THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
May 10, 2023 at 18:06 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, left, and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol hold a joint a news conference in Seoul on May 7. (Pool)
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a point of catching his South Korean hosts off guard by not informing them of the “personal hurt” he felt when he reflected on the ordeal faced by Korean laborers in wartime Japan.
Kishida felt his comment should first be heard by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol when they met for summit talks in Seoul on May 7. Ordinarily, officials of the two sides let their counterparts know what will be said in such meetings.
It emerged that Kishida wanted Yoon to be privy to the remark but requested it not be passed on to South Korean officials until after the fact, according to sources.
Having returned the previous day from a four-nation visit to Africa, Kishida met on May 6 with Seiji Kihara, the deputy chief Cabinet secretary, and high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials to discuss the trip the following day to South Korea.
Foreign Ministry officials presented him with an array of past responses in the Diet regarding the wartime Korean labor issue, which threatened to derail bilateral relations after South Korean Supreme Court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate wartime Korean laborers.
The meeting in Seoul on May 7 hinged on how Kishida would address the matter.
South Korean officials were clearly surprised because they were not notified beforehand about what Kishida would say, the sources said.
At a May 9 Cabinet meeting, Yoon touched upon Kishida’s comment and said, “If South Korea and Japan face each other with sincere feelings and not turn a blind eye to the history of our dark past, we will be able to overcome the difficult issues facing us and carve out a course for a new future.”
Although Kishida repeated his comment about personal hurt at the joint news conference on May 7, South Korean media were less kind, with most criticizing Kishida the following day for not offering a clear apology about Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
(This article was written by Keishi Nishimura in Tokyo and Narumi Ota and Kiyohide Inada in Seoul.)
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