Published biography featuring interviews with former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Former Prime Minister Abe Reveals Reasons for Deteriorating Korea-Japan Relations with South Korea
“Emotional response to breach of GSOMIA”
“Japan’s Moral Supremacy by Exterminating the Comfort Women”
A biography of Shinzo Abe, a collection of interviews with the former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, who was shot dead last year, has been published.
The 480-page memoir contains what former Prime Minister Abe told the Yomiuri Shimbun editorial board and others for 36 hours over 18 times over a year from October 2020, after he retired.
Before the official announcement on the 8th, according to a memoir distributed in Japanese bookstores on the 7th, former Prime Minister Abe described former President Moon Jae-in as a ‘convinced criminal’. It is argued that former President Moon was aware that the South Korean Supreme Court’s ruling on compensation for forced labor violated international law.
During his lifetime, former Prime Minister Abe criticized the South Korean Supreme Court’s ruling in 2018 to compensate Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the damages caused by forced labor.
He said, “The Claims Agreement signed by Korea and Japan in 1965 is an agreement under international law, which states that the right to claim compensation is ‘completely and finally settled’.” no,” he said.
He then claimed that former President Moon Jae-in was aware of the problems of the conscription compensation award because he participated in the committee that reviewed the Korea-Japan treaty during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, but he wanted to use anti-Japan as and material to promote the system.
Former Prime Minister Abe was also responsible for the fact that the Japanese government restricted exports to South Korea of three items, including hydrogen fluoride, a key material for semiconductors and displays, and excluded South Korea from the whitelist on according to the Supreme of South Korea. Court ruling.
He said, “Korea has been responding to damage the foundation of its relationship with Japan. .
At the same time, he said that the ‘stricter export control’ proposed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry was a strict export procedure, and unlike export restrictions, there was no problem with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Former Prime Minister Abe took the position that export control and a ruling on compensation for forced labor were entirely separate issues, but admitted that the two issues were in fact closely intertwined.
They also criticized the South Korean government for making the decision to terminate the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) as an emotional response.
He protested, saying, “If we take countermeasures, we usually come up with something constructive.”
The book also includes former Prime Minister Abe’s comments about the situation at the time of the ‘comfort women’ agreement in 2015.
“They (Korea) were cautious in the beginning because they had not kept their promise,” he said.
He added, “Although everyone completely forgot about my apology, I called former President Park Geun-hye to express my apology and regret,” but added, “I did not acknowledge the forced imprisonment.”
At the same time, he argued that successive prime ministers had agreed not to raise the issue of comfort women, and that Japan had been able to stand on a ‘moral advantage’ in terms of diplomacy by breaking the agreement (from South Korea).
Former Prime Minister Abe said he had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stand strong against South Korea and China on historical issues, and attended the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, but did not exchange a word with Kim Yo-jong, vice- minister of the Workers’ Party of North Korea.
In addition, he thought he had to put pressure on North Korea, but he argued that the hard stance towards North Korea had been shaken because former US President Donald Trump had started a dialogue with North Korea.
Reporter Kwon Yoon-hee
