Japan, South Korea, and the Politics of the Present

When South Koreans chime geonbae! and clink glasses, these days they aren’t toasting with Asahi Super Dry. In addition to shunning Japanese beer – imports of which have dropped to almost zero – South Korean consumers are boycotting many other Japanese products, among them automobiles, cosmetics, and even 7-Eleven (an American brand commonly thought to be Japanese in South Korea). In addition, Tokyo and Seoul have removed each other from their lists of preferred trading partners. Japanese foreign direct investment into South Korea dropped by a third this year. A recent poll showed that in both countries, three-quarters of respondents say they do not trust the other. The rift has also extended to security relations; South Korea has withdrawn from an intelligence-sharing agreement that took the United States, their shared ally, years to broker.

What’s responsible for this downward spiral in relations?

Many American foreign policy elites blame Donald Trump, charging him with neglecting Asia, weakening the State Department, and undermining American credibility through irresponsible tweets and gaffes. “Under President Donald Trump,” the Economist lamented, “America has become increasingly disengaged from its international commitments.” It may be true that Trump has gutted American diplomacy and undermined American credibility; and that this somehow has exacerbated disputes between U.S. allies. But long before the Trump presidency – over the past several decades and across several different U.S. administrations – relations between Japan and South Korea have fluctuated between comity and crisis.

Other observers blame Japan. They point to its imperialism and atrocities on the Korean peninsula in the early 20th century, and argue that Tokyo has not done enough to remember or atone for this era. Indeed, some analysts say that to understand the present, one must look to the past. However, while it is certainly true that Imperial Japan committed terrible violence on the Korean peninsula, this explanation is also incomplete; it fails to explain why the past sometimes gains heightened salience but at other times recedes into the background.

To be sure, sometimes Tokyo’s own behavior creates controversies about the past. But at other times, South Korean governments find that it serves their domestic and foreign policy interests to fan the flames of historical resentment. This is the situation today. Understanding the current controversy thus requires looking not to the past, but to the politics of the present.

Ghosts of the Past

Japan annexed the Korean peninsula into its empire in 1910. For the next 35 years Japan brutalized Koreans in many ways. As it attempted to integrate Koreans into the Japanese empire, Japan’s colonial government in Korea prohibited the use of the Korean language, mandating that people learn Japanese and adopt Japanese names. During World War II, the Japanese conscripted Korean men to fight in Japan’s Imperial Army, and forced Koreans (as well as POWs) to work in brutal conditions as slave laborers in Japan’s war industries. As the U.S. blockade strained Japan and hunger worsened, Japan increased the share of food it diverted from the Korean peninsula. Furthermore – an issue that has particularly aggravated bilateral relations – during the war, Japan’s government, seeking to improve soldier health and morale, created “comfort stations” (military brothels) at the front lines. Via brokers and colonial authorities, and through a variety of methods (including deception and force), Japan brought girls and women to the stations to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. Most of the “comfort women,” as the Japanese called them, were from occupied countries such as Korea, China, and the Philippines.

The Allied victory in World War II liberated the Korean peninsula from the Japanese empire. After liberation, Koreans regarded Japan with such hostility that the first leader of the Republic of Korea, Syngman Rhee, told U.S. officials that Koreans feared the Japanese more than the North Koreans or Soviets – and if necessary would ally with the Communists to prevent conquest again by Japan.

The process of normalizing bilateral relations took 14 years due to the rancor and resentment on both sides. For example, the chief Japanese negotiator countered Korean reparations demands by arguing that Japan should be paid compensation for property losses it had sustained, and because “for 36 years Japan has changed Korea’s bare mountains to a flourishing country with flowers and trees.” He also suggested that Koreans should be grateful for Japanese colonization because “Korea would have been taken over either by Russia or China and Korea would have been in a much worse situation.” These sentiments led the Korean delegation to walk out in protest, not to return for four years.

Highs and Lows

Following this traumatic history, relations between the two countries fluctuated over the years: Sometimes descending into diplomatic crises and in other periods reflecting greater cooperation.  In the early 1960s, South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee faced dismal economic conditions, declining U.S. aid, and a growing threat from a more prosperous North Korea. Park saw Tokyo as a vital source of capital. “Park banked the survivability of his rule,” wrote Georgetown University scholar Victor Cha in a 1996 journal article, “on an ambitious second Five-Year-Economic Development Plan that required massive infusions of foreign capital from Japan.” Toward this goal, Park sought to normalize relations with Japan.

The public – still fearful, still resentful – thought otherwise. During negotiations, student protests mounted, with demonstrators denouncing Park’s “humiliating” diplomacy as making too many concessions to Tokyo. The National Assembly voted unanimously on a resolution that demanded an end to the negotiations. Anti-treaty protests grew so widespread and massive that Park had to declare martial law.

Despite this outcry, the two governments signed the normalization treaty in 1964. Japan (encouraged by the United States) agreed to issue an apology. Foreign Minister Shiina Etsusaburo read a statement that noted an “unhappy phase” in Japanese-Korean relations, for which Japan “felt deep regret and deep remorse.” The normalization treaty also obliged Japan to pay $800 million in compensation (that the Japanese refused to call “reparations”). The treaty also exempted Japan from any future claims; Article II stated: “[the] problem concerning property, rights and interests of the two Contracting Parties and their nationals…is settled completely and finally.” Park directed the funds not to victims but into developmental projects, such as the Pohang Iron and Steel Company, Seoul-Busan highway, and the Soyong River Dam. He also funneled funds to his political supporters.

For all its controversy, the normalization treaty opened the door to functioning bilateral relations. “Our two countries have trod a thorny path up to the present,” said then-South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Dong-won. “A great deal of effort and patience were required to reach this day which promises to erase the nearly half century of unfortunate relations and which has ushered in a new era of mutual cooperation.”

Over the years, as Gilbert Rozman and Shin-wha Lee pointed out in a 2006 article, “Japan-South Korean relations have generally improved, with increasing economic ties and people-to-people contacts.”

Cha argued in an earlier article that at times when the two countries faced a more dangerous security environment, and shared fears of abandonment by the United States, leaders increased their cooperation and willingness to move forward from the past. After the Vietnam War, and after President Jimmy Carter proposed a U.S. military withdrawal from South Korea, Seoul and Tokyo feared American abandonment. Shared fears, Cha argued, “pressed Seoul and Tokyo to improve relations significantly from the friction-filled” earlier period: Seoul expressed “unprecedented” enthusiasm for closer security ties, “made mighty efforts at resolving disputes,” and “sought to downplay friction over potentially inflammatory issues.”

Japan-South Korea relations also grew closer as the Soviet Union built up its military power in maritime East Asia. Seoul and Tokyo held their first presidential summits, and expanded their military contacts. South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan praised Japan for taking on a more active role in regional defense in the early 1980s. “Japan should reinforce its defense capabilities not only to protect its territory,” he said, “but also to safeguard the peace of the region and to ensure the sea lanes will be kept open.” Scholar Kil Soong-hoom argued in 1983 that Korea-Japan relations should be seen in a regional context. “When looked at from this broader perspective, the two countries are required to bury ill feelings and work hard in close cooperation in two important enterprises, one vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and the other vis-à-vis North Korea.”

Over the years, Japan offered several gestures of contrition regarding its past treatment of Koreans. In 1993, Tokyo clarified government complicity in the comfort women program by issuing the landmark “Kono statement,” and Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro offered South Korea a powerful apology. Another breakthrough came in 1998 when the two countries (under the leadership of Kim Dae-jung and Obuchi Keizo) issued a joint declaration stating:

Looking back on the relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea during this century, Prime Minister Obuchi regarded in a spirit of humility the fact of history that Japan caused, during a certain period in the past, tremendous damage and suffering to the people of the Republic of Korea through its colonial rule, and expressed his deep remorse and heartfelt apology for this fact.

The declaration also stated that President Kim appreciated the apology and recognized that “the present calls upon both countries to overcome their unfortunate history and to build a future-oriented relationship.”

Sometimes Japanese behavior triggered a crisis in bilateral relations. Such behavior included visits by Japanese leaders to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, statements by high-ranking officials that denied wartime atrocities, or the release of Japanese history textbooks that glossed over past violence. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014 sparked outrage when he suggested revisiting evidence behind the Kono statement. Such occasions resulted in condemnations from Seoul, and sometimes South Korean protests and boycotts of Japanese products. Korean leaders sometimes recalled their ambassador from Tokyo, or refused to attend summit meetings.

Over the years, the South Korean people have harbored resentment of Japan for its treatment of Koreans. This resentment is real, not manufactured, and is based on real suffering. What has varied, however, is the South Korean government’s interest in activating – or suppressing – this resentment for the purpose of advancing its domestic and foreign policy agendas.

Indeed, sometimes leaders (dating back to Park in 1965) adopted a conciliatory approach in order to advance what they saw as higher priority economic and security agendas. At other times, leaders’ differing assessments of South Korea’s security environment led to different calculations about the need to cooperate with Japan – and the need to compromise on an issue deeply felt by the South Korean people. Leaders also fanned the flames of outrage to curry favor with voters, to distract from scandals, or to manage a delicate dance between the United States and China – to reassure Beijing that Seoul had no intention of joining Japan and the United States in an anti-China balancing coalition.

Progress Toward Historical Reconciliation?

After an unpromising start, Park Geun-hye’s conservative government made important strides toward historical reconciliation. Relations had been strained at the start of her administration in 2013; she refused to attend summit meetings with Abe, saying that Japan needed to do more to atone for the comfort women, and criticizing Abe’s government for whitewashing the issue. But eventually Park and Abe met in 2015 – and by the end of that year, the two leaders concluded a landmark agreement on the comfort women. The security environment helped nudge the two countries together, as The Diplomat’s Ankit Panda wrote in 2017: “A rising North Korean threat and mutual concerns over China were factors that led to the agreement becoming opportune in the first place.”

The 2015 agreement was accompanied by another Japanese apology: “The issue of ‘comfort women’ was a matter which, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, severely injured the honor and dignity of many women. In this regard, the government of Japan painfully acknowledges its responsibility.”

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that Prime Minister Abe “expresses anew sincere apologies and remorse from the bottom of his heart to all those who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as ‘comfort women.’”

Under the agreement, Tokyo paid $8.3 million in reparations and created the “Reconciliation and Healing Foundation” to administer the funds. The two governments called the agreement the “final and irrevocable resolution” of the issue.

The South Korean liberal opposition lambasted the deal, demanding the dismissal of Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and an apology from the Park government. Rep. Moon Jae-in (then the leader of the main opposition party) called the agreement “the worst diplomatic catastrophe of all time.” Echoing critiques of the “humiliating diplomacy” from 1965, Moon said, “The government sold [Korea’s] soul for 1 billion yen. We refuse the money from such disgraceful negotiation.”

While the Korean president was working to improve bilateral relations, another part of the South Korean government threatened to undermine this effort. Korean survivors of wartime forced labor, who endured brutal working conditions, had filed lawsuits against Japanese companies, and were awarded damages by a lower court. Such an award contradicts Article II of the 1965 treaty, which declares that the document settles (“completely and finally”) all property claims between “the two Contracting Parties and their nationals.” It also contradicts Article III, which outlines a process for dispute resolution.

Many South Koreans, however, see the 1965 treaty as illegitimate. South Korean diplomat Yoo Euy-sang has argued for a comprehensive reassessment of the treaty on several different grounds. Yoo points out that “The ‘comfort women’ issue was never discussed as one of the major agenda items during the [normalization] meetings,” and argues, “Japan’s claim that the issue has been settled in accordance with the agreement is an arbitrary interpretation that is not correct.” In the forced labor cases, the lower court sided with this view by ruling that the plaintiffs had the right to sue the Japanese firms, and by awarding them damages. It was now up to the Korean Supreme Court to decide whether to uphold the ruling.

As has later come to light, Park Geun-hye, while trying to improve relations with Japan, intervened with the Supreme Court. Park pressured the court to delay its ruling, and ordered the Foreign Ministry to file a statement with the court saying that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would cause relations with Japan to “irreversibly deteriorate.”

The Politics of the Present

Park was impeached for corruption in 2017 and Moon Jae-in, the liberal opposition leader, was elected president. Moon once again criticized the comfort woman agreement negotiated by his predecessor, and shut down the foundation that the deal created to distribute reparations.

Furthermore, in October 2018 the South Korean Supreme Court issued its ruling on the forced labor case. The court argued that Article II of the 1965 treaty did not deny individuals the right to seek reparations; it ordered Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal to pay damages. The companies refused, citing Article II. Then, South Korean courts ruled that, to fund the reparations, the companies’ assets in Korea (shares in joint ventures, or trademark or patent rights) should be seized.

As Park had expected, and as a South Korean newspaper correctly predicted, the decision caused “considerable damage to South Korea and Japan’s diplomatic relations.” Tokyo protested the South Korean violation of the 1965 treaty, and the court’s order for the seizure of private Japanese assets. The head of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry stated, “We have no choice but to say that the relationship of trust between Japan and South Korea has been strikingly damaged.” Tokyo is not only concerned about the asset seizures, but by the judicial precedent it sets, notes the National Interest: “[B]ecause South Korea’s highest court ruled to disregard an international treaty, it has opened the door for similar cases to arise in other countries occupied by Japan, such as China and the Philippines.”

After the verdict, Abe’s government announced a change in trade policy (characterizing it not as retaliation but as a security matter). Japan exports chemicals to South Korea that the latter uses for manufacturing semiconductors and flat panel screens (used in televisions and smart phones). Tokyo cited the dual commercial/military use of the chemicals, and concerns about South Korean security practices, announcing that it was removing South Korea from its “white list” of countries that receive automatic approval for such exports. Approval would hence be granted after evaluation on a case-by-case basis (and Japan has since exported these products to South Korea after review). Seoul protested Japan’s change in trade policy as “banned in principle by the World Trade Organization,” and then retaliated in kind.

And then the dispute crossed fully into the security realm. Seoul terminated an intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo (the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA). Japanese and American foreign policy elites lamented the move, saying it unwinds hard-won gains in security cooperation, undermines deterrence at a time of greater North Korean nuclear threat, and benefits China and North Korea. As Brookings Institution scholar and former intelligence official Jung Pak told me, “this latest episode is more serious than the flareups before because we’ve now veered into security and economic realms and really shaken those foundations.” The Economist captured the views of many observers when it noted, “the two East Asian countries are both liberal democracies and firm regional allies of America. Why can’t they get along?”

Japan’s critics blame history, and Tokyo’s inadequate repentance of it. Trump’s critics blame his neglect of the State Department and overall foreign-policy ineptitude. But these common explanations neglect to take into account the broader pattern of Japan-South Korea amity and animus over the past seven decades.

In the current relations between Japan and South Korea, we see a familiar pattern: Conservative leader Park Geun-hye, concerned about national security and seeking to increase South Korean cooperation with Tokyo, sought to move forward from the past and thus tried to avoid exactly the sort of crisis that the two countries are now facing. When her conservative government was replaced by a liberal one – with very different foreign policy priorities – relations with Japan suffered as a result.

Moon has pursued a highly conciliatory stance toward Pyongyang; in his 2018 visit to the DMZ to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the two leaders stepped across the line into each others’ countries, and hiked up symbolic Mount Paektu together. Deepening trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan runs counter to this conciliatory agenda. As Pusan National University political scientist Robert Kelly tweeted, “I don’t think a lot of western analysts realize that the S Korea left doesn’t share the GSOMIA assumption that Japan is a partner and NK an opponent. To the left here, it’s the opposite. The world is now learning just how sharply polarized SK is over [Japan and North Korea].”

Beyond ideological differences, the New York Times noted in August that Moon is “borrowing from the time-honored playbook in South Korean politics: that it often pays to act tough against Japan.” Playing the “Japan card” is useful for Moon at a time when economic problems, notably joblessness, and his appointment of scandal-ridden justice minister Cho Kuk, have dragged down approval ratings.

The Japan card also distracts people from the apparent failure of Moon’s high-profile conciliation policy toward North Korea. Moon’s peace initiative has been repaid by insults from Pyongyang, ongoing short-range missile tests, and the October 1 test of what North Korea declared to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile: What one commentator called “a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution” and “an entirely new and dangerous threat.”

If the past is any guide, the current dispute between Japan and South Korea will dissipate; jaw-clenched animosity will relax once again into reasonably productive relations. The Asahi Super Dry will once again flow on the peninsula. Perhaps North Korea or China will do something alarming to bring Japan and South Korea together (although this is hardly something to hope for). Perhaps the Korean left will lose power; or perhaps Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics (and the North Korean cheer squad?) will provide a welcome distraction. Only one thing is certain. While the roots of this dispute lie in the distant, terrible past, understanding it lies in the politics of the present.