[News analysis] S. Korea-Japan relations uncertain after decision to dissolve Reconciliation and Healing Foundation

Civic demonstrators gather near the comfort women memorial in front of the Japanese embassy on Nov. 21, the day the South Korean government announced the dissolution of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation. The demonstrators, who are part of the weekly Wednesday protests on the comfort women issue, are seen ripping apart sheets of paper with “Reconciliation and Healing Foundation” written on them. (Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer)

Dissolution of foundation does not necessarily nullify comfort women agreement

On Nov. 21, South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) officially announced that it will be shutting down the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, which is a central component of the comfort women agreement reached by the governments of South Korea and Japan during the administration of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye. The curtains will close on the foundation just 28 months after its establishment in July 2016 amid criticism that it didn’t receive the consent of the comfort women and that the Japanese government didn’t offer a sincere apology.

In its announcement, the government didn’t request that the comfort women agreement be scrapped or renegotiated. The central terms of the comfort women agreement, which the two governments concluded on Dec. 28, 2015, were a sincere apology by Japan and the establishment of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, to which Japan donated 1 billion yen (US$8.85 million) that was supposed to be used in programs to restore the reputation and dignity of the former comfort women and heal their emotional wounds. But the sincerity of that apology was soon erased when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in Oct. 2016 that he didn’t have the “slightest intention“ of writing a letter of apology to the comfort women.

Amid these developments, the foundation disbursed a total of 4.4 billion won (US$3.9 million) of the 1 billion yen donated by Japan to 34 of the 47 surviving comfort women and to the family members of 58 of the 199 who are deceased. In Dec. 2017, a review conducted by the administration of President Moon Jae-in found problems with how the agreement had been reached. The foundation’s private-sector directors resigned en masse at the end of last year, rendering the foundation essentially nonfunctional.

The surviving comfort women demanded the dissolution of the foundation, and during his summit with Abe in New York on Sept. 25, President Moon basically notified Japan of his plan to shut down the foundation. “The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation is unable to function normally because of the opposition of the public and the former comfort women, which will lead to its demise,” Moon said at the time. Now that the foundation’s official dissolution process has begun, it will go down as another “failed solution,” along with the Asian Women’s Fund, which Japan set up using donations from the public in the 1990s.

A student sheds tears after hearing the words of surviving comfort woman Kim Bok-dong, who is currently battling cancer, in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul on Nov. 21, the day the South Korean government announced the dissolution of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation. (Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer)

Question of how to deal with the money Japan donated to the foundation

The next step is dealing with the 1 billion yen that Japan donated to the foundation. The foundation still has about 16 billion won (US$14.17 million), which includes 5.78 billion won (US$5.12 million) of the money donated by Japan along with 10.3 billion won (US$9.12 million) donated by the South Korean government. Comfort women groups have demanded that 1 billion yen be returned to Japan.

But even if the South Korean government tries to return that money, the Japanese government is likely to turn it down. The Gender Equality Ministry announced that it intends to find a reasonable way to dispose of the money remaining at the foundation by soliciting the opinions of the former comfort women and related groups. The Gender Equality Ministry’s plan is to find a diplomatic solution while taking the legal steps to dissolve the foundation, which will take between six months and a year, in consultation with Japan.

With the decision to dissolve the foundation coming on the heels of the South Korean Supreme Court’s decision at the end of October that Japanese companies must pay damages to Koreans conscripted for labor during Japan’s colonial occupation of the peninsula, the two countries’ relations are almost certain to remain chilly for some time. But since neither of the two countries have described the dissolution of the foundation as the nullification of the comfort women agreement, the ramifications are expected to be limited. Since the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances ultimately concluded that Japan’s compensation for the former comfort women has been inadequate, bringing attention to the comfort women issue would work against Japan.

“Dissolving the foundation was the right decision. It was no longer possible to proceed with the programs to restore the reputations of the former comfort women and to heal their emotional wounds,” said Lee Won-deok, a professor at Kookmin University and one of the private-sector directors who resigned from the foundation.

“Rather than returning the remaining funds to Japan, I hope those funds will be spent on restoring the comfort women’s reputation and dignity, honoring them, carrying out research and supporting education. I also hope this will be an opportunity to improve South Korea-Japan relations.”

“The problem is not so much dissolving the foundation as how to deal with the comfort women agreement after its dissolution. I’m a little worried about whether the South Korean government is drawing up a roadmap about whether it should move toward scrapping the agreement or move in another direction,” said Lee Jong-won, a professor at Waseda University.

“If the South Korean government returns the 1 billion yen, the Japanese government will attack it for being the first to break the agreement.”

By Park Min-hee and Park Da-hae, staff reporters, and Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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