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South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, poses for a picture with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a trilateral summit on Dec. 24, 2019. (Blue House photographers’ pool)

Attention is focusing on whether South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will hold their first face-to-face meeting during the G7 summit, which will be held in Cornwell, in the UK, from Friday to Sunday. Such a meeting could help the two countries find a way to untangle the snarl of historical disputes that have kept their relations chilly for more than two years.

Leading up to Moon’s attendance at the G7 summit, speculation has been rife about the possibility of holding a bilateral summit between South Korea and Japan or a trilateral summit with the US. Most of those reports have originated in the Japanese press, but there has also been a subtle shift in the South Korean government’s response.

In a meeting with reporters Wednesday, a senior official from the Blue House said that “there are currently no plans in place” for a trilateral summit between South Korea, the US, and Japan while adding that “we’re always open” to dialogue with Japan.

The official emphasized that Seoul is “open to various kinds of trilateral communication and cooperation.”

Taken together, those remarks signal that Seoul would like to hold a trilateral summit if possible.

Indeed, diplomatic sources say that there’s not much chance of a trilateral summit being held but that there is a chance of a brief meeting between the leaders of South Korea and Japan.

Moon sat down with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for an 11-minute conversation during the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2019.

Bilateral cooperation between South Korea and Japan and trilateral cooperation with the US appear to have been major topics during a conference between senior diplomats from South Korea and the US in Washington on Wednesday.

During that conference, South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun reportedly said that Seoul would be very proactive about trilateral cooperation. While noting that many issues between South Korea and Japan need to be functionally resolved, Choi said that Seoul didn’t want their bilateral relations to be undermined by historical issues.

While those remarks don’t clash with the Moon administration’s “two-track” policy toward Japan of handling practical cooperation and historical disputes separately, some analysts think this signals that the Moon administration’s policy toward Japan may become a little more proactive.

The South Korean government has recently resumed stalled efforts to solve historical disputes by meeting separately with victims of forced labor during the Japanese colonial period. The government also organized the first public-private conference for the so-called comfort women with groups representing the comfort women, who were forced to work in military brothels during World War II.

But Japan continues to insist that the South Korean government needs to find its own solution to those two issues, which Tokyo regards as having been settled by the two countries’ 1965 claims agreement and their 2015 comfort women agreement. Tokyo’s stance makes it unlikely that there will be a meaningful change anytime soon.

Some think that a South Korean court’s recent decision to dismiss a damages lawsuit that forced labor victims had filed against Japanese companies has eased pressure on the South Korean government. But many don’t see that decision as being very significant considering that it was made by a district court and that a contrary ruling reached by the Supreme Court in 2018 remains valid.

Multiple officials in the South Korean government said that they remain open to dialogue with Japan but that there aren’t any notable signs of change in the two countries’ relations.

While the South Korean government is emphasizing its openness to dialogue with Japan, the Japanese government’s public response has not been encouraging.

The Japanese appear rather reluctant to arrange talks between Moon and Suga on the sidelines of the G7 summit.

“The conditions aren’t in place for Prime Minister Suga to engage in dialogue because South Korea hasn’t come up with a meaningful solution to historical issues,” a Japanese government official was recently quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

The Japanese government also said that it’s “neither preparing for nor considering” the idea of holding such a meeting.

Suga has a lot on his plate as he attends his first in-person multilateral conference since becoming prime minister in September 2020, which could be a reason to leave improving relations with South Korea on the back burner.

During the G7 summit, Suga needs to raise support for holding the Tokyo Olympics amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and to discuss the key issue of containing China with other national leaders.

“The response from diplomats has been that Suga’s schedule is filled with meetings with other G7 leaders. They’re not enthusiastic about a summit with South Korea,” reported the Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper.

“If the two leaders meet, they’ll just exchange a few words,” a senior member of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs predicted to the Yomiuri Shimbun, another Japanese newspaper.

Whatever encounter Moon and Suga end up having in the UK, any meeting would be the first between the leaders of South Korea and Japan since the South Korea-China-Japan trilateral summit in December 2019.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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