South Korea’s President Yoon Arrives in Japan for Rare Summit Talks

First formal meeting since 2011 aims for thaw in relations as nations face threats from North Korea and China

· Payments for Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrived in Tokyo on Thursday for the first formal summit between the leaders of South Korea and Japan since 2011, with trade and intelligence sharing on the agenda.

Mr. Yoon’s visit comes after his administration last week proposed a plan to resolve a standoff over payments for Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II, one of the most contentious of an array of disputes between two countries.

Mr. Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have said they want to deepen coordination on regional challenges, which include frequent North Korean missile launches and China’s military expansion. North Korea fired another ballistic missile Thursday morning that landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The leaders are set to discuss sharing of real-time intelligence on missile launches and the potential lifting of trade restrictions imposed on Seoul by Tokyo in 2019, according to officials in both countries.

Washington has welcomed the tentative rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo as it seeks a unified response to military threats from Beijing and Pyongyang. Mr. Yoon’s office said his visit was aimed at “breaking the vicious cycle of stagnant relations” between South Korea and Japan.

The two nations have deep cultural, historical and economic ties but issues related to Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 continue to create cycles of acrimony. Mr. Yoon has said South Korea should put priority on future cooperation rather than disagreements over the past.

The Yoon administration’s proposal to resolve the forced labor dispute has already met resistance from former laborers because it doesn’t require the Japanese companies to contribute to settlements. Instead, money would come from a South Korean fund to which South Korean companies plan to contribute.

A poll by Gallup Korea conducted shortly after the proposal was released found nearly 60% of South Koreans were opposed to it. Just 31% of respondents said relations between Japan and South Korea should be improved as soon as possible, while 64% said there was no need to rush.

A poll published by Japan’s Kyodo News on Monday showed that 57% of Japanese supported Mr. Yoon’s proposal on the forced-labor issue.

South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the Japanese companies should pay the former Korean laborers, but Tokyo objected. It said a 1965 treaty settled all claims related to colonization in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans to the South Korean government.

Relations spiraled downward after the ruling. Japan tightened approval procedures for exports of materials critical for South Korea’s semiconductor and display production in July 2019. The following month, Japan removed South Korea from its list of countries benefiting from preferential trade procedures and Seoul threatened to pull out of a military information sharing agreement with Tokyo.

The agreement remained in force but exchanges of information, including on North Korean missile launches, dwindled. South Korea has continued to import some of the Japanese materials subject to controls but has localized some production.

Mr. Yoon is traveling with leaders of South Korean businesses, including Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. He is set to return to Seoul on Friday evening.

The leaders of Japan and South Korea have met occasionally in recent years while attending larger gatherings, but Thursday’s meeting between Messrs. Yoon and Kishida is the first summit since then-President Lee Myung-bak visited Japan in December 2011.