Ministry said that Korea had not been asked to return property formerly owned by the Japanese Government. It had been asked to return only private property owned by individuals and companies. Shortly after the talks broke down, the Foreign Ministry charged that the Korean side had “deliberately distorted” Mr Kubota’s remarks because it wished to wreck the conference.

It appeared from President Rhee’s statements that there was no hope of Japan and Korea establishing normal diplomatic relations in the near future. In his statement President Rhee said, “until Japan repudiates her statements ... it is obvious she has not shed the garments of aggression for the cloak of democracy.” He said that Korea would not “endorse or vote for” Japanese participation in any Asian defence alliance until Japan had proved “by word and deed that she is anti-Communist and anti-aggressive.” He added: “Korea is not alone in her suspicions that Japan is unrepentant, unreformed, and unreliable as an ally.