hankyoreh

By Kim Yeon-chul, Inje University professor

The US has thrown its weight behind Japan’s right to collective self-defense. This right would empower Japan strike on behalf of an ally that has been attacked. In effect, Washington has released Tokyo from the knot of the Peace Constitution. Why would it do that? Well, right now, the Barack Obama administration is hard up. The country’s finances are in decline, and it has to cut US$259 billion in defense expenses over the next five years, and US$487 billion in the next ten. Much as it would like to keep holding China back, it doesn’t have the resources to do so - so it has enlisted Japan instead.

No specifics have yet emerged, so we’ll have to wait to see how things actually turn out. But Japan’s rearmament has already begun. X-band radar has been positioned in Kyoto to detect ballistic missiles, a National Security Council has been set up, and there are plans to establish a marine corps. The country is also building a substantial store of offensive weaponry. The US has consistently asked Japan to take on a larger role in their alliance, but now Japan is fast on its way to becoming a military power.

What about the South Korea-US alliance? Seoul has asked for a postponement to the planned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from the US. With Japan offering to take up arms on the cash-strapped US’s behalf, is South Korea looking to depend on Washington? Not necessarily. The cost of a postponement of the transfer is likely to be dear: a greater South Korean contribution to defense, and the purchase of a lot more weapons. And then there’s Washington’s hope that South Korea will be part of its planned missile defense system. Many warned of the dangers of this MD involvement back when Park Geun-hye was giving “active deterrence” as part of her election platform. Hopefully, Seoul will not be so blinded by faith in this longstanding alliance that it forgets its own geopolitical place.

The US’s financial crisis has spawned changes in its alliances with South Korea and Japan, but what about the trilateral relationship? At their strategic dialogue, the US and Japan agreed on a framework of expanded military cooperation among the three countries. The three-way alliance was an old Cold War strategy of Washington’s - something conservatives in the US argue for even today. The belief has a long history, but a question must be asked: Why is it that no three-way alliance ever took shape before, even when the US had alliances with both South Korea and Japan? The reason, obviously, is the relationship between Seoul and Tokyo. Japan has avoided truly reflecting on its history the way Germany did. This explains why, even as Europe races toward the future, Northeast Asia remains firmly mired in the past.

We need to keep our eyes peeled on Japan. Even the government in Seoul has expressed worries about its rearmament, citing “historical issues.” Relations between South Korea and Japan are definitely frosty for now, but this situation might not continue. Right now, Park’s conservative government is pushing textbooks by the publishing company Kyohak that paint a nostalgic picture of South Korea’s colonial occupation by Japan. Some politicians in the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) have felt compelled to defend it. How is the Shinzo Abe administration in Japan going to rate the government here? And is the US going to stay neutral on historical matters?

Then there’s the issue of military cooperation between South Korea and Japan. Remember the time the last President, Lee Myung-bak, tried to sign such an agreement? He also invited Japan’s Self-Defense Corps to the waters off Busan for “military exercises.” While the US hasn’t agreed to it, the Abe administration is trying to get the authority to carry out a preemptive strike on North Korea. Is that something we can accept? Can we allow Japan to dictate the fate of the Korean Peninsula the way it did a century ago? There are also plans to amend the US-Japan defense cooperation guidelines by late 2014, which is something else we’ll have to watch for.

The regional order is going through a shakeup at the moment. The shape of things is a familiar one, but there are new power currents at work. Northeast Asia is headed for confrontation, not cooperation. It’s a worrisome situation - we need to remember how much South Korea lost in the past when the peninsula became a battleground for “maritime” and “continental” forces. This is our geopolitical destiny, and a lived lesson from history. If the demarcation line that separates South and North becomes a boundary line dividing not just the Koreas but all of Northeast Asia, then we have no future. The old familiars have returned, in South Korea and in Japan. And the old beliefs are coming back to life.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]