Japan-South Korea: So Close, Yet So Far

Less than three months in, 2018 has already been a challenge for Japan-South Korea relations. The two governments have dealt with the domestic fallout of Seoul’s assessment of the 2015 bilateral comfort women agreement and the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, including North Korea’s overture to the South, have strained the bilateral relationship. To their credit, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have maintained a working relationship and even made some progress. But tensions are increasing and it will take confident leadership and far-sighted diplomacy to ensure that a rupture does not occur. Neither is guaranteed.

From a distance, Japan and South Korea are more similar than they are different. They are both democracies; successful market economies that seek liberal, open trading systems; and allies of the United States. Both have been threatened with war and destruction by North Korea, both have had citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents, and both are frequent targets of North Korean cyberattacks. Seoul and Tokyo have felt Beijing’s lash – China has not hesitated to flex its considerable economic muscle when it was unhappy with South Korea or Japan.

And yet, the relationship between Tokyo and Seoul is fraught. Even in the face of a potentially existential threat from North Korea, the relations between the two countries are better characterized as contentious rather than cooperative. Those frictions threaten to undermine the united front essential to counter and contain North Korea and change its behavior.

Easy Answers

For all their similarities, differences in Japanese and Korean thinking about crises on the Korean Peninsula are to be expected. Blame geography. Every North Korean provocation has a risk of escalation or miscalculation and any war would be fought on Korean soil. Japan could be entangled in a conflict – Japanese defense planners assume that they will be an early target of North Korean missiles – but actual fighting would occur on the peninsula and the destruction there could be devastating. That grim reality alters South Korean calculations about tactics and the appropriate balance between a hard line on defense and a readiness to engage with Pyongyang.

A similar logic guides thinking about early moves in a standoff. Japanese are more inclined to pre-empt in a crisis – although Japan does not have the capability to do so, meaning that it supports U.S. actions to that end – so that their defenses will be more effective against North Korean retaliation. South Korea is vulnerable to artillery, rather than missiles, and thus its defense calculus is different. The bottom line is that pre-emption carries far greater risks to South Korea than Japan.

Geography also influences South Korean thinking about China. Being neighbors has facilitated a deep integration of the two economies. South Korea is China’s fourth largest trading partner, while China is number one for South Korea, taking in $142.1 billion worth – or just under 25 percent – of South Korean exports in 2017. Also important are Chinese tourists. Proximity (along with a high regard for South Korean cultural products) has prompted a virtual flood of visitors, with annual revenues topping $15 billion. Proximity (along with ideological affinity and history) has also given China influence in North Korea, which has encouraged governments in Seoul to court Beijing to shape behavior in Pyongyang.

History contributes to the divisions between Seoul and Tokyo. Japan’s brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula has left deep and enduring scars on Korean thinking about its neighbor. The most powerful symbols of that past (in addition to the divided peninsula) are the “comfort women” and the island of Dokdo, which South Korea possesses but the Japanese also claim (and call Takeshima). Most Koreans believe that Japan has not sufficiently apologized for or internalized the past; anger and resentment result. China shares that historical experience and outlook, and there are worries in Japan that Seoul and Beijing will find that a more compelling glue than the values and ideologies that link Tokyo and Seoul. Japan fears isolation in the region could follow.

Then, there are politics. Seoul has a progressive government, and the left in South Korea has historically been antagonistic toward the United States, used Japan as a cudgel in domestic political battles, and sought common cause with Pyongyang in the name of a united Korea. Only progressive presidents have met with North Korean leaders and Japan worries that Moon Jae-in will be tempted to follow in their footsteps, even if it means breaking with Washington and Tokyo and abandoning the united front that is pressuring Pyongyang to change its behavior.

The Real Problem: National Identity

Each of those factors contributes to and accentuates divisions between Tokyo and Seoul. But, as Scott Snyder and I argue in The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash, the most compelling explanation – and the most disturbing – roots problems in the Japan-South Korea relationship in prevailing conceptions of national identity in each country.

Most simply: South Korea uses the Japanese colonial experience as the formative element of contemporary Korean identity. It paints Japan as a hostile “other” that brutalized and divided the country; that image helps unify the country today. That narrative undermines the image contemporary Japanese have of themselves as a peaceful, well-intentioned country that was also victimized during World War II. The seemingly irreconcilable differences in the two images are the most powerful obstacle to enduring cooperation between the two countries, powerful enough to hinder cooperation even in the face of a nuclear threat.

Fortunately, that has not blocked all cooperation. Japan and South Korea have slowly built a structure for bilateral and trilateral (Japan, South Korea, and the United States) action. For the past five years, the three governments have developed a bureaucratic framework for trilateral policy coordination; meetings occur at the working and senior levels of the ministries of foreign affairs and defense, including the three heads of state, although that meeting has not taken place since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. The three militaries have agreed to share some limited information and representatives from the three countries have attended joint exercises.

Trilateral cooperation has been facilitated by progress in Japan-South Korea relations. The December 2015 comfort women agreement was a critical step, and it was followed a year later by a long-delayed bilateral agreement to share military information. That deal – the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) – was formulaic, but it had been put off twice previously, a sign of the sensitivities surrounding any such discussions.

Relations are often cyclical, however, and recently suspicions are again ascendant.

Critics have focused on the Moon administration’s readiness to reassess the comfort women agreement, warning of dark consequences if the Seoul government were to take any course other than full compliance. After all, the deal was intended to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the issue. To its credit, and despite its inclinations, the South Korean government concluded earlier this year that the agreement would be honored as it “was formally reached between governments, even if we are not fully satisfied with this.” Critics have ignored the parallels between Moon’s decisions – to try to separate historical and security issues and the ultimate acknowledgement of the need to honor the agreement – and Abe’s logic and actions when his government called for a reassessment of the 1993 Kono Statement, which recognized Japanese government complicity in the comfort women issue. Abe, too, endorsed a dual-track approach, and also concluded that the deal should stand, despite his personal misgivings. In both cases, practical concerns prevailed over deeply felt principles.

Still, Japanese remain wary. Kim Jong-un’s overture to the South on the eve of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games threatened to reopen the wounds and the reception afforded the North Korean officials, athletes, and cheerleaders – which involved getting exemptions from United Nations Security Council sanctions on North Korea – suggested that Seoul was ready to break with the international consensus to maintain pressure on Pyongyang. Those fears grew after reports that Kim had invited Moon to North Korea for direct talks, a prospect that Japanese officials called “inconceivable” in the absence of progress toward denuclearization.

After openly pondering whether he should attend the Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremonies, Abe went to PyeongChang – another sign of the power of pragmatism – to meet Moon and reinforce the message that a united front was essential to deal with North Korea. Abe also used the occasion to huddle with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and the two men vowed to press Seoul to maintain pressure on the North.

Again, Moon came through. In their meeting, despite disagreements over the comfort women issue, he reassured Abe that “fears that inter-Korean dialogue will distract us from denuclearization or will weaken international cooperation are groundless. Improving inter-Korean relations and inter-Korean dialogue must in the end lead to denuclearization.” He called for a “future-oriented relationship” between South Korea and Japan, and as part of that process they agreed to a restoration of shuttle diplomacy.

While his initial response to Kim Jong-un’s invitation created some room for concern – Moon said that he would go to Pyongyang if “conditions” for a meeting can be “created” – he has since concluded that it is too early, using an old Korean proverb about seeking scorched-rice water from a well to signal the dangers of impatience. Put plainly, Moon is not just another reflexive South Korean progressive, and he has drawn accurate conclusions from the history of North-South summitry. And, he added, inter-Korean dialogue should lead to U.S.-North Korea dialogue and eventual denuclearization. That measured response should infuriate Kim and reassure both Tokyo and Washington.

Moon may have been helped along in his conclusion by the split in South Korean public opinion about dealing with the North. While there was applause for inviting North Korean athletes to join a united Korea team, many South Koreans have been angered by North Korea “free riding” and taking opportunities from South Korean athletes, particularly those on the joint Korean women’s ice hockey team. Opinion polls show Moon’s support dropping to the second lowest point in his presidency.

The United States’ Role

Although pragmatism has prevailed, there remain hard limits to cooperation. Mistrust is deeply embedded in the Tokyo-Seoul relationship and it hinders many efforts to prepare for a crisis. Former and current U.S. military officials have complained about limits on joint exercises involving all three countries. Invariably, third country representatives merely “observe” the other alliance’s exercises rather than joining in to make them truly trilateral. When a U.S. bomber flies through the region, allied escorts fly sequentially rather than simultaneously. Both Japanese and South Korean military officials complain about a lack of transparency into the other’s alliance operations.

The Pacific Forum has held several trilateral tabletop exercises that simulate a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and in each case sensitivities have blocked cooperation. A key lesson from our simulations has been the need to work out in advance mechanisms for cooperation in a crisis: it is likely to be too hard to do so during an actual contingency. One easy solution would be establishing a liaison position in each alliance headquarters for the other ally to provide insight and real-time awareness of how a crisis is being handled. Unfortunately, even that simple and seemingly essential step – one officer in a crisis – has triggered uncomfortable apologies and has been dismissed as a step too far even by supporters of trilateral cooperation who have called for closer coordination among the allies.

The United States will play a critical role in helping its two East Asian allies move beyond a minimum level of cooperation. For all its faults (and its allies’ insecurities), the United States is considered an honest broker. The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations pushed hard for trilateral cooperation and were instrumental in setting up mechanisms that allowed the three countries to work together. The Obama administration helped overcome resistance in Tokyo and Seoul to trilateral summits and reportedly played a vital behind-the-scenes role in forging the 2015 comfort women agreement. The Trump administration has been working especially closely with its counterparts in Tokyo to maintain the policy of maximum pressure on Pyongyang; the coordination was evident in their response to North Korea’s diplomatic Olympic offensive. Whether Washington will go beyond a bridging role and push for deeper trilateralism as it has in the past remains uncertain, however, given the need for engagement from the White House and Trump’s periodic disdain for alliances.