Comments on: Paying for war

By: Two Cents

Two Cents — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:50:41 +0000

The $500m passed from Japan to the Republic of Korea covered reparitions for North Korea as well. The logic presented by the South Korean government was that its northern terriotory was only being controlled for the time being by insurgents and not a separate country and so it alone was the rightful government of the Korean peninsula. So ,if North Korea does demand reparitions from Japan, then Japan should ask South Korea to give them their rightful share of what they took in the name of N. Korea. There were strong opposition in Japan at the time for paying S. Korea reparitions, since it was a colony and not the enemy. Asian nations had to pay their former colonizers for the infrastructure left behind, and some claimed that Korea should be asked to do the same. As for private property, both Japan and S. Korea renounced the rights of its citizens to demand compensation to the other government, and instead stipulated that all such demands regarding compensation shall be directed towards the respective government. Meaning, if WWII Koreans war veterans want their pension, they had to sue the South Korean government and not Japan. The South Korean government agreed to this since it realized that demand for compensation from the Japanese for private property left behind in the Korean peninsula would be far greater than any that could be made by Koreans of the Japanese government.

By: Phil (Pacific Empire)

Phil (Pacific Empire) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:58:04 +0000

Best of luck with the thesis, Younghusband!

By: ashigaru

ashigaru — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:58:32 +0000

Those reparations to south asian countries were relatively kept small under the American pressure.They didn’t want to harm Japan economical rebuliding, and also some of the reparations were attached with Japanese industries’ contracts.

In Korean cases, the military dictatorship didn’t use money in a way so that the damaged from war will benefit from it, but rather invest them in infrastructures and boost the economy. The recent disputes over reparations are based on the facts that those payments were under the nation to nation relationship, so that the individuals have their own rights to persuit reparations on each “war crimes”(such as comfort women issue).

By: chriswaugh_bj

chriswaugh_bj — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:16:40 +0000

“The interesting case to me is that of Taiwan and China.”

Surely you mean the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China? I don’t want to get into any cross-straits bullshit, but Chiang Kai-Shek was not acting for any independent Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek was the president of the Republic of China and was acting on all China’s (including Mongolia’s) behalf when he renounced the right to reparations. That’s how Japan got to use his renunciation to get out of paying reparations to the PRC. Taiwan did not represent China in 1972; Chiang was legally president of all China.