Japan never gave Korea reparations. Japan actually refused to call it that to deny its war crimes.

Alright, I normally don't post as much as before due to work, but there's something I noticed that bothered me.

There's been a spate of people debating over the issue of Japan's 1965 payments as part of the normalization of relations treaty.

To put simply, Japan never officially paid reparations. Japan refused to call it reparations in their official documents and actually called it "independence congratulatory money"(独立祝賀金), or "economic cooperation" (経済協力) in a few documents concering trade in the treaty. It's also sometimes just referred to as independence money.

It was used as an excuse to pay Korea less money than other Asian countries like the Phillippines, who received larger cash payments from Japan despite Japan having exploited Korea and commited atrocities for a much longer period of time.

Since Japan did not recognise most of the war crimes/unlawful acts Korea claimed, and since the funds provided by Japan in 1965 were not officially about reparations, Japan argued sucessfully to the USA that it didn't have to pay as much.

Just look up 韓国 独立祝賀金 (Korea independence congratulatory money). These are the words of Japan's own government in the official documents, not mine.