hankyoreh

Masao Okonogi

Keio University emeritus professor Masao Okonogi, Japan’s leading Korean Peninsula researcher, said the newly inaugurated Moon Jae-in administration’s initiation of inter-Korean dialogue was “a matter of increasing South Korea’s diplomatic influence.”

“The [Donald] Trump administration may be surprisingly unopposed,” predicted Okonogi, 71.

Okonogi also offered his predictions on one of the most sensitive issues between Seoul and Tokyo of late, the comfort women agreement reached in 2015.

“That isn’t something that is going to be resolved by demanding renegotiation,” he warned.

Okonogi was interviewed by the Hankyoreh’s Tokyo correspondent at his office at Keio University on May 11, the day after Moon took office.

Hankyoreh (Hani): The Japanese media is playing up the angle that President Moon Jae-in has demanded renegotiation of the comfort women agreement, and it’s talking about concerns about relations souring between Seoul and Tokyo. How do you see that relationship playing out?

Masao Okonogi (Okonogi): [Moon’s] first month [in office] is going to be the most important. South Koreans are talking about a renegotiation, but that agreement is what the Park Geun-hye administration came up with after three years of historical debating [with Japan], and the [Shinzo] Abe administration isn‘t going to be interested in more negotiation. During the elections, the candidates talked about overturning the agreement and renegotiating it, but if you follow the letter of that, Japan-South Korea relations are going to be locked up from the outset. What the new South Korean administration needs to do - even if it takes some time - is find a middle ground that isn’t renegotiation or reaffirmation, something both sides can accept even if they‘re not necessarily happy with it. I think Japan will wait about one to two months for that. Japan has its security issues, and it doesn’t want to ruin its relationship with South Korea.

Hani: Do you think the two sides will keep failing to find common ground on the comfort women issue?

Okonogi: The Japanese administration‘s position is that the issue - including the legal aspect - was resolved with the Treaty on Basic Relations [in 1965]. That’s why even the 2015 agreement was touch-and-go. There won‘t be any better agreement if Seoul broaches the issue again. The Japanese people have a samurai culture, where even a mistaken agreement has to be upheld, at least for the time being. Those are the sentiments of the Japanese people.

Hani: A lot of people in Japan were leery of Moon as a candidate, seeing him as “pro-North Korea” and “anti-Japan.”

Okonogi: I take a critical view of the way the media assigns those kinds of labels. You can’t improve relations when you start out creating a fixed image. The reason the Japanese media favored the conservatives [in the election] is because they mistakenly thought a conservative would uphold the agreement.

Hani: President Moon has said he plans to emphasize inter-Korean dialogue.

Okonogi: If you look at his appointments [including National Intelligence Service director nominee Suh Hoon, who has a strong background in negotiations with North Korea], it looks like President Moon wants to get inter-Korean dialogue going as soon as possible. Right now, South Korea is facing diplomatic issues with the US, China, and Japan. If they start having inter-Korean dialogue, those other countries will see South Korea in a new light. Japan thinks of things only in terms of the comfort women issue, but once inter-Korean dialogue begins, Japan is going to want to be a bit more prudent in its negotiations [with South Korea]. It‘s about greater diplomatic influence for South Korea. The US President, Donald Trump, may be surprisingly unopposed to that. The Trump administration’s trademark is the way it tries to show how different it is from things under [predecessor Barack] Obama. Whether it’s military threats or diplomatic deals, they want to do things Obama didn’t. But the latest crisis [on the Korean Peninsula] may have shown them just how difficult military action would be. So now it’s about dialogue. You could see that the US and North Korea are moving toward dialogue in their relationship as well. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for the South Korean administration to get started [with inter-Korean dialogue] before that.

Hani: The political environment seems trickier now that it was when the Kim Dae-jung administration (1998-2003) had its inter-Korean summit.

Okonogi: Does it? Even then, you had the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War happening afterward. With the Moon Jae-in administration in office, we‘re going to see a shift from brinksmanship tactics to policies of dialogue. South Korea’s diplomatic influence is going to grow from that. With the US and China working together on economic sanctions, North Korea is going to look to the South Korea for an escape. So I think it’s very likely inter-Korean dialogue is going to happen relatively quickly. For North Korea, it’s a “first Seoul, then Washington” approach. It’s invaluable in terms of South and North trying to assume agency with something. A stepwise approach like what Moon has talked about would probably be best. Obviously, there’s only so much you can do with inter-Korean dialogue when other countries aren’t negotiating with North Korea on the nuclear issue. You can try to raise the level, but there’s nothing you can do if [North Korea] conducts a nuclear test. What Pyongyang may be thinking of is a freeze of its nuclear and long-range missile development. It’s going to try to use a freeze to strike a deal with the US. North Korea’s recent activity has been about trying to increase the value of its nuclear weapons and missiles. But that doesn‘t mean anything to North Korea if it can’t successfully reach a deal.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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