My
very first post on this blog was about how Korea and Japan can both
improve their bilateral relations with one another. For those who
don’t wish to read the whole thing, it came down to one essential
idea – “Don’t
feed the trolls.” It was my first post and it was a somewhat
lighthearted attempt at writing about a complex issue between two
countries whose historical relationship with one one another has had
more downs than ups.
Although
Seoul-Tokyo relations have always been thorny, it has taken a turn
for the worse and has not gotten any better since 2012 when President
Lee Myung-bak
became the
first sitting Republic of Korea president to have visited Dokdo.
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Since
then, Japanese lawmakers’ annual visits to Yasukuni
Shrine, Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s government’s attempt at historical
revisionism, the issue over the euphemistically called comfort
women, Japan’s
claim about Dokdo being part of its territory,
its increase
in defense spending, and the possibility of reforming Japan’s
pacifist
Constitution have done nothing to help to improve Seoul-Tokyo
relations.
Furthermore,
Abenomics,
which is just a Japanese name for Keynesian economics (it is Japan’s
attempt at jump-starting its economy via monetary and fiscal stimulus
packages), which
has had little affect on improving Japan’s economy but has had
significant negative effects on Korea’s economy,
has exacerbated matters even further.
For
its part, Korea has done little to help matters either. Until
recently,
President Park has refused to meet with Prime Minister Abe until he
has expressed “sincerity” in regards to the issue of comfort
women despite the fact that both leaders had been elected to their
respected offices for a year. She has since reaffirmed
that she would not meet Prime Minister Abe again.
Roboseyo
has written a
thoughtful piece about Korea’s desire for Japan’s “sincerity”
on the issue (though it is most likely not a popular one among
Koreans).
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Secondly,
Koreans have been insisting that the Sea of Japan be renamed the East
Sea; and have begun to include
American state legislatures over this matter.
Furthermore, the construction of a statue of Ahn
Jung-geun
in China, of all places, cannot be seen as anything else besides
Korea’s willingness to do as much as it can to sabotage relations
with Japan. Whereas Japan may be being blithe about its history and
the feelings of its neighboring countries, Korea, for its part, seems
to be showing all of the classic symptoms of PCSD (Post-Colonial
Stress Disorder).
In
a supreme example of unreasonable emotionalism, public outrage forced
Korean peacekeepers in South Sudan to return
10,000 rounds of ammunition to Japanese Defense Forces after the
commanding Korean officer asked the Japanese commander for ammunition
when the Korean peacekeepers there faced an imminent threat from
local militias. Apparently Koreans prefer to see their own soldiers
placed in harm’s way than to show even a bit of cooperation with
Japan.
Though
it is more than likely that President Obama has various agendas that
he would like to hit upon in his
Asia tour, there is very little doubt that one of the things that
he will discuss behind closed doors is his desire to see both Korea
and Japan move on from the past in order to concentrate on the now
and the future. As much as the United States has tried its best to
remain above the bickering between the two countries, it must surely
be an annoyance to have two of its closest Asian allies failing to be
cordial with one another.
The
question, of course, then becomes how effective President Obama will
be. My advice: Don’t hold your breath.
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Of
the two countries, the United States will have an easier time
exerting its influence on Korea. With the United States’
negotiations with Korea over sharing
defense costs, the
transfer of wartime control, and even negotiations about Korea’s
missile range, combined with Korea’s need to purchase more
American
military hardware as well as from
other countries to combat what appears to be North
Korea’s drone fleet, the United States has quite an array of
diplomatic tools to convince Korea to play nice at the negotiations
table.
Its
diplomatic tools when negotiating with Japan, on the other hand, is a
different matter entirely. Although Japan has had some heated
clashes with China over the
Senkaku Islands, unlike Korea with its erratic northern neighbor,
Japan is not under the constant threat of existential annihilation.
Furthermore, it was just announced that President Obama has stated
that the defense of the
Senkaku Islands is covered by the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual
Cooperation and Security, which means that the United States is
obligated to come to Japan’s defense should an armed conflict ever
arise between Japan and China over those islets.
Seeing
how Japan is an ally and a trading partner (whose interests, most
importantly, do not clash with those of the United States’) as well
as that it is also the
second largest holder of US debt, the United States does not have
nearly as much influence over Japan as it does over Korea as
evidenced by a
Japanese cabinet minister and about 150 lawmakers visiting
Yasukuni Shrine a day before President Obama arrived in Japan.
And,
of course, all three countries are painfully aware of these facts.
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As
a result, any attempt at mediating between Korea and Japan will
likely backfire for the United States. Korea will resent being
treated like the lesser partner in the trilateral relationship, which
could push Korea toward China’s sphere of influence as was
evidenced by Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se’s statement about how
Korea
should consider forging a pact with China on sharing military
intelligence, which is a shocking statement considering that
Korea scrapped
a similar pact with Japan, a country which shares a mutual alliance
with the United States, before it could even be signed after a public
outcry in 2012.
Though
there isn’t a single Korean (who isn’t clinically insane) who
believes that Japan would ever pose a military threat to Korea as it
did in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, hatred toward
Japan is so intense that some Koreans are seriously considering
forming closer military partnerships with the People’s Republic of
China, a country that is known for being, among other things, North
Korea’s only ally!
(That
being said, China
is also Korea’s largest trading partner and Korea is rightly
wary of being entangled in a possible new Cold War with the United
States and Japan on one hand, and China on the other.)
Though
the United States would not have to worry about losing Japan as a key
military ally, it does need Japan to fully commit to the
Trans-Pacific
Partnership in order for it to be viable, which could become the
world’s biggest free trade agreement. However, the United States
needs the TPP more than Japan does. Japan has already signed many
bilateral trade agreements with the countries that are interested in
joining this FTA; as has the United States. However, the United
States needs the TPP more precisely because it is one of the central
pillars that is needed for President Obama’s “Asia Pivot” to
work. Japan can make things much harder for the United States (as it
has already done)
if the United States overly pressures Japanese leaders to “lose
face” by having to apologize to both Korea and China over its
wartime atrocities yet again.
Korea
does have legitimate grievances with Japan. However, there is
another reason why Korea has become more abrasive with Japan in
recent years than it has in the past. Rightly or wrongly, Koreans
believe that their time has come.
Whereas
Japan’s economy has not been able to escape from its
thirty-year-old
deflationary trap, this was about the same time, despite the
financial
meltdown of 1997, that Korea experienced the Miracle
on the Han River. It would seem that K-pop
has overtaken the once unbeatable J-pop juggernaut. Whereas
Toyota, Sony, and Panasonic used to be household names until the
1990s, these days, those names have been replaced with Hyundai,
Samsung, and LG.
Of
course, Japan is now the third largest economy in the world and Korea
ranks fifteenth. Korea has a long way to go before it can even hope
to be Japan’s equal when it comes to raw economic power. However,
and despite the irony that Koreans appear to be the unhappiest
lot in the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development), it would appear that Koreans are more optimistic about
their future in relation to Japan.
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With
the ascendancy of the nationalists in Japan following decades of
deflationary economics and a voting public that is more willing for
Japan to be more assertive in its international affairs on one hand,
and the economic rise of a former colony on the other, both sides
have begun more and more to look at each others’ relationship as a
zero-sum game.
(How
and why the nationalists became more popular in Japan requires
another and much more thoughtful analysis than I am qualified to
write about.)
I
have entertained the possibility of there needing to be a third party
that poses a mutual threat to both Korea and Japan for both countries
to bury the hatchet. However, such a scenario is overly simplistic
as it conveniently ignores the inner political and economic dynamics
of each country.
For
the foreseeable future, at least, it would seem that the power dynamics in East Asia is not conducive for a rapprochement between
Seoul and Tokyo. For good or for ill, it would seem that the
relationship between both Korea and Japan will stay frosty.
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