Roh Urges Japan to Open Markets to S. Korean Goods

South Korean President Roh Tae Woo urged Japan on Friday to open its markets to Korean goods, and he also warned that it must eliminate discrimination against its 700,000 Korean residents.

Speaking in Parliament, Roh asked Japan to try to correct its “chronic trade imbalance” with South Korea using “similar determination” that it has shown in its efforts to open Japanese markets to the United States and Europe.

Roh also made an emotional appeal for improved treatment of the resident Koreans, many of whom are descended from forced laborers brought to Japan during the 1910-45 period when Japan had colonized the Korean peninsula--and who still retain their alien and second-class status.

“Only when they become able to live in this land as good neighbors of the Japanese and without artificial inconvenience will both our peoples feel genuine friendship to each other,” Roh said. “When Japan fully opens up to history and the world, it will be able to present a new image, especially to Asians.”

Roh began a three-day visit to Japan on Thursday with a symbolic mission of forcing Japan to confront the errors of its imperialist and bellicose past so that the two countries can build more positive relations for the future.

On Thursday, Roh succeeded in eliciting significantly stronger expressions of “regret” from Emperor Akihito and an “apology” from Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu than those issued by past Japanese leaders.

Roh took the opportunity Friday, as the first South Korean leader ever to address Parliament, to drive home his point that a “psychological barrier” still “hinders the evolution of genuine friendship between our two peoples.”

Recalling cruel treatment of Koreans at the hands of their Japanese colonial masters, Roh said he believes Japanese will “find it difficult to understand the heartache of a Korean child who was whipped by his teacher for using his own name--not the Japanese name imposed on him--and for using his own native language that he had learned at his mother’s bosom.”

On a brighter note, Roh said that South Korea and Japan have become each other’s second-largest trading partner, after the United States. As neighbors in the booming Pacific Rim, he said, each can benefit from the other’s prosperity.

But Roh also drew attention to Seoul’s $3.5-billion trade deficit with Japan, and he called for open markets and a more generous exchange of technology.