Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Harmed by the Japanese coercive mobilization
The currently reported 97,950 victims are only three percent of what professionals calculate to be the total number of victims, which is three million (excluding overlapping victims). Looking at the current state of 1,500 newly reported cases each day, the estimated number of reported victims will be around 200,000 at the deadline of June 30. The reason for this low turnout is that there are no allurements for reporting as victims. Not only are victims not provided of any compensation for damages done, but they are also not provided with travelling expenses.
Donga.com
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2005040567618

[Derrek]

Gee.. many of my relatives were killed in Poland during WWII.

I should get money!

Or, at least, perhaps the government should use it as a bargaining chip with any future negotiations.

Grow up and move on, Korea!

[Guri Guy]

Apparently Korea was given compensation money for the victims but they embezzeled the money. The victims should be taking it up with the Korean government.

http://gopkorea.blogs.com/flyingyangban/2005/03/roh_wants_to_wr.html

[Real Reality]

Normalization of Korea-Japan Relations and the Inflow of Japanese Capital
The amount of grant and preferential loans Korea induced following the 1965 normalization of the ties amounted to $300 million in grants and $200 million in public loans through overseas cooperative organizations (interest 3.5%; repayment in 20 years with a 7-year grace period). In addition, an agreement was reached to induce commercial loans worth a total of $300 million. From today's perspective, a total of $800 million in foreign capital may not seem like much but it was indeed a huge amount of capital considering Korea's economic size and export volume at the time....reparation payment from Japan as a result of the normalization of diplomatic ties between ROK and Japan provided the seed money for Korea's iron and steel industry. A total of as much as $120 million including $70 million in grants and $50 million in public loan went into constructing POSCO (Lim, 1995). The $200 million in government loans were invested in building SOC including the Soyang River dam, Seoul-Busan Expressway and power plants, to improve and expand facilities for railroad, shipment, materialhandling as well as post and communication. The rest $300 million in commercial loans were used for purchasing facilities in the chemical textile industry, fertilizer and cement industry.
by Yoon Je Cho,
Sogang IIAS Research Series on International Affairs, Vol. 2.
http://www.sogang.ac.kr/~gsis/iias/publication/res_series_vol_2/yoon_je_cho.pdf