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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (second from left) and Minister of Economy

The history of the end of the “1965 regime” is now in full swing. The trigger pulled by Japan with its trade warfare is set to go down in history as its opening salvo.

The origins lie in the Korean Peninsula peace process that began last year. It marked the beginning of a new stage in the establishment of the “new Korean Peninsula regime.” That regime is a new order created as the Korean Peninsula transforms from a setting for warfare and confrontation to one of peace and cooperation. This will necessitate overcoming two “postwar eras” that have imposed a warfare rationale upon Northeast Asia. The threat of war became intensified on the peninsula in the past as the post-World War II era, persisting in the form of the Cold War, combined with the post-Korean War era, which has survived as the armistice system. That was the essence of the 2017 crisis.

The year 2018 marked the beginning of the end for these two postwar regimes. As the Korean Peninsula peace process moved forward, a movement arose to bring an end to the 1965 regime established between South Korea and Japan as part of the Cold War order. The Panmunjom summit of April 2018 and the Supreme Court judgment the following October were inextricably linked. Establishing a new relationship between Seoul and Tokyo to suit the new Korean Peninsula regime emerged as a matter in need of being addressed.

The two sides’ past relationship as a subordinate alliance amid trilateral security cooperation with the US to ensure the perpetuation of the Northeast Asian Cold War order and the Korean War armistice no longer fits with the new Korean Peninsula regime.

South Korea has sought to bring an end to the Korean Peninsula armistice regime, which has functioned to amplify the threat of war. Japan has sought to maintain a strategic balance in Northeast Asia that is predicated on the armistice regime’s continuation. This has shaped the geopolitical front between South Korea and Japan, exacerbating mutual trust amid conflicting historical layers in the interpretation of the armistice and Cold War. Such is the backdrop for the latest trade war.

Japan is the party that excluded South Korea from its list of countries receiving favorable treatment in terms of export procedures, shrugging off diplomatic efforts by Seoul and mediation by Washington. It is a clear-cut case of unilateral diplomacy – just one without the mobilization of military force. In essence, Tokyo shifted from a diplomatic approach of “argument” to one of “action.” Japan also made the choice to say goodbye to the postwar era. How should we view its actions? A hint can be found in “Rebuilding the US-Japan Alliance,” a Japanese strategy report published in September 2017. That report produced some shocking conclusions with regard to South Korea. One was that Tokyo should continue demanding that the Moon Jae-in administration enforce the 2015 comfort women agreement between the two governments, regardless of the pall this might cast on bilateral relations. Another was that Japan should join the US in checking the Moon administration if it became too conciliatory toward North Korea. These attitudes toward South Korea, which are shared by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the figures who surround him, are coarsely embodied in the latest provocations involving the use of export controls for trade warfare.

Here, the historical revisionism that Abe is pursuing appears to be combining with geopolitics and manifesting as policy. But the Japanese “revival” that Abe and his cohorts envision does not mean a return to the Meiji Restoration or leadership of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. They aren’t that deluded. Political realists, they are pursuing something modeled on the Japanese diplomacy of the 1920s. Their model is the Japanese approach to diplomacy that spearheaded an international alliance under a doctrine of “international cooperation” that actually amounted only to cooperation by imperial powers. Their aim is for Japan to return a century later as flag bearers for upholding the liberal global order.

The fact that Japan’s latest provocations are coming in the same year as the centennial of the March 1 Independence Movement and the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea clearly shows how differently the year 1919 is viewed by Japan compared to South Korea. Where Koreans saw an opportunity in Wilson’s idea of “national self-determination,” Japan gained a sense of confidence over its stable government of Korea. Their diametrically opposed perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference are now manifesting again in 2019.

The Indo-Pacific strategy – which has played out under an approach were Japan proposes things, which are then accepted by the US – is another part of Japan’s envisioned revival. That strategy adopts a two-pronged approach toward Trump’s America: binding the US to the bilateral alliance on one hand, while preparing at the same time for the possibility of the US forsaking Japan. While Japan preemptively moves to share strategic interests with the US – which has its own interest in the Indo-Pacific region – it is also anticipating the US’ departure from East Asia by making spirited efforts to develop relationships with the UK, France, and other countries that are returning to the region.

Perhaps we should recall that this region – the one stretching from eastern Africa across India and into Indochina – was colonized by the UK and France in the past, and that the “glorious” Japanese diplomacy of the 1920s was based in cooperation with those powers. We might gain some sense of what it signifies for Japan to be moving to defend a rule-based liberal global order in this region.

What sort of new Korean Peninsula regime should we envision and practice in the face of this behavior by Japan? How should we go about establishing a relationship with Japan as the base of a “peace triangle” with North Korea under the new system? Without establishing a larger strategy and final goals, it becomes impossible not only to manage bilateral relations but also to rebuild them. For that reason, we need to reexamine our larger strategy and final goals.

We can conceive of three goals and strategies: South Korea-Japan cooperation to address current issues, resolve issues of history, and build the future. In terms of cooperation to address current issues and establish a new future for East Asia, we can set the first task as being to encourage Japan to play a role in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. To Pyongyang, nuclear weapons and missiles offered the only means of remedying the disadvantageous international environment created by the normalization of South Korea’s diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and China.

The keys to persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program are progress on North Korea-US negotiations and, at the same time, the normalization of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Japan. Even though Japan is seeking to circumvent South Korea, therefore, we should strive to mediate between Japan and North Korea and to regard the normalization of their diplomatic relations as a common good for a peace regime in Northeast Asia. That could also help propel us toward one of the essential tasks for securing the future of East Asia, namely concluding a treaty that would declare Northeast Asia to be a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Surprisingly enough, the foundation is already laid to frame such a treaty in Northeast Asia. In last year’s Panmunjom Declaration, South and North Korea both declared their support for turning the Korean Peninsula into a nuclear-weapon-free zone. In 1998, South Korea and Japan released a joint statement proclaiming the value of a non-nuclear peace, with South Korea crediting Japan for its three non-nuclear principles. And in 2002, North Korea and Japan released a joint statement affirming the principle of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue according to international law, which suggests that North Korea and Japan also share the values of non-nuclear peace.

Since the principle of non-nuclear peace has already been confirmed bilaterally by all three sides of the “triangle,” weaving those into a position shared by South Korea, North Korea, and Japan could help turn Northeast Asia into a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Non-nuclear peace is a fundamental policy of the Japanese government that even Shinzo Abe would find it difficult to deny, as well as the value most cherished by Japanese civil society. Since the push began to revise Japan’s “peace” constitution, there are indications that those NGOS are being realigned around the values of pacifism and non-nuclear peace. We need to be thinking about how we can cooperate with them.

The most important thing is for South Korea and Japan to work together to settle their past disputes once and for all. How can they go about this in a manner that contributes to the new Korean Peninsula regime? How can we completely normalize relations between the two countries, which have been unequal since they signed the Treaty of Gangwha Island in 1876? That should be the focus of our efforts to turn Japan’s instigation of a trade war from a crisis into an opportunity.

The reason that South Korea-Japan relations are currently at their worst point since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1965 is because of that self-same 1965 regime. My choice of the term “1965 regime” focuses on the constant instability produced by contradictory interpretations of the treaty on basic relations and the treaty settling outstanding claims, the signing of which ostensibly normalized diplomatic relations. One of those basic contradictions concerns the illegality of colonial rule.

The South Korean government’s interpretation of its basic treaty with Japan assumes the illegality of Japan’s colonial rule, while Japan’s interpretation is grounded in its legality. When protracted negotiations failed to bridge that gap, South Korea and Japan shelved the issue by agreeing to disagree. Since then, the two countries have strained to paper over this issue whenever the foundation of the relations have been undermined by historical issues, but last year’s decision by the South Korean Supreme Court means that such measures are no longer possible. Rather than treating the symptoms, the time has come to cure the disease.

Steps must now be taken to unify the two countries’ interpretations of their 1965 treaty and agreement. Some may be skeptical about such a proposition, doubting whether that’s possible as long as Japan is led by Abe. Pessimism is understandable if we focus on the limitations of the 1965 regime, but hope is possible if we focus on how those limitations have been overcome during past decades. That hope derives from South Korea’s civil society, which coalesced around calls to resolve the comfort women issue. The groups that flourished after South Korea’s democratization pushed the government to raise that issue with Japan, leading to a gradual shift in Japan’s attitude toward history.

In a 1993 statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, the Japanese government acknowledged its military’s involvement in the comfort women issue; in a 1995 statement by Tomiichi Murayama, it expressed remorse and an apology for its colonial rule; in a joint statement by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in 1998, it apologized specifically to the Korean people; and in a 2010 statement by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, it even acknowledged that its colonial rule had been forced on the Korean people against their will. Even Abe, despite being a historical revisionist, has been unable to reject or deny those statements, and they can serve as grounds for confirming the illegality of Japan’s colonial occupation. What remains is for South Korea and Japan to produce a document formally affirming the illegality of the colonial occupation.

If North Korea and Japan then use that as a springboard for affirming the illegality of the colonial occupation as a basic position, the economic cooperation that Japan pledged in a 2002 joint statement with North Korea could be reframed as compensation, forming the foundation for normalizing the two countries’ diplomatic relations. And if the position shared bilaterally by South Korea and Japan on the one hand and by North Korea and Japan on the other can be integrated into a joint statement by all three countries, it could lead to the total resolution of the outstanding historical issues between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

Trade

Japan’s instigation of a trade war could be a signal that the 1965 regime is drawing to a close and that a new history is unfolding. Japan’s provocation has made us aware that the “unequal treaties” between South Korea and Japan that go back to 1876 remain in place even today. Before South Korea could rectify the unequal Treaty of Gangwha Island, it was made a Japanese colony, and that inequality was not definitely rectified even when the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1965, after Korea was liberated. It’s time for us to launch a diplomatic campaign to finally deal with that inequality. Moving beyond the 1965 regime is an essential stage in the Korean Peninsula peace process, as well as in the construction of a new regime for the Korean Peninsula.

By Nam Ki-jeong, associate professor at the Institute for Japanese Studies at Seoul National University

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