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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meet in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 4. (provided by Blue House)

During the ASEAN Plus Three summit in Bangkok on Nov. 4, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a surprise 11-minute tete-a-tete. This was the first time the two leaders had held a private meeting in 13 months, since their summit in September 2018.

During this meeting, Moon and Abe “affirmed that they both consider South Korea-Japan relations to be important and reconfirmed the principle that pending issues in their bilateral relationship should be resolved through dialogue,” Blue House Spokesperson Ko Min-jung said.

Though the meeting was brief, the fact that the two leaders took each other’s hands and agreed to find a solution through dialogue is significant in light of the two countries’ current relationship. We hope that the two countries will now engage in high-level dialogue in order to resolve the dispute that has spilled over from the issue of forced labor into the areas of trade and even military cooperation.

During their meeting on Monday, the two leaders “expressed their hope that a meaningful plan for improving relations will be produced by the deliberations that are currently underway through official channels in our respective foreign ministries,” the Blue House said.

Moon also proposed that the option of high-level deliberations could be reviewed, if deemed necessary, to which Abe replied that they should “work to find solutions through all available methods.” That’s quite a change from the G20 summit in Osaka this past June, when Moon and Abe parted ways after a mere handshake.

The Blue House said this meeting hadn’t been planned in advance. Rather, Moon remained in the summit waiting room until Abe finally arrived and then led him to the seat next to him. It’s encouraging that Moon took the initiative by taking Abe’s hand and breaking the ice on dialogue.

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon and Abe agreed on the need for resuming dialogue during the former’s Japan visit for Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement ceremony at the end of October. Now that this has been confirmed by the two countries’ leaders, their diplomats will have to proceed immediately with meaningful deliberations.

One worrying development is that the Japanese government said that Abe “clearly communicated our [Japan’s] principled position” during the meeting. Since Japan’s “principled position” is that the issue of compensation for forced labor was completely resolved by the 1965 claims agreement, there still appears to be a big gap between the two countries on this issue.

Nevertheless, it’s obvious that dialogue is the only way forward. If the two sides are unable to reconcile their views about historical issues, one option is for Japan to retract its retaliatory trade measures and for South Korea to cancel its decision to terminate the GSOMIA intelligence-sharing agreement. Both governments need to take practical steps right away to settle their dispute.

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