Sea of Japan naming dispute There is dispute over the international name for the
body of water between Japan and Korea. Japan points out that the name "Sea of Japan" () was used in a number of European maps from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, and that many maps today retain this naming. However, South Korean government has protested that the term "East Sea" has been used in Korea for 2000 years and Japan encouraged the usage of the name "Sea of Japan" while Korea lost effective control over its foreign policy under Japanese imperial expansion. South Korea argues that the name "East Sea"(), which was one of the most common names found on old European maps of this sea, should be the name instead of (or at least used concurrently with) "Sea of Japan." Japan claims that Western countries named it the "Sea of Japan" prior to 1860, before the growth of Japanese influence over Korean foreign policy after the outbreak of the
First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. Further, Japan claims that the primary naming occurred during the period of
sakoku, when Japan had very little foreign contact, and thus Japan could not have influenced the naming decisions. It was the 1928
International Hydrographic Organization's
Limits of Oceans and Seas document, which officially took the name "Sea of Japan", which eventually influenced other official international documents such as those by the United Nations. Japan also claims that it is not important whether the term "East Sea" has been used in Korea for more than 2000 years because it is only the localized name and how it was named internationally is more important. South Korea claims that Korea was
occupied by the Japanese and effectively had no international voice to protest in 1928.
Liancourt Rocks The
Liancourt Rocks, called Dokdo () in Korean and in Japanese, are a group of islets in the
East Sea that is occupied by South Korea. There are valuable fishing grounds around the islets and potentially large reserves of
methane clathrate. The territorial dispute is a major source of nationalist tensions between the two nations. Currently, South Korea occupies the island, which has its
Korean Coast Guard stationed there, as well as two elderly Korean residents.
Comfort women for Japanese military in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, October 2012 Korea has been demanding official acknowledgement with a sincere apology and compensation for the
sex slaves or comfort women issue, referring to the women and girls who were forced to have sex with Imperial Japanese military soldiers during World War II. According to the World Conference on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, enlisted to the military stations through force, kidnapping, coercion, and deception, the Korean sex slaves, mostly girls under the age of 18, were raped and tortured by 30–40 soldiers each day. According to the
New York Times, Most mainstream historians agree that the Imperial Army treated women in conquered territories as spoils of battle, rounding them up to work in a system of military-run brothels known as comfort stations that stretched from China to the South Pacific. Many were deceived with offers of jobs in factories and hospitals and then forced to provide sex for imperial soldiers in the comfort stations. In Southeast Asia, there is evidence that Japanese soldiers simply kidnapped women to work in the comfort stations. Among the women who have come forward to say they were forced to have sex with soldiers are Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos, as well as Dutch women captured in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony. Japanese media attempts to shift blame for the wartime brothels away from the Japanese military onto others, saying, "Prostitution agents were prevalent due to the poverty and patriarchal family system. For that reason, even if the military was not directly involved, it is said it was possible to gather many women through such methods as work-related scams and human trafficking." As the few surviving female victims continue to strive for official acknowledgment and a sincere apology, the Japanese court system has rejected such claims due to the length of time and claiming that there is no evidence. In November 1990,
the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military () was established in South Korea. In 1993, the government of Japan officially acknowledged the presence of sexual slavery in World War II. As of 2008, a lump sum payment of 43 million
Korean won and a monthly payment of 0.8 million won are given to the survivors. The Japanese government has also arranged an organization that gives money and official letters of apology to the victims. In December 2000, the
Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery sat in Tokyo, Japan. During the proceedings, the judges of the tribunal heard hours of testimony by 75 survivors, as well as reviewed affidavits and video interviews by countless others. The tribunal's judgment found
Emperor Hirohito and other Japanese officials guilty of crimes against humanity and held that Japan bore state responsibility and should pay reparations to the victims. In July 2007, the
U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding that Japan apologize for forcing women into sexual slavery during World War II. The resolution was sponsored by
Mike Honda (D-CA), a third-generation Japanese-American. On December 13, 2007, the
European Parliament adopted a resolution that demands the Japanese government to apologize to the survivors of Japan's military sexual slavery system. This resolution was passed with 54 ayes out of 57 parliament members present. On December 28, 2015, Japan and South Korea reached an
agreement surrounding the "comfort women issue", women who were forced to work in Japanese brothels during
World War II. Several previous attempts to settle the issue were unsuccessful dating back to 1965. This agreement, according to which the issue would be "finally and irreversibly" resolved, was reached after both sides experienced great pressure from the United States who was looking to preserve their trilateral alliance. Japan had made an apology and will pay 1bn yen ($8.3m, £5.6m) to fund victims. The announcement came after Japan's foreign minister
Fumio Kishida arrived in Seoul for discussions with his counterpart Yun Byung-se, following moves to speed up talks. Former South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, without any communication with the alive "comfort women", hailed this deal as a sign of positive progression in Japanese and South Korean relations. Due to low public support, especially in South Korea, the agreement was starting to fall apart by January 2017. After
Moon Jae-in became president, the South Korean government decided again to keep the issue of "Comfort Woman" as a dispute between the two countries by discarding the 2015 agreement and shut down the Japan-funded comfort women foundation which was launched in July 2016 to finance the agreement's settlement on November 21, 2018. Protestors placed a statue of a comfort woman outside the Japanese consulate in Busan, which caused Japan to withdraw their ambassador. In 2019, South Korea de facto voided the agreement. The issue remains largely unresolved and continues to cause conflict today. In 2020, a former comfort woman Lee Yong-soo accused
the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and
Yoon Mee-hyang, the former head of the council, of misusing funds and embezzlement. Some newspapers criticize the council and
Yoon Mee-hyang because they seemed to amplify the problem by just criticizing Japan and exploited the former comfort women, although they said they are working for resolve the dispute and working for the former comfort women. On June 25, 2021, the Japanese government released a statement that Prime Minister
Yoshihide Suga supports declarations made by past administrations that recognize and apologize for Japan's aggression in World War II concerning the comfort women issue. In 2025, during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, U.S. President Donald Trump characterized the comfort women issue as “a very big problem for Korea, not for Japan,” adding that Japan wished to move forward while South Korea remained focused on the matter. The remarks were made amid ongoing tensions between Tokyo and Seoul over historical issues.
Forced labor of Koreans during World War II During World War II, the
Empire of Japan conscripted as many as 7.8 million Koreans into forced labor, including military service and sex slavery (known as
comfort women). In 2019, the South Korean Court rulings allowed individual Korean citizens to sue Japanese companies for compensation over their use of forced labor during the
Second World War. This has led to an increase in tensions between the two countries. According to Japan, all issues related to wartime conduct were settled in 1965 when the two countries
signed agreements establishing diplomatic and economic relations that included some reparations for Japanese actions during the war. However, there is a different perspective on the 1965 treaty; individual rights to ask for reparations have not been part of the treaty in order to achieve diplomatic relations on a nation-to-nation basis. That is why "the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, two corporations that exploited Korean labor during Japan's colonization of Korea (1910–1945), should pay reparations to their victims." After Japan announced its plans, the South Korean government swiftly condemned the decision and summoned the Japanese ambassador to Seoul to issue a strong protest. Civil protests have ensued across the country as a result of Japan's decision. The South Korean government has been considering legal action against Japan, and various South Korean civil groups and associations have considered the same. Furthermore, South Korea is seeking the cooperation of other countries, such as the U.S., Denmark, and other G7 countries, for support on the issue. The dispute escalated further in June 2021 as the South Korean parliament adopted a resolution condemning Japan's waste water discharge plan, which had passed with support across the political spectrum. == Cultural exchange ==