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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on Jan. 24 to reporters at his residence regarding his decision to attend the Pyeongchang Olympics and hold a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. (Yonhap News)

The biggest factor behind Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s announcement that he will attend the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month appears to have been the domestic political situation in Japan. With little momentum for constitutional reform and a poor approval rating, Abe likely concluded that it’s in his interest to call for the implementation of the comfort women agreement reached on Dec. 28, 2015, and for a tough stance on North Korea. But since South Korean President Moon Jae-in has announced his plan to approach the issues of past and future separately by pursuing the development of a future-oriented relationship with Japan while holding that the comfort women issue was not resolved by the Dec. 2015 agreement, it remains to be seen how the two leaders will deal with this issue in their meeting.

The first thing Abe mentioned while announcing his plan to attend the Pyeongchang Olympics at his residence in Tokyo on Jan. 24 was the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. This was the most innocuous excuse the prime minister could offer for announcing a visit to South Korea, which could not have been easy given the awkwardness between the two governments over the Dec. 2015 agreement.

Some analysts think that Abe concluded that the Pyeongchang Olympics was the ideal venue to demonstrate that it’s pushing the Moon administration to implement the agreement.

“We will not accept any additional demands unilaterally made by South Korea on the comfort women issue. I think I will have to communicate this to the president personally,” Abe said in an interview that ran in Japanese newspaper the Sankei Shimbun on Jan. 24.

“Abe wanted to create the impression that he’s a prime minister who knows how to speak his mind,” said Ha Jong-mun, a professor at Hanshin University.

In the face of Abe’s repeated bluster, the Blue House seems to be focused on Abe’s visit to South Korea itself. “Prime Minister Abe’s attendance at the Pyeongchang Olympics is very significant since it also contributes to the development of South Korea-Japan relations,” one Blue House official said. The implication is that Abe’s visit sends a message about improving bilateral relations. “

It’s important that Prime Minister Abe is visiting South Korea,” said Yang Gi-ho, professor at Sungkonghoe University.

Therefore, it’s expected that the two leaders’ discussion will not go beyond confirming their disagreement about the comfort women issue, just as in their two previous summits. While Abe will probably bring up the issue of the agreement or removing the comfort women statue in front of the Japanese embassy, the Blue House means to hold to its “two track” approach of treating historical issues separately from other issues, including culture and the economy.

Just as he said during his New Year’s address, the stance Moon is expected to adopt is calling on “Japan to resolve this issue through the principles of truth and justice” while also seeking “future-oriented relations with Japan.”

“Prime Minister Abe himself is fully aware of the South Korean government’s basic position. This issue will probably come up during the summit, but I don’t think it’s the kind of issue that will dominate bilateral relations,” said a senior official at the Blue House.

“Since both sides know what cards the other is holding, they should be able to move on to a more practical discussion of how to handle [South Korea-Japan relations] after they clarify each other’s positions and share views about a starting point,” Ha said.

Another prediction is that the two leaders will discuss the idea of Moon visiting Japan during the summit based on their consensus about the need to improve bilateral relations. Yet another possibility is that, if the summit between South Korea, Japan and China scheduled for March or April falls through because of silence from China, South Korea and Japan may arrange for Moon to visit Japan on his own.

During his meeting with Moon, Abe is likely to emphasize maintaining sanctions and pressure on North Korea and strengthening cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan. But given the ongoing dialogue between South and North Korea, there is also an exploratory aspect to these talks, which Abe may view as a way to prevent Japan from being sidelined on Korean Peninsula issues.

By Kim Ji-eun and Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporters and Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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