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South Korean President Yoon hails key ‘step forward’ in Japan ties

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is optimistic about closer cooperation with Japan on issues including North Korea and semiconductors. Yoon’s new plan to compensate Korean victims of Japanese forced labour without Tokyo’s direct involvement has been met with controversy.

Despite this, Yoon is eager to settle the historic dispute and seek closer ties with Japan in the face of growing threats from North Korea. Both countries are ramping up defense spending and joint military exercises to ensure regional and global stability.

Published

2 years ago

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by Claire Lee and Cat Barton

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday hailed growing cooperation with Japan on issues from North Korea to semiconductors, saying it was part of a historic “new chapter” for the two countries.

Yoon will travel to Tokyo on Thursday, his first visit since taking office last year, which follows his controversial move to try and finally settle a bitter historic dispute over Japanese World War II-era forced labour.

Yoon said he was confident his new plan to compensate victims would work, telling media including AFP in a written interview that “the Japanese government will join us in opening a new chapter of Korea-Japan relations”.

Yoon’s plan, unveiled this month, involves compensating Korean victims without Tokyo’s direct involvement, which has enraged some victims who say this falls far short of their demand for a full apology and direct compensation from the Japanese companies involved.

“Japan has expressed deep remorse and heartfelt apology in regard to its past colonial rule through the position of its previous governments,” Yoon said.

Around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during its colonial rule of the peninsula from 1905 to 1945, according to data from Seoul.

That number does not include Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.

Yoon is eager to lay the historic dispute to rest as he seeks closer ties with Tokyo — a key regional ally of Seoul’s security partner Washington — in the face of growing threats from North Korea.

‘Polycrisis’

Pyongyang last year declared itself an “irreversible nuclear state”, with leader Kim Jong Un at the start of 2023 calling for an “exponential” increase in weapons production — including tactical nukes.

South Korea will “never acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state under any circumstances,” Yoon said in the interview on Wednesday.

He pointed to reports of people starving to death in North Korea — which has been under a strict self-imposed blockade since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

“The North Korean regime could easily resolve its food shortages if it injected the money it spends on nuclear and missile development into improving its people’s livelihoods,” Yoon said.

Both South Korea and Japan are ramping up defence spending and joint military exercises, which Yoon said were essential for regional and global stability.

“There is an increasing need for Korea and Japan to cooperate in this time of a polycrisis with North Korean nuclear and missile threats escalating,” Yoon said.

“We cannot afford to waste time while leaving strained Korea-Japan relations unattended. I believe we must end the vicious cycle of mutual hostility and work together to seek our two countries’ common interests.”

Trade curbs

But his moves to draw closer to Japan have been criticised as “insulting” to victims of forced labour by South Korean activists, and run contrary to some court rulings.

A landmark 2018 decision and other subsequent South Korean verdicts ordered companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay compensation to Korean victims — a move that sent ties with Japan to their lowest in years.

Following the ruling, in 2019, Japan imposed export controls on key industrial materials needed by South Korea’s chip industry and removed the country from its “preferred trading nations” list. Seoul filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization.

But both now appear to be moving to unwind tit-for-tat trade restrictions.

South Korea said this month it would halt its WTO complaint over Japanese export curbs.

“Both Korea and Japan are key nations in such global supply chains as semiconductor production,” Yoon said.

“Stronger economic cooperation between Korea and Japan will likely contribute greatly to boosting global supply chains.”

— AFP

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AFP

Singapore hangs 14th drug convict since last year

Singapore executed Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted of drug trafficking, amid a resumption of executions in 2022. Another woman prisoner, Saridewi Djamani, faces execution.

Amnesty International urged Singapore to halt the executions, questioning the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

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1 year ago

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26 July 2023

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SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore on Wednesday hanged a local man convicted of drug trafficking, officials said, two days before the scheduled execution of the first woman prisoner in the city-state in nearly 20 years.

Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted and sentenced to death in 2017 for trafficking “not less than 49.98 grams” (1.76 ounces) of heroin, was executed at Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.

The 57-year-old was the 14th convict sent to the gallows since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after a two-year pause during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hussain’s previous appeals against his conviction and sentence had been dismissed, and a petition for presidential clemency was also denied.

A woman drug convict, 45-year-old Saridewi Djamani, is scheduled to be hanged on Friday, according to the local rights group Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).

She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, Djamani would be the first woman executed in Singapore since 2004, when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, according to TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws — trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or over 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the executions, saying there was no evidence the death penalty acted as a deterrent to crime.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

Singapore, however, insists that the death penalty has helped make it one of Asia’s safest countries.

Among those hanged since last year was Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, whose execution sparked a global outcry, including from the United Nations and British tycoon Richard Branson, because he was deemed to have a mental disability.

— AFP

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AFP

Singapore to execute first woman in nearly 20 years: rights groups

Singapore set to execute two drug convicts, including first woman in 20 years, despite rights groups’ calls to stop.

Published

1 year ago

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25 July 2023

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SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore is set to hang two drug convicts this week, including the first woman to be sent to the gallows in nearly 20 years, rights groups said Tuesday, while urging the executions be halted.

Local rights organisation Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) said a 56-year-old man convicted of trafficking 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of heroin is scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday at the Southeast Asian city-state’s Changi Prison.

A 45-year-old woman convict who TJC identified as Saridewi Djamani is also set to be sent to the gallows on Friday. She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, she would be the first woman to be executed in Singapore since 2004 when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, said TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

TJC said the two prisoners are Singaporeans and their families have received notices setting the dates of their executions.

Prison officials have not answered emailed questions from AFP seeking confirmation.

Singapore imposes the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder and some forms of kidnapping.

It also has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws: trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

At least 13 people have been hanged so far since the government resumed executions following a two-year hiatus in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the impending executions.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs.

“As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” Sangiorgio added.

Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent.

— AFP

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