hankyoreh

On Apr. 29, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe mentioned “cooperating with South Korea” for the first time since the novel coronavirus outbreak began. Responding to a question from a Korean-Japanese lawmaker in the House of Councillors Budget Committee, he said that he wants to “continue cooperating with South Korea on a response to the coronavirus infections,” describing it as “a neighbor and an important country.”

In the past, the Abe administration has been focused on disparaging South Korea while ignoring its success in preventing the virus’s spread. Early on in the crisis, the Japanese government and press congratulated themselves on their response while claiming that South Korea was facing a “healthcare collapse.” On Mar. 5, the Japanese government moved to refuse entry to South Koreans without visas and discontinue visa issuance, in a surprise move made without any prior consultations with Seoul.

With the number of diagnosed cases rapidly rising in Japan since the announcement that the Tokyo Olympics would be postponed, the South Korean government has indicated its willingness to consider providing support with health supplies if requested to do so by Tokyo; so far, the Japanese government has been reluctant to ask for help. Until recently, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had been insisting that the “performance of South Korean diagnostic kits has not been concretely established.”

After playing on anti-Korean sentiments to boost his approval ratings at every crisis, Abe seems to be uncomfortable over the prospect of his conservative supporters objecting to any request for help from South Korea. Some Japanese media have suggested that if the Abe administration does receive support from Seoul, it will be placed in the situation of having to make concessions on the expert controls it imposed last July in retaliation for a South Korean Supreme Court ruling ordering compensation to survivors of forced labor mobilization.

But now is not a time for either side to dwell too much on bygones. Having bestowed suffering on its public through the failure of its coronavirus response, the Abe administration now needs to do the brave thing by humbly acknowledging what its neighbor has achieved and asking it for help. The South Korean government, for its part, should be generous in providing support if it does receive an official request from Tokyo, acting in the interest of international coordination to eradicate the virus. A joint South Korean-Japanese response to the outbreak could be a starting point toward restoring their relationship.

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