hankyoreh

By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer in Busan

Northeast Asia finds itself in a paradoxical situation. In economic terms, the region is maintaining a higher growth rate than the US and European countries thanks to openness and cooperation. On the other hand, in the areas of diplomacy and security, conflict and confrontation are more prevalent.

Current issues include North Korea’s nuclear program, territorial disputes, and the arms race. This is what is known as the “Northeast Asian paradox.”

In order to overcome this, South Korean President Park Geun-hye proposed the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative. But, as the name suggests, this is just an idea.

University of Tokyo professor emeritus Haruki Wada has the same starting point as Park. But the understanding of reality presented in his keynote speech (“Crisis in Northeast Asia: Hopes and Fears”) on the first day of the Hankyoreh-Busan International Symposium is not the same as Park’s.

Since Wada’s understanding of reality is different, his prescription is bound to be different as well. For example, Wada believes the element that is causing the crisis in Northeast Asia is not North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but rather the North Korean issue itself.

To put it more precisely, he is talking about the issue of the Korean peninsula. The extreme atmosphere of confrontation that emerged on the Korean peninsula during the spring of 2013 revealed the nature of the crisis affecting Northeast Asia. Wada believes that this can be traced back to the Korean War, which was a confrontation between North and South which turned into an international conflict.

Because of this, what is needed is a permanent solution that can create a genuine peace treaty instead of an armistice agreement. Wada insisted, “Both North and South need to come to the same historical conclusion that the tragedy of the Korean people was caused by trying to achieve unification through force”. “They need to learn from the past and seek true reconciliation, cooperation, contact, and unification.”

Wada also believes there is another major issue causing the crisis in Northeast Asia: Okinawa. Why does he think so? Wada brings up the intensity of Okinawa locals’ resistance to the US force’s presence on the island.

The US Marine Corps’s Futenma base is located in the densely populated heart of Ginowan on Okinawa. The base takes up 40% of the city, leading to constant friction with the residents of the islands. As a solution to this issue, the US and Japan decided to reclaim land from the sea near Henoko in Nago, a more sparely populated area, and relocate the base there.

But the population of Okinawa is opposed to the plan. That’s not all. The US military’s deployment to Okinawa of additional Osprey, a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, is another ticking time bomb. “Since Futenma is the most important US base in Northeast Asia, it is a serious problem for the US and the Japanese people, and also for the Northeast Asian region as a whole,” Wada said.

After these, Wada identified the Japan issue as the primary cause for the crisis in Northeast Asia. According to Wada, Japan is the black hole of Northeast Asia.

Under the lead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has failed to shoulder or implement its responsibilities as a country in the region, making it another epicenter for crisis. “Now that it has been 70 years since the war, there is a historical understanding that needs to take shape in Japan for peace and cooperation in the Northeast Asia region” Wada said.

“The documents that contain that understanding are the 1993 Kono Statement, which admitted and apologized for the role of the Japanese military in the drafting of comfort women, and the 1995 Murayama Statement, which expressed regret for Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea.”

But Abe is a historical revisionist who rejects both of these documents with steadfast conviction. The Abe administration is not only preventing Japan from taking an active role in breaking out of the crisis in Northeast Asia, but it is also becoming a factor that is exacerbating this crisis.

For that reason, Wada is looking inside Japan for a way out of this crisis. On this point, he also is counting on the role that the Park administration will play in the future.

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