The core issue debated during the first round of negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea(ROK: Republic of Korea) was how to interpret the basic concept of reparations stipulated in San Francisco Peace Treaty to settle the bilateral problem of claims and properties. The Peace Treaty not only proclaimed the independence of Korea but also provided the principle in Article 4 for disposing properties overseas and claims related to the independence.
This clause for relations between Japan and Korea as its former colony was juxtaposed with Article 14, which defined the principle for reparations between Japan and the Allied Powers. This provision proposed that the Allied Powers were to relinquish reparation claims in exchange of the confiscation of Japanese external assets in their territories. Furthermore, Article 15 allowed the Allied Powers to recover their properties in Japan proper.
Korea turned to these clauses, claiming its right to recover its properties in Japan and to confiscate Japanese external assets in Korea as the Allied Powers did. This claim critically hinged on the question of whether ROK was regarded as part of the Allied Powers.
The Japanese government strongly objected according ROK with the same legal status as the Allied Powers. ROK, however, considered itself as part of the victorious Allied Powers. This self-recognition led Seoul not to seek war-related claims just as the United States did not do so for fear that a harsh punishment would drive Japan for revenge like Germany after WW I.
The above arguments coalesced into the dual legal question: whether Korea was a liberated nation, and whether its status defined in Article 4 was superior to Article 14 concerning the Allied Powers. The Korean government regarded itself first and foremost as one of the Allied Powers. It was why it strongly demanded its right to go to San Francisco and sign the Peace Treaty with Japan. In short, the key question for the Japan-ROK normalization talks was whether Korea’s status as a liberated former colony should be regarded superior to that of an independent nation at war with Japan. This historical question of Korea’s status took the form of a legal debate as to whether the effect of Article 4 (b) was stronger than Article 14 (b).
At the heart of the Japan-ROK normalization talks, in short, was the historical character of Japan’s colonization of Korea, the question debated through the legal interpretation of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Only through the parallel analysis of the legal and political dimensions can we understand the historical origin of the subsequent conflicts between the two nations that continue even today. And only through this analysis can we set ourselves free from national sentiments and find a common solution.