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Statues depicting a Korean girl (left) and a Chinese girl (right)

For President Park Geun-hye, the summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Nov. 2 must feel a little like eating crow. With Abe showing no signs of yielding on the issue of the so-called comfort women, who served as sex slaves for the imperial Japanese army - the most divisive issue in South Korea’s relations with Japan - Park finds herself with no choice but to hold a summit.

Park has largely brought this situation on herself. Her comments during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Oct. 15, while she was visiting the US, boxed her into holding a summit with Abe. “My trilateral summit with South Korea and Japan will be taking place at the beginning of November, and that will be an opportunity to have a summit with Abe,” Park said during the speech.

Ultimately, Park is in a position where her only option is to hold a summit with Abe regardless of whether or not progress has been made on the comfort women issue. This is what made it possible in the past few days for a Japanese government official to deny ever having received a proposal for a summit on Nov. 2 that the Blue House said it had made and for the Japanese government to make a provocative remark that there would be no more apologies from the Japanese prime minister. This is why we should not expect Park’s summit with Abe to lead to any progress on the comfort women issue.

The fact is that, since Park‘s inauguration as president in Feb. 2013, the South Korean government has effectively rejected the idea of a summit, demanding that Japan take “meaningful steps” in regard to the comfort women issue.

Abe, in contrast, has repeatedly mentioned the difficulty of having this kind of relationship with a neighboring country while emphasizing that the door for dialogue remains open. This meant that Japan was willing to hold a summit, but unwilling to accept South Korea’s demand of “meaningful steps” about the comfort women.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said during the regular press briefing on Oct. 28 that he hoped the two leaders would “open their hearts” during the summit. But when a reporter asked whether the Japanese government had altered its opposition to South Korea requiring action on the comfort women, Suga tersely said that its position remained the same.

A key official in the Japanese government said that the issues on which constructive discussion could occur during this summit had to do with the economy and cultural exchange. The implication is that the comfort women are not an issue on which constructive discussion is possible.

Aside from the comfort women issue, Abe is also planning to bring up the issue of the indictment of Tatsuya Kato, former Seoul bureau chief for the Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, during the summit. The reason that the Blue House has not scheduled a luncheon or a joint press conference for Park and Abe after the summit on the morning of Nov. 2 also seems to be prompted by the hard line taken by the Japanese government.

On Wednesday, Blue House Senior Secretary for Foreign Policy and Security Kim Gyu-hyeon only said, “We expect that President Park and Prime Minister Abe will have a thoughtful discussion in which they share their views about issues affecting the two countries, including the comfort women.”

Nevertheless, there are some in Japan who think that Abe could express regret or contrition about the comfort women just as he did during his visit to the US at the end of April or during his statement on Aug. 14, though not to the extent desired by the South Korean government.

Experts who are well-versed in relations between South Korea and Japan suggest that this summit should focus on restoring the bilateral contact that was cut off after the summit between former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in May 2012 and to transition from a conflict phase to a management phase.

Others are calling for more proactive meetings. “If the two leaders are to improve bilateral relations, they need to show a capacity for diplomacy that goes beyond domestic political considerations,” said Moon Chung-in, a professor at Yonsei University.

In a joint statement released by South Korea and Japan on Oct. 8, 1998 that envisioned a new partnership between the two countries for the next century, then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi expressed “deep contrition” and made a “heartfelt apology,” while then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung announced a “future-oriented relationship” and opened South Korea to cultural imports from Japan.

In the worst-case scenario, however, the outcome of the summit could be worse than not having had a summit at all. “We can’t exclude the possibility that Park, who is on the defensive because of her efforts to bring the authorship of textbooks under government control, could exploit the summit for the purposes of domestic politics by openly and harshly criticizing Abe’s attitude about the comfort women issue after the summit,” said an expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

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