Sustaining South Korea-Japan Reconciliation.

South Korean President Prioritizes Fixing Relationship with Japan

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has made it a top priority to mend the country’s relationship with Japan. Since taking office last spring, he has worked hard to alleviate the historical strains that have long existed between the two countries. These strains revolve around Japan’s ambiguous attitudes about its behavior in Korea during the first half of the 20th century.

The Biden Administration’s Role

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has played a significant role in pushing the two countries to reconcile. Both are U.S. allies, but they have not cooperated much in the past. The Biden administration sees China as the major challenger to U.S. power in the coming decades. Democracies in Asia, such as India, Japan, and Australia, also share a desire to block Chinese regional hegemony. However, this task becomes much harder if Japan and South Korea cannot cooperate. In a Taiwan contingency, for example, Japanese and South Korean assistance would be invaluable. The U.S. would expect both states to at least provide air space access and logistical assistance, if not fighting capabilities.

The Strategic Argument

South Korean opinion on foreign policy is sharply divided between right and left. Conservatives take a traditional view of international politics, particularly in the region. They believe that North Korea is an Orwellian tyranny and that Korea should be unified under South Korean leadership, just as Germany was unified under West German leadership. China and Russia are autocracies with whom South Korea should maintain a business-like relationship for trade purposes, but not a close political relationship.

Conversely, South Korean progressives sharply disagree. They view North Korea as a brother Korean state that must be brought in from the cold. They believe that China is a longstanding neighbor against whom South Korea cannot align, because Seoul must coexist with Beijing permanently. The U.S. is a partner, but progressives think Washington often bullies South Korea and pulls it into unwanted projects like the war on terror or containment of China. To them, Japan is the real national opponent, not North Korea.

Will Japan Help Yoon Sell the Deal?

This is almost certainly the long-term logic behind Yoon’s outreach to Japan – to prevent South Korea’s gradual isolation among East Asia’s democracies as the latter converge around the China challenge. But Yoon needs to overcome South Korean progressive opinion, which strongly wants greater contrition from Tokyo about Japan’s imperial period. The South Korean left is quite hostile toward Yoon’s Japan diplomacy.

Japan is wary of further apologies – it perceives that it has apologized enough. But it would be politically wise (and morally right) for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to apologize anyway. South Korea-Japan rapprochement cannot succeed over time without the South Korean left. Whenever South Korean progressives retake the presidency, they will end cooperation with Japan if they feel it has come at the cost of historical conciliation.

South Korea-Japan Tension Helps China and North Korea

The big winners in this whole tangle are China and North Korea. If South Korea and Japan cannot coordinate, then their energies, and those of America, are dissipated on coordination and hassle among themselves, not spent on pressing questions like North Korea’s missile program or Chinese designs on Taiwan. It is in everyone’s interest – including, pointedly, Japanese conservatives and South Korean progressives – to find a workable solution.

Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University. Dr. Kelly is now a 1945 Contributing Editor as well.

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