Two key U.S. democratic allies in Asia are cementing sometimes troubled ties today, as the prime minister of Japan calls in on his South Korean counterpart.
Japanese leader Fumio Kishida has just invited South Korea to participate in the G7 Summit that Japan will host from May 19-21 in Hiroshima. Japan this year has the rotating presidency of the G7 grouping of major democratic economies, which also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the European Union as an affiliate member.
Kishida is today holding talks with South Korean economic officials on the second day of his trip. He is reciprocating a visit that Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made to Tokyo in mid-March, in a quick bout of "shuttle diplomacy." It's the first time in 12 years such high-level talks have occurred between the two countries, which share an awful lot in common but always seem to play up their political differences.
Much of the headline focus is on the frankly distracting issue of whether the Japanese leader is officially apologizing, fully apologizing, apologizing slightly, or not apologizing at all when he says that his "heart hurts" when he thinks about the suffering that Koreans experienced when Japan ruled Korea, from 1910 through the end of World War II.
Yoon, fortunately, has urged everyone to move on from whether Japan will offer a full and official apology, something Yoon's political opposition demands. Japan hasn't, as a nation, but its leaders have, and the relatively dovish Kishida also said he stands by the "remorse" expressed by his predecessors. Basically, the two leaders have set aside the differences that caused relations between the two countries to fall apart in 2011. And yes, let's move on...
Yoon has cast himself as a business-friendly president. His official presidential Web site dubs him the "Republic of Korea's No. 1 salesperson" on the splash page. He urged Japan and South Korea to cooperate economically and politically, particularly when faced by the immediate challenges presented by China and North Korea.
His two-day trip to Tokyo saw Yoon come calling on what he calls "Korea's closest neighbor," with "the economy, security and future generations" set as the priorities, in that order. As a result of the détente, Yoon proclaimed that "Korea-Japan trade relations [are] fully reinstated!" In April, South Korea restored Japan's status as a preferred trading partner, and Japan reciprocated, as the status was suspended during prior disputes.
The United States will applaud any cooperation between the two countries. In fact, it has for years been urging Japan and South Korea to set aside these political difficulties. Under their current leaders, both Tokyo and Seoul have been aligning themselves closer with Washington, as China and Russia present autocratic alternative world orders that give them all less influence.
One outcome of this trip is that Japan may sign up to the agreement on nuclear weapons that South Korea has agreed. That sees the United States station nuclear armaments in South Korea, with South Korea pledging not to develop nuclear arms of its own. South Korea has never been formally allied militarily with Japan before, but North Korean missile testing and Chinese maneuvers around Taiwan have brought them to that point. There were joint U.S.-Japan-South Korea naval drills last year.
It was in 2018 that political and economic ties took a decided turn for the worse, when a South Korean court ordered Japanese companies to compensate the survivors and the families of Korean forced labor. That voided a prior apology-and-compensation plan from Japan. The next year, Tokyo restricted exports of key chemicals necessary to support South Korea's all-important semiconductor industry. Seoul sued Japan before the World Trade Organization, and both countries stripped each other of preferred-trading-partner status.
Tokyo recently removed those restrictions, and Seoul has withdrawn its WTO complaint. They have also agreed to an "economic-security dialogue" that sees them cooperate on supply chains and key technology. South Korea would like to see Japanese companies invest in a US$230 billion semiconductor-fab cluster it is attempting to forge around greater Seoul.
South Korea and Japan are also holding talks about cooperation on energy supply. Both countries import the vast majority of their oil and gas needs. They're discussing joint negotiation and purchasing arrangements, as well as the potential to stabilize supply through energy swaps.
Starting the end of next week, the Hiroshima summit will also have Australia, the G20 president India and the ASEAN Southeast Asian grouping chair Indonesia as well as a handful of other countries as invited participants. China is not on the list. President Biden has been courting Australia, India, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea as key allies to counterbalance China's influence in Asia, to quite some success.
However, Japan and South Korea must also play nice by China, which remains a key economic partner, both as a market and for production. Kishida has suggested that the three countries also resume a trilateral dialogue, while Beijing may quietly lobby indirectly for Washington to soften its stance.
It is a tricky dance. Yoon's popularity plummets at home as soon as he is seen to be giving ground to Japan; Kishida must keep conservatives happy at home who feel Japan and its leaders have apologized enough for its colonial and wartime aggressions.
The resumption of shuttle diplomacy does set the stage for economic and corporate cooperation. Let the leaders contend with the niceties and political wording, while economic and defense cooperation gets back on track.
