Chungbuk Jincheon-gun has become the first local government in South Korea to initiate the recovery of pro-Japanese assets by locating six parcels of land suspected to belong to collaborators with Japanese imperialism. On the 27th, during a briefing at the Lee Sang-seol Memorial Hall, officials from Jincheon-gun announced that these lands are believed to be owned by two individuals identified as pro-Japanese collaborators. The Ministry of Justice will conduct an official investigation, which may lead to the national government reclaiming these properties if deemed pro-Japanese assets.

The initiative, started in August of the previous year, involved forming a task force comprising local officials, members of historical societies, journalists, and legal experts to investigate all lands in Jincheon-gun. They investigated a total of 170,057 parcels of land to ascertain the legitimacy of inheritance by descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators. In one notable case, a property that was confirmed as a pro-Japanese asset in 2009 remains registered under the name of a collaborator, prompting requests to the Ministry of Economy and Finance for designation of a management agency to facilitate recovery.

The task force is also investigating the assets of 2,988 descendants of the identified 1,005 pro-Japanese collaborators. The team expressed hopes that their efforts will lead to the passage of the pro-Japanese asset recovery law currently pending in the National Assembly, enabling the state to retrieve properties associated with pro-Japanese collaborators and ensuring that proper recognition and compensation are given to independence activists and their descendants. This push could set a precedent for other local governments to follow in similar efforts across South Korea, promoting a greater commitment to addressing historical injustices.