365. Editorial Note
Within days after Ambassador Brown met with President Pak and Ambassador Reischauer met with Prime Minister Sato to discuss the need for a speedy conclusion to negotiations, all outstanding issues between Korea and Japan were resolved. On June 22, 1965, the Foreign Ministers of Japan and Korea and their associates signed the text of the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea as well as five additional agreements covering specific issues, namely, fisheries, the status of Koreans residing in Japan, property claims and economic cooperation, cultural matters, and settlement of disputes. Documentation recording the last stages of the negotiations is in National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL JAPAN–KOR S. The texts of the agreements are ibid., POL 4 JAPAN–KOR S and POL 33–4 JAPAN–KOR S. The legislature of each country subsequently ratified the agreement, the Korean National Assembly in August and the Japanese Diet in December. The text of the agreement, which went into effect on December 18, is in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1965, pages 787–788.
Initially violent student demonstrations accompanied the acceptance of the agreements in Korea, causing nearly all colleges and universities to close until August 20. Some colleges, universities, and high schools suspended classes temporarily. Factions of the political opposition in Korea also took to the streets and were dispersed only after the police used tear gas against them. (Telegram 1368, June 22, and telegram 8, July 2, from Seoul, National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 23–8 KOR S) Some members of the People’s Party in the Korean National Assembly chose to resign en mass to defeat ratification of the treaty. Documentation on the political opposition is ibid., POL 15–2 KOR S and POL 4 JAPAN–KOR S. Student demonstrations against the treaty and “one party government” resumed after August 20, when universities reopened. They were met by police using tear gas and in some cases by Korean Army troops. Although the public complained of the forceful suppression of the demonstrations, the students did not otherwise win general sympathy for their cause. (Airgram A–76 from Seoul, August 27; ibid., POL 2–1 KOR S)
In Japan political opposition to the treaty arose within the Socialist Party in November. Socialist criticism, however, was aimed at the way the Liberal Democratic Party pushed the package through the lower and upper houses of the Diet, rather than at the treaty itself. Documentation on political opposition in Japan is ibid., POL JAPAN–KOR S and POL KOR S-JAPAN.