Japan and South Korea look headed for more stable ties as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida prepares to visit Seoul for talks with President Yoon Suk-yeol next week, but efforts aimed at furthering detente between the neighbours are unlikely to stifle domestic criticism of their approach to historical differences, analysts said.
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The planned talks come after the two countries held their first bilateral finance leaders’ meeting in seven years on Tuesday, a sign relations between the two are thawing as they confront shared challenges from geopolitical tensions and slowing economic growth.
Tokyo has commenced procedures to return South Korea to its “white list” of trading partners, removing red tape to make imports and exports easier. Kishida’s trip is also expected to yield new agreements on microchips, high-capacity batteries and initiatives to limit climate change.
Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki (right) with his South Korean counterpart Choo Kyung-ho before their talks in Incheon on Tuesday, marking the first finance-ministerial meeting between the two countries in seven years. Photo: Kyodo
The signs of a thaw, however, are unlikely to ease criticism of the leaders’ efforts to rebuild ties, which deteriorated under previous South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s administration. His government took a hard line on issues dating back to Japan’s often brutal colonial rule of the Korean peninsula in the early decades of the last century, in particular labourers put to work for Japanese companies and “comfort women” who served in military brothels.
Opposition politicians and supporters of Koreans who suffered at the hands of the Japanese between 1910 and 1945 condemned Yoon’s “submissive stance” when he visited Tokyo in March and confirmed that the South Korean government and companies would provide compensation to the former forced labourers. Yoon made it clear that Japanese firms could contribute but were not obliged to do so.
There remains simmering resentment towards Japan for what many South Koreans regard as its failure to offer a sincere apology for the past, but there is also recognition that with the growing security threats posed by North Korea, China and Russia, the two democracies would be better off working together rather than pulling in different directions.
“It is very important that Kishida makes this trip,” said James Brown, an international-relations professor at the Tokyo campus of Temple University. “This is the most important foreign policy measure that he can take to ensure Japan’s national security.
