Although Japan and South Korea have seemingly made a breakthrough in repairing their rocky relationship with the latter's proposal on how to resolve the festering issue of wartime labor, Seoul’s history of reneging on past promises offers a cautionary tale for the Japanese side.
Indeed, the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered a somewhat muted response to Monday's plan, which says that funds to compensate wartime laborers under Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula would be raised by “voluntary” private sector donations and paid to a South Korean foundation in place of Japanese companies.
Although much is still up in the air in terms of domestic repercussions in Japan and the durability of the resolution — especially considering how bumpy relations have been over the past decade — the process and outcome seems to have been a positive for the Kishida administration overall.
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