MEMORANDUM
CURRENT ASPECTS OF KOREA-JAPAN RELATIONS
1. Korea's good-neighbor policy unchanged.
The Republic of Korea, soon after the formation of its governments, sought to establish a good neighborly relation with Japan, to forget the unpleasant past, and to try to lay a firm foundation of friendship upon which future cordial relations could be developed between the two countries. For this purpose Korea had a series of conferences with Japan during 1951 to 1953.
We expected, perhaps naively, that Japan would also offer us some evidence of sincerity for friendship. However, to our regret, this expectation was to be frustrated. We have been encountering the self-same old Japanese imperialistic arrogance brazen and unscrupulous.
The infamous Kubota statement was an eloquent exemplar of the Japanese duplicity and unrepenting contempt toward the Korean nation. The major points of which were:
1) The evacuation of the Japanese nationals from Korea in 1945 was a violation of the international law.
2) The stablishment of an independent state of Korea before the Japanese Peace Treaty was signed was a violation of the international law.
3) Japan's 40 year occupation of Korea was benevolent and beneficial to Korea.
4) The Cairo Declaration describing the "enslavement" of the Korean people by Japan was based on wartime hysteria.
5) Japan's claim to 85 percent of the Korean property is inviolate.
Despite of vigorous protests lodged by the Korean Government, the outrageous Kubota statement has not been formally withdrawn or modified by the Japanese Government to the present. Subsequent to this Kubota statement, prominent Japanese officials including former Prime Minister Yoshida and Defence Minister Funada went further to declare that settlement with Korea should be delayed until Japan would become strong enough militarily to enforce its will upon Korea as it did in the past.
In contrast with the Japanese intransigence, Korea has never changed its desire for a friendly relation with Japan. Apart from the general desirability of maintaining close relations between two neighboring countries, we understand the United States' strong with to have both Korea and Japan as the reliable allies against Communism in the defense of the Far East for the benefit of all the free world.
It is precisely why the Korean Government has been patiently and consistently endeavoring to seek rapprochement with Japan. In our approach, there are only two prerequisites to be met on the part of Japan: first, to evince a genuine friendliness toward Korea for the resolution of the impasse lying between two countries; second, to stand definitely and unequivocally on the side of anti-Communist free world.
Current developments, however, make it clearer than ever that none of these prerequisites is entertianed by Japan. It is feared that our sincere search for a good-neighborly relation with Japan would turn out to be an unreal and unrealizable desideratum.
2. Property rights and claims.
Korea requests its property claims to Japan, in a spirit of reconciliation and friendliness, to minimum legal claims with the character of restitution or compensation such as the return of gold and silver bullion, art and literary treasures taken to Japan and Korean properties located in Japan, and the liquidation of outstanding bank deposits and unpaid wages. However, in disregard of Korea's rightful and legal claims, Japan has already disposed much of Korean properties in Japan and refused to comply with the generous requests advanced by Korea.
As to the Japanese claims to Korea, the Japanese Government officially recognized, when she signed the San Francisco Treaty, the validity of directives and acts of the United States Military Government in Korea who had transferred in full former Japanese properties in Korea to the Republic of Korea Government. According to the United States position with respect to Korea-Japanese claims settlement recently given to our request, all rights, title and interest of Japan and of Japanese nationals in property within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Korea have been divested by virtue of Article 4(b) of the Treaty of Peace with Japan and the relevant directives and acts of the US Military Government in Korea. Accordingly, in the opinion of the United States, valid claim to such assets or to an interest therein cannot be asserted by Japan.
Nevertheless, the Japanese Government does not show any sincerity to live up to its treaty obligation pledged by signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. They give only empty promises to retract their illegal and illogical claims, but have not officially retracted them up to now.
3. Peace Line and fisheries problem.
Japan has not yet shown any desire for an early conclusion of fishery agreement with Korea in compliance with the terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and, instead, bitterly denounces the Peace Line which has been necessitated as a measure to protect marine resources in Korean coastal seas from uncontrolled and destructive exploitation by the Japanese, pending the latter's acceptance of a fishery agreement which would be beneficial to both Korea and Japan.
Besides the fishery conservation and the protection of Korean fishing industry, the Peace Line was proclaimed to serve many other purposes, i.e., the prevention of frictions and clashes between Korean and Japanese fishermen to assure a lasting peace between the two countries and the maintenance of sea defence against communist aggression and against infiltration of spies and smugglers.
If the Japanese were interested in good relations with Korea and sympathetic to our struggle against communist invasion, they would no doubt welcome such measures and eagerly sign an agreement to cooperate. But it is the stark fact that the Japanese Government not only refuses to recognize the Peace Line but also actively encourages its people to violate it. Japanese officials even avow that the Peace Line problem can be settled along with the growing of Japanese armed strength.
In sharp contrast with such indignant defiance to our Peace Line, when Soviet Russia proclaimed an unilateral decree on March 21 of this year establishing so called "Bulganin Line" to exclude Japanese fishermen from waters adjacent to the Soviet-Asian coast and to limit their salmon catches, the Japanese Government hastily dispateched its Agriculture Minister to Moscow and accepted, in an agreement concluded on May 15, the arbitrary Soviet fishing restrictions imposed upon them only two months before.
The Japanese has also signed fishing agreements with Red China and even with Communist Puppet in northern Korea. A fishery agreement was signed on April 15, 1955, and renewed on May 8, 1956 in the name of "Japan Fishery Council" and "China Fishery Council". There is a report that a representative of the Japanese Fishery Association negotiated a North Korea-Japan fishing agreement in October 1956, and issued a joint communique disapproving the Peace Line.
This is certainly not the attitude of good neighbor, seeking friendly relations with Korea. Korea, however, still asks Japan nothing more than to "abstain" from fishing within the Korean side of the Peace Line and respect it for the sake of peace that can only be pre served by friendly cooperation.
4. Japanese Penchant for Pro-Communism.
To Korea's friendly approach to establish a good-neighborly relation, Japan has never showed any sincerity in the settlement of outstanding issues between two countries. In defiance of the provision of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan has questioned the legality of the Independence of Korea, insisted on the fantastic claims to the 85 percent of Korean peoperty, refused to conclude a fishery agreement with Korea and violently challenged the very existence of the Peace Line, and detained hundreds of Korean nationals legally resident in Japan in the Omura concentration camp.
Contrary to this Japanese obstinacy toward the Republic of Korea, the recent Japanese movement for so-called friendship and understanding with the Communist nations including North Korea has been outstanding. To achieve a normalization of Russo-Japanese relations, they signed a joint communique, protocol on commerce and navigation, and fishery agreement etc.
Japan has been exchanging political, trade, and cultural missions with Red Chine, and keeping close contact with north Korean puppet regime in the fields of fishery, trade and culture, while no free nations of the world have ever entertained any relationship with that regime. More than fifty Japanese nationals including Diet members, correspondents and business representatives visited north Korea during 1955 and the number of the Japanese visitors almost doubled in 1956.
The evidence seems inrefutable that Japan is now drifting toward neutralism and pro-communism and boldly fosters anti-Americanism which is expressing itself in so many ways in Japan. Deeply concerned by the evidence of the Japanese penchant for pro-communism, particularly their growing intimacy with north Korean communists, we have warned on any occasions that any flirtation with north Korean puppet would be considered an act of utmost unfriendliness toward the Republic of Korea and would create a most adverse effect upon the future relations between the two countries.
In disregard of our repeated admonition, the Japanese has continued to make various deals through their civilian representatives and concluded with north Korea all kinds of agreements, which could not have been reached without the official blessings, overt or covert, of the government authorities of Japan.
Obviously, we can not have any friendly relations with an unchanged, old Japan with imperialistic haughtiness. Equally obviously, we can not expect any fair and freindly dealing with a new Japan that seeks its own selfish interests in friendly relations with the Communist countries, the enemies of all the free world.
Korea, on the other hand, keeps always its door open to meet with Japan to bring about settlement to the pending problems existing between Korea and Japan on the basis of fairness and justice.