STATEMENT
The Republic of Korea has sought to normalize relations with Japan continuously since negotiation in 1951 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which came into effect and restored the independence and sovereignty of the Japanese in 1952. It has always been the desire of this country to forget and forgive the cruel Japanese invasion of Korea and the arrogant occupation that was ended in 1945. We have assiduously sought to settle the differences between the two countries, and for this reason participated in a series of three conferences with Japan during the period of 1951-53.
But from the very beginning of the 1951 conference, it became apparent that Japan intended to delay settlement of outstanding problems, apparently in belief that as time passed the Japanese Government would be in a stronger bargaining position. Accordingly, at the 1951 and 1952 conferences, Japan sought to restrict the agenda to only a few of the issues and appeared unprepared to discuss many of the most crucial problems. As a delaying tactic, the Japanese introduced surprise proposals and otherwise obstructed the work of the conferences.
It also became apparent that Japan's real intention was not to sattle anything, but to prolong the advantages and profits gained from the long occupation of Korea. This attitude finally was brought into the open at the third conference in 1953. The Japanese Chief Delegate, Kanichiro Kubota, declared that "the establishment of an independent state of Korea before the Japanese Peace Treaty was signed was a violation of international law," and that "Japan's 40 year occupation of Korea was benevolent and beneficial to Korea." Japan, was in other words, laying the basis for continued claims to hegemony over this country - an illegal, aggressive contention that neither Korea nor the Free World could ever accept.
Under such circumstances, it was not surprising that Japan declined to abide by the Korean provisions of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, That Treaty - which also is the basis of Japan's restored sovereignty - clearly stipulates Japanese recognition of the validity of the disposition of property, formerly held by the Japanese Government or Japanese nationals, by the U.S. Military Government in Korea. Ignoring the Treaty completely, the Japanese said illegal claim to all of their former Korean property - a claim that constitutes 85 percent of all property in the whole of Korea.
Somewhat later, Japan came to realize that the absurdity of the claims was alienating world opinion. Even then the Japanese could not bring themselves to a straightforward renunciation. They thought they might be able to get a quid pro quo - in return for absolutely nothing-and therefore suggested that Korea reciprocally withdraw its well-founded and fully legitimate property claims against Japan. The Japanese made much of this so-called concession, but the record proves that there was no concession at all, and that Japan fabricated the claims in 1952 with the idea of subsequently offsetting them against what Japan owes Korea.
Even now, Japan refuses to discuss the Korean claims, and continues to demand the offset. The Japanese know that while the assertion to title to 85 percent of Korean property has absolutely no validity, the Korean claims are fully justified. Korea has asked far nothing more than rightfully belongs to it: return of the national treasures carried off to Japan, repayment of national and other public bonds, honoring of notes of the Bank of Japan, payment of salaries and obligations to Korean labor draftees, restoration of the Korean gold reserves, and so on. These obligations are such as would be recognised under the civil code of any civilised country, and they cannot be written off for the worthless extinguishing of property titles that were acquired through plunder and that subsequently were abrogated by the United States and the other Allied powers.
In colling for "reciprocal renunciation, of property claims, the Japanese have resorted to deceit, deception, and misleading statements. They have distorted the interpretation of various documents and have tried to imply that the San Francisco Peace Treaty does not really mean what it says so clearly and so flatly. This apparently is what the Japanese mean when they talk of "concessions" and "compromise."
Meanwhile, Japan has been publicizing a propaganda line that detention of Japanese fishermen who violated the Peace Line is unjustifiable from a humanitarian point of view. Nothing is said about the more than 1500 Koreans who have been so cruelly wronged and so viciously mistreated at the notorious OMURA concentration camp. Some have been held for many years - without charge, without trial, and without hope - and may of the were forcibly taken to Japan in the first place as laborers in Japanese war industries.
Yet Japan has the effrontery to speak of the "right of deportation" under international law - a right that cannot possibly apply to those Koreans who were forced to go to Japan and who then established homes and acquired property there. Korea has not declined to accept the repatriation of those who went to Japan illegally after the end of World War II, but it will never cease to defend the rights of those who are fully entitled to remain in Japan as long as they wish.
Japan also has sought to make deceptive propaganda capital about the treatment of Japanese fishermen held at Pusan. These assertions are disported by the record. The death rate at Omura has been many times higher than that at Pusan - and the Korean Government has followed a policy of returning to Japan those who are ill or infirm. Omura captives, on the other hand, have not been released, and there are authenticated cases of extreme harshness on the part of Japanese guards, of treatment that is reminiscent of that in the infamous Japanese "death camps" of the World War II period. The International Red Cross inspected both Pusen and Omura, and reported conditions at the Korean camp acceptable, while saying those at the Japanese camp were deplorable and a disgrace to a supposedly civilized country.
Korea has consistently sought an equitable settlement of the detainee issue on a basis of humanitarianism toward both Japanese and Koreans. An agreement on mutual releases was reached more than a year and a half ago between the Korean Minister in Japan and the Japanese Justice Minister. But the Japanese Government subsequently disavowed its own promises and refused to keep its part of the agreement. Korea tried again, and in April of 1956, the Korean Minister and the Japanese Foreign Minister reached another agreement. That, too, was dishonored by the Japanese because of a conflict in views between the Foreign and Justice Ministries. We can only conclude that behind the Japanese unwillingness to effect mutual release resides a conspiracy to deport all of the more than 600,000 Korean residents of Japan and confiscate their hard-won properties.
Japan has tried to emphasize the need for priority release of the Japanese fisherman that violated our fisheries and defense line. Yet the problem itself is of Japan's making. The Japanese refused, at the conferences already held, to discuss a fisheries agreement, and said they would fish where and when they pleased. After the drawing of the Peace Line, Japanese authorities openly encouraged fishermen to violate it and offered the protection of Japan's so-called self-defense forces. This Japanese attitude toward Korea is in strange and revealing contrast with that strated toward other powers. Japan has agreed to refrain from fishing in certain international waters adjacent to the coasts of the United States and Canada, and even of Soviet Russia and Red China. For Korea - and for Korea only - Japan sticks to the outmoded principle of the three-mile limit. The plain and simple truth is that Korea has asked no more than Japan has given to our Communist enemies, but that Japan has refused to settle for anything less than the exploitation of the waters over our continental shelf, the privilege of wide-open smuggling, and the opportunity for infiltration.
Japan has made a great pretense of desire to establish normal and friendly relations with Korea. But this is the side of the coin shown in propaganda addressed to the United States. For Korea there is only insincerity, duplicity, and outright betrayal - and the never-cessing attempt to place all the blame upon the Korean side. Some instances of this record have been cited in connection with the property claims and the detainee issue. But many other cases can be submitted in evidence. During the detainee negotiations, for example, Japan maneuvered to send 48 Koreans to Communist north Korea under the dubious pretect of voluntary repatriation. Japan presumably does not recognise north Korea - at least that is its claim - and it makes much of affiliation with the Free World. Yet it actually sent 20 of the 48 to the Communists, over the strongest possible protests of this Government, and used its Red Cross as a tool to seek travel documents through the International Red Cross.
Another area of Japanese distortion is that of trade. Korea has bought heavily from Japan during post-war years, and the Japanese Government has talked much of trade promotion and the advantages to be gained by both countries. But at the very same time the Japanese Government has been refusing customs clearance of a considerable quanitity of edible seaweed of Korean origin.
This refusal to accept laver imports that previously were agreed upon has caused severe loss to Korean traders and has virtually ruined the laver industry, which is highly important to the Korean economy. The reasons are entirely political, since Japan is far from self-sufficient in laver and since the end-effect actually has been to force the market price so high that many Japanese families cannot buy this favored foodstuff. What Japan apparently wants is one-way, colonial type trade with Korea, while reserving two-way trade for Red China, which has been branded as an aggressor by the United Nations and whose warmaking potential will be greatly increased by the availability of Japanese strategic goods.
Judging entirely upon a basis of the unemotional record, Korea must continue to doubt that Japan has the slightest intention of showing the sincerity necessary to establish normal and friendly relations with this country. That Korea stands in the vanguard of the Free World fight against Communism seems to matter not at all to the Japanese, whose Government prefers to trade and to enter into diplomatic and cultural relationships with Soviet Russia, Red China, and the satellites.
Under these circumstances, we call upon other Asians, the United States, and the rest of the Free World to take warning. If Japan can succeed in the renewal of an aggressive attitude toward Korea, it will go on toward an aggressive attitude toward others - just as the occupation of 1905 led eventually to Pearl Harbor. The time to stop aggressive tendencies is at their inception, not after damage and suffering have been inflicted upon large territorial areas and millions of people. We hope that our friends of the Free World will join with us in helping the Japanese to realise the dangers of the course they are pursuing, and finally to bring them into the family of democratic and peaceful nations.