But most of those came more than 20 years ago, in apologies by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993, and by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995. allies are to heal, both sides must try to meet halfway, said Kim Gwang-yol, a professor at Seoul’s Kwangwoon University.Tokyo: For years, Yeom Chan-soon was haunted by the cracking sound of a leather belt eating into the flesh of a fellow Korean mine worker being punished for trying to escape from forced labour in Japan.The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has insisted the issues are settled. The legacy overshadows Tokyo’s relations with its neighbours even today and, some say, helps to perpetuate mistreatment of minorities among its own people. Executive Vice President Katsuhiro Miyamoto said earlier this month, denouncing moves by Korean courts to seize the company’s assets.At each step, Japan’s leaders have faced a choice over whether or not to show contrition.If antagonisms between the two important U. But we were not behind that system as China Custom Grinding Machine a company, and we were not in a position to respond,” said Akira Masuda, a spokesman for Nippon Coke & Engineering Co. In the latest development, a statue thought to resemble Abe depicted kneeling in apology, was placed before the figure of a woman, one-upping the previous portrayals.There have been some moves to atone for the bitter history. The companies, among the biggest names in Japan Inc.Critics say Japan has failed to fully reckon with those wrongs that date back to the late 1890s and lasted through the colonization of the Korean peninsula, until the end of World War II in 1945."When the wooden stick broke, the beating went on with a shovel that was picked up., formerly Mitsui Mining Co.Not all companies face the same legal action, but their stances are similar.

That failure to face up to history has contributed toward defensive, nationalist-leaning thinking, Tonomura and other experts say.Echoing the turmoil over racism embroiling the U.Some of Japan’s biggest, wealthiest companies originated in industrial groups called "zaibatsu,” that relied on forced labour, especially during wartime, when labour was scarce because so many adult men were away fighting. Statues have been set up in South Korea and other nations of a young woman symbolizing "comfort women,” the wartime sex slaves.. His face got twisted, and he collapsed, not even able to scream,” Yeom was quoted as saying in Hayashi’s 1981 book, "Forced Into Forced Labor.The Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo conglomerates have denounced continuing demands for reparations.That dark chapter in Japan’s history, when hundreds of thousands of people were brought from the Korean Peninsula and other Asian nations to work in logging, in mines, on farms and in factories as forced labour, lives on as a modern legacy in the companies that came to dominate the Japanese economy after World War II.S., emotions have run high over statues."Japanese have never seriously faced up to the realities of the devastating abuse Japan brought to neighbouring nations and their people,” said Masaru Tonomura, a professor of history at the University of Tokyo.That move was key in communicating remorse and contrition, said Keiichi Karatsu, the chief lawyer for Nippon Steel in that case. But their stories can be found in oral histories compiled by the late Eidai Hayashi, a researcher who spent his career unearthing facts about Japan’s wartime mobilization of labourers and other wrongdoings. He was beaten until pieces of torn skin stuck to the metal., such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui, say such issues were settled by a treaty decades ago.Nippon Steel, related to the Sumitomo industrial group, is appealing a landmark 2018 decision by the South Korean Supreme Court ordering Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to pay damages for the coerced labour.Still, wartime issues, including use by the Japanese Imperial Army of women pressed into sexual slavery, have continued to sour bilateral relations, with each nation "downgrading” the trade status of the other last year.The compensation issues were "completely and finally solved” by a treaty in 1965, Nippon Steel Corp.Survivors of the camps, their families and supporters are still seeking compensation and atonement for the labour and suffering

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