OPINION:
Meetings between top U.S. foreign policy officials and their counterparts in South Korea illuminated the urgent need for cooperation between the U.S. and its allies and the resolution of the tensions between Korea and Japan.
Hours before the meetings in Seoul kicked off on March 18, North Korea revealed that it had been intentionally ignoring U.S. attempts to establish a communications channel for potential talks. Days later, at a meeting in Anchorage with Chinese officials, Member of the Central Politburo of China Yang Jiechi accused the United States of being uncooperative and arrogant in his opening statement.
North Korea’s increasing provocations make it clear to anyone paying attention that the world of democracies needs to act decisively and act quickly. On March 25, North Korea fired ballistic missiles again, which landed in the Sea of Japan, after 12 months of refraining from missile launches. Kim Jong-un is pushing forward on a “new path of struggle” after he failed to win concessions at his meetings with then-President Trump.
At its 8th Party Congress held in Pyongyang in January 2021, the dictatorial apparatus that implements Kim Jong-un’s control of North Korea, the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), doubled down on nuclear threats, saying, it will advance its “nuclear powers until hostile North Korean policies have been withdrawn.” “Hostile policies,” in North Korean parlance, means the stationing of U.S. troops to help protect South Korea’s freedom and the alliance between the two countries.
North Korea is trying to weaken the alliance, knowing that South Korea President Moon Jae-in is naive and can be easily manipulated by “unification” talk. Already relations between Japan and South Korea have been decimated. South Korea must reject this false promise of “reconciliation” with the North and put aside its grievances with Japan in order to work together to contain North Korea’s bluster.
Security conditions in East Asia are becoming more tense than they have been in years. China is acting more and more assertively in both foreign and domestic policy. And North Korea’s rapid development of missile technology equally threatens South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
Fortunately, U.S. foreign policy leaders and their South Korean counterparts are starting to get the message. At the U.S.-South Korea meetings, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “Beijing’s actions make forging a common approach among our allies all the more important,” and he promoted “trilateral cooperation” among the U.S., South Korea and Japan. South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said, “South Korea agrees that trilateral cooperation is important.”
But will Mr. Moon get the message? Although he did reach out to Japan in his March 1 speech, he hasn’t done anything major to tamp down the tensions caused by South Korean demands for yet new apologies and reparations over comfort women and labor mobilization during its colonization period.
If South Korea continues to demand Japanese companies pay over verdicts in South Korean courts, despite the 1965 Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property, Claims and Economic Co-operation between Japan and South Korea, stating that all matters of compensation were settled, then Japanese businesses might have a hard time operating in Seoul. Defense cooperation was further impacted when South Korea threatened to end its military information-sharing agreement with Japan in 2019.
This year must be the year that relations between South Korea and Japan get back to a better footing. First, South Korea and Japan need their economies to grow after the loss of 2020. Both countries have done a good job controlling COVID-19, yet their GDPs still declined, albeit by smaller rates than other countries. Now they have begun administering vaccines, so there is a path forward to safely resume travel and commerce at close to pre-pandemic levels.
New administrations in Washington and Tokyo and approaching election seasons in Korea provide a fresh start from a political perspective. In September Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was replaced, following his resignation, by Yoshihide Suga. Next year is South Korea’s presidential election, and if Mr. Moon can’t get the economy growing or change the status quo with North Korea, his Democratic Party could face headwinds. Improving the relationship with Japan would go a long way to boosting Korea’s economy and putting pressure on North Korea and China.
Despite the eternal historical grievances between South Korea and Japan and some real differences on outlook toward foreign affairs, both countries do have some major shared interests. Both are threatened by North Korean missiles. Both are concerned about Chinese regional hegemony (albeit to varying degrees). And both countries treasure their alliances with the U.S.
President Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Suga in Washington in April. The first meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Moon will take place after. A news analysis in the Korean paper Hankyoreh speculates sometime in May is likely. There is much to work on, and now that he got his big COVID-19 relief bill passed, he will have more time to dedicate to foreign policy.
Mr. Biden must make Asia a priority, but the leaders of each country, particularly Mr. Moon, must be receptive to change. Letting North Korea continue down the road toward becoming an uncontested nuclear state is unacceptable.
• Mitchell Blatt is a columnist and blogger based in Seoul, who writes about Korean politics and foreign policy. The views expressed are his own.
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