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The conflict between South Korea and Japan continues to rage. Superficially at least, the sparks that ignited this conflagration were the South Korean Supreme Court’s ruling in October 2018 that forced laborers during the Japanese colonial occupation must be paid compensation, and Japan’s export controls on South Korea. On a structural level, however, it was inevitable that such a clash would occur during the dismantlement and realignment of the decades-old geopolitical order in East Asia.

Since the collapse of the Socialist Bloc in the early 1990s, Asia has been dominated by the US-led geopolitical order, but that order is now falling apart. The Trump administration in the US refuses to tolerate China’s challenge to its hegemony, while solely pursuing its own interest and disregarding the responsibility of a hegemonic state to provide at least some public good.

The rapidly shifting geopolitical order in Asia was primarily formed in the early 1990s, when the US and China began cooperating fully, though its origins can be traced back to the two states’ détente in the early 1970s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic cooperation between the US and China fueled the expansion of the international liberal order, based on a US-led capitalistic division of labor.

In a column that ran in the Financial Times on Aug. 5 under the title, “The Asian Strategic Order Is Dying,” this arrangement is described as the “Kissinger order,” taking its name from former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who engineered the US and China’s establishment of diplomatic relations. This column views the recent series of events in Asia as ultimately representing the death of that order, which has been crippled by the rise of China and the concomitant enervation of the US.

The turning point was the 2008 financial crisis, which sent the US into a panic. Strategic distrust escalated between the two countries as the US became genuinely worried about China’s rise and as China resented the US for, in its view, attempting to nip that rise in the bud. That was also when the term “G2” emerged, marking the beginning of open rivalry between the two powers.

The previous US administration, under President Barack Obama, initiated a policy of containing China under the slogan of the “pivot to Asia.” Even so, their bilateral relationship was defined as cooperative competition or competitive cooperation, indicating that the element of cooperation still survived. Under the “America first” vision of President Donald Trump, however, the term “cooperation” disappeared, leaving only rivalry and war. Though the two countries have held four rounds of trade negotiations, they remain in sharp disagreement over the areas of intellectual property rights and high technology, representing their rivalry in the years to come, and the prospects of reaching a fundamental agreement in those areas are gradually growing dim.

East Asia, including China, is the greatest flashpoint of the Trump administration’s policy of clinging to hegemony while shifting the entire cost of maintaining that hegemony onto its allies and friends. The economic war has already expanded into the military arena. In July, the US sent an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan Strait, an extremely sensitive area for China. For its part, China has sent an oil survey ship into a part of the South China Sea that Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone, triggering a naval standoff between the two countries. Construction is underway on a Chinese military installation in Cambodia, its first military base in Southeast Asia.

On Aug. 2, the US finalized its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a major pillar of the international arms control system. Just one day later, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper announced that the US hopes to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Asia, aimed at China, while remarking that “80% plus of their [China’s] inventory is intermediate range systems.” On Aug. 6, US National Security Advisor John Bolton declared that South Korea and Japan are countries where the US would like to deploy intermediate-range missiles.

China and Russia have been coordinating an overt and aggressive response to the US, creating fissures in the East Asian geopolitical order. China said that it “will not stand idly by” if one of its neighbors hosts US intermediate-range missiles, a threat addressed specifically to South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Russia also strongly protested the potential missile deployment. On top of that, China and Russia conducted their first joint patrol flight in the East Sea at the end of July, during which a Russian military aircraft made an incursion into South Korean air space over the island of Dokdo. This is a signal that the waters around the Korean Peninsula could become a battleground during a conflict between the US and China.

In the process of the East Asian realignment, Japan has been forging a two-track strategy of strengthening military cooperation with the US while improving relations with China and Russia. The US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, which was launched at Japan’s suggestion, represents a Japanese attempt to compensate for the US’ neglect of its existing alliance system. Through this strategy, Japan seeks to move beyond its subordinate role in its alliance with the US, gaining independence and equal standing. Japan has also been seeking to negotiate a peace treaty with Russia, improve relations with China, and launch negotiations with Japan, but such efforts haven’t borne fruit.

Just one day after the historic meeting in Panmunjom between the leaders of South Korea, North Korea, and the US on June 30, the Abe administration in Japan moved forward with export controls on South Korea. Sources in the ruling party say that the lack of backroom negotiations between the two sides following the South Korean Supreme Court’s forced labor ruling was the result of South Korean distrust and hurt feelings over Japan’s tenacious obstruction on the North Korean issue.

More fundamentally, this tells us that the current framework of the South Korea-Japan relationship is nearing its expiration date. Grounded in a 1965 agreement that purported to settle outstanding claims between the two countries, this relationship, on a basic level, was one in which Japan sponsored South Korea on an economic level, with the US providing military security. But the US is no longer as eager to assume responsibility for military security as it once was, and South Korea, with a much bigger economy, is chafing within the confines of the “65 system.”

Ultimately, the fact that Japan has failed to achieve its strategic interests in the Korean Peninsula peace process or in its historical dispute with South Korea can be seen as the fundamental background for the two countries’ deteriorating relationship, which was sparked by Japan’s export controls on South Korea. This is a manifestation of Japanese anxiety that the Korean Peninsula — which has served as a bulwark against the continental powers of China and Russia, its historical rivals — is slipping from its grasp.

Amid the rapid changes in the geopolitical order, South Korea also faces a crisis and an opportunity, both without precedent. The crisis is that, in an age of uncertainty, South Korea cannot survive as a “dependent variable” of the powers that surround it. But the opportunity is that, given the right action, it can become an “independent variable.” The evidence of that is its relationship with Japan, which must now be redefined.

By Jung E-gil, senior staff writer

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