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South Korean President Moon Jae-in during his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Dec. 23. (Blue House photo pool)

South Korea and Japan appear to be leaning into dialogue, arranging a meeting between their respective foreign ministers shortly before the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Chengdu, a city in China’s Sichuan Province, on Dec. 24. The next question is what degree of understanding the two leaders can reach about the issues of Japan’s export controls on South Korea, their GSOMIA information-sharing agreement, and the victims of forced labor during the Japanese colonial occupation. Their summit is the first to be held in a year and three months, since the UN General Assembly in September 2018.

Rather than producing a joint agreement, the summit is expected to set the stage for more active dialogue between the two countries going forward. Considering how fiercely they were squabbling just a few months ago, their bilateral relations seem to have become rather more amicable. In the words of a South Korean government official, “South Korea and Japan are aware that closer dialogue will be necessary to resolve their pending issues.” The Tokyo Shimbun and the Nikkei, two Japanese newspapers, reported that the two leaders will confirm their intention to continue dialogue in the future.

It’s also notable that South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi held their meeting on Tuesday morning, shortly before Moon and Abe’s summit that afternoon. It’s quite unusual for foreign ministers to meet on the same day as a summit, but that apparently indicates that the two foreign ministers mean to keep the negotiations going as long as possible so as to pave the way for more results in the summit. South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Kang and Motegi “plan to exchange opinions about matters of mutual interest, including the agenda of the summit, the [South Korean Supreme Court’s] decision about forced labor, and Japan’s export controls.”

On Dec. 20, leading up to the summit, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) took steps to partially ease the export controls, which have been one of the main contentions between the two countries, but the South Korean government said that the measure “isn’t enough to be a fundamental solution.” In other words, further discussion is necessary.

The forced labor issue continues to drag on, with the two sides unable to find a workable solution. Responding to reporters at his residence in Tokyo prior to visiting China on Monday, Abe reiterated his current stance, stating that South Korea “needs to keep the promise it made with another country.”

Abe added that, during his summit with Moon, he intends to repeat his claim that the South Korean Supreme Court’s decision awarding compensation to victims of forced labor is a violation of the two countries’ claims agreement. “South Korea and Japan’s [1965] claims agreement was the premise of the normalization of diplomatic relations, and it’s the foundation of our relationship,” he said.

Since the South Korean government also maintains that it must respect the Supreme Court’s ruling, which made clear that Japan is responsible for the forced labor issue, and that any solution must focus on the victims, it won’t be easy for the two sides to reach a compromise.

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter, and Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]