The United States on Monday continued to express its strong backing for a South Korean government plan to end a long-running dispute with Japan over wartime labor, despite an immediate backlash from victims and their supporters.
At the top of his press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price hailed the plan and said the United States will "encourage" its two key Asian allies to build on the step to improve their relations.
His comment came a day after South Korea's announcement of its decision to compensate wartime laborers under Japan's 1910-1945 colonization through a government foundation with donations from South Korean companies. Opponents of the move have criticized it as excusing Japan from taking responsibility for past wrongdoing.
In a statement released by the White House late Sunday, President Joe Biden called the plan a "groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership between two of the United States' closest allies."
Biden said the U.S. government is ready to assist Japan and South Korea to turn "this new understanding into enduring progress," and that measures to be taken by the two will help the three countries advance their "shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific."
The rapprochement has been seen as essential by the U.S. government to reinforce trilateral cooperation to curb North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, as well as China's military and technological advances.
Unlike previous breakthroughs, the deal struck this time by Seoul and Tokyo is likely to live on beyond their current leaders, Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Christopher Johnstone, the Japan chair at the Washington-based think tank, said in a commentary.
The pair said the United States had been asked to stay out of the countries' reconciliation efforts and the absence of Washington's involvement would contribute to shielding the agreement from domestic criticism in its two allies.
The experts, both former senior U.S. officials, said there were two other reasons for optimism.
They noted that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who assumed office in May 2022, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are both early in their tenures and that they took a "political risk" as they agree on the strategic importance of closer ties in the face of more severe security challenges.
The relationship between the two U.S. allies has been overshadowed by a number of issues, mostly stemming from Japan's past colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
The wartime labor dispute intensified and brought the relationship to its lowest point in decades following South Korean top court rulings in 2018 that ordered two Japanese companies -- Nippon Steel Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. -- to pay damages to Korean plaintiffs for their forced labor during colonial rule.
That occurred under the previous administration of Moon Jae In, who upon taking office repudiated an agreement with Japan over the so-called comfort women issue. Unlike the latest breakthrough, the 2015 deal was concluded just months before the departure of Moon's predecessor.
Japan has maintained that all claims relating to colonization were settled "completely and finally" by a 1965 bilateral agreement.
The proposal, following consultations with Tokyo, to resolve the wartime labor dispute through a foundation has prompted criticism from the victims and groups supporting them, which have sought direct payments from the Japanese companies.
In response to the proposal, the Japanese government reaffirmed its past statements showing remorse over the colonization, and said it is prepared to lift export controls imposed in 2019 on materials vital to South Korea's semiconductor industry.
South Korean business circles largely welcomed both the proposal and the planned relaxation of export measures.
Asked what kind of role the United States may play in moving forward the relationship between Japan and South Korea, Price stopped short of elaborating, stressing instead that senior U.S. officials have already had about 25 trilateral engagements with the two countries over the course of the Biden administration.
The spokesman said their historical issues are "difficult" and "complex" but "we have sought from the earliest moments of this administration to deepen and to advance the trilateral relationship."
Related coverage:
Japan, South Korea move to solve wartime labor dispute, other concerns
FOCUS: Japan-S. Korea wartime labor row still far from fundamental solution
