[News analysis] Yoon returns home from Japan to backlash over summit

Posted on : 2023-03-20 17:05 KST Modified on : 2023-03-20 17:05 KST
Of particular note has been Yoon’s apparent lack of rebuttal to certain statements by the Japanese leader
President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea (left) shakes hands with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan ahead of their summit in Tokyo on March 16. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea (left) shakes hands with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan ahead of their summit in Tokyo on March 16. (Yonhap)

Far from South Korea-Japan relations improving since last week’s summit between the two countries’ leaders, points of contention have risen to the surface, aggravating already negative popular opinion in Korea and prompting domestic backlash. The Yoon Suk-yeol administration in Korea is being admonished for “one-sided diplomacy” that showered Japan with gifts in kind, only to receive notes and invoices in return.

Presidential office spokesperson Lee Do-woon stated in a briefing on Sunday that “many in South Korea, Japan, and the international community believe that this summit has acted as an important starting point for a more future-oriented relationship between South Korea and Japan.”

The day after Yoon’s return to Korea, the presidential office released an official statement on the outcomes of the president’s visit to Tokyo, highlighting the confirmation of the future-oriented direction of bilateral relations; expansion of strategic cooperation horizons, including economic security and future high-tech industries; removal of export restrictions; and resumption of shuttle diplomacy.

Park Jin, minister of foreign affairs, and Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office, made television appearances to hail the “achievements” of Yoon’s visit.

However, if we compare the media reports with the announcements made by the South Korean and Japanese governments about this summit, we can see that the scales were heavily tipped in favor of one party.

To begin with, Yoon announced his third-party payment plan for compensating victims of Japan’s forced mobilization, the biggest topic of this summit, and stated that his administration is “not envisioning any exercise of indemnity rights,” in effect nullifying the 2018 South Korean Supreme Court ruling that recognized the legitimacy of the victims’ claims for reparations from Japanese companies.

Kishida’s response to the above came in his post-summit remarks at a joint press conference, where he did not directly address the issue of apology or direct reparations. Kishida spoke of “former civilian workers from the Korean Peninsula,” a term that denies the coercive nature of forced mobilization.

President Yoon Suk-yeol (rear left) and first lady Kim Keon-hee (front left) of Korea dine with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko Kishida at a restaurant in Tokyo on March 16. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk-yeol (rear left) and first lady Kim Keon-hee (front left) of Korea dine with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko Kishida at a restaurant in Tokyo on March 16. (Yonhap)

Furthermore, Kishida’s claim that “the Government of Japan takes up in its entirety the position of previous cabinets on the recognition of history,” does not constitute a proper apology.

“The position of previous cabinets” does not exclusively refer to the “deep remorse and heartfelt apology” expressed in the South Korea-Japan Joint Declaration of 1998, but also includes the statement made by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Aug. 14, 2015, in which he said, “We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize.”

The wording allows the impression of there having been no apology offered in Japan, while in South Korea it is being read as an “indirect apology.”

The Japanese government lifted its export restrictions on three key semiconductor materials —hydrogen fluoride, polyimide fluoride, and photoresist — that had been in place since July 2019, and the South Korean government withdrew its World Trade Organization complaint over the issue. However, Japan said it would not immediately reinstate Korea to the "whitelist" that allowed for simplified export procedures but would discuss it later.

Furthermore, a statement by Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy that the domestic supply of the top three export-restricted items had been stabilized and that Korea’s dependence on imports from Japan for the top 100 materials, parts, and equipment has “decreased significantly,” makes it difficult to determine who stands to benefit from the move: the Japanese companies that have been blocked from selling their products, or Korean companies that have succeeded in turning to local means.

Yoon declared the “full normalization” of GSOMIA, or the General Security of Military Information Agreement, at the summit, and the two countries’ defense and foreign ministries are following up on the matter. This is something that the Japanese government has been adamantly demanding.

The Federation of Korean Industries and Japan’s Japan Business Federation, also known as the Keidanren, announced on Thursday that they would establish a “future partnership fund” to which they would each contribute 1 billion won. The fund was hastily created under the pretext of the “future” to stifle backlash from the South Korean public over the lack of apology and direct compensation from Japan present in the roundabout repayment plan put forth by the Yoon administration. The fund is a complimentary gesture that features neither a specific business plan nor a list of which Japanese companies will participate.

The discussions held during the summit, as reported by Japanese media, may well be the first hints of a new dispute in bilateral relations. Shortly after the meeting, Japanese media outlets such as the Kyodo News and NHK reported that during the meeting, Kishida asked Yoon to “faithfully implement the Japan-South Korea comfort women agreement” and “clarified Japan’s position on the issues surrounding Takeshima,” referring to the islets known locally as Dokdo.

This series of reports followed a Japanese government senior official’s anonymous explanation to the media that Kishida told Yoon about Japan’s position on Takeshima, the 2015 bilateral agreement on the “comfort women” issue, a 2018 incident in which a South Korean destroyer allegedly locked on to a Japanese aircraft on its radar, and the issue of regulating the import and export of seafood, particularly that from nuclear meltdown site Fukushima. In effect, the reports were based on an official statement from the Japanese government.

The South Korean government’s response has been noncommittal.

Following a storm of Japanese media reports, Foreign Minister Park Jin appeared on a KBS news program on Saturday, where he said that the Dokdo and the comfort women issues “had not been discussed as agenda items” during the summit.

On the same day, Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office, appeared on YTN where he equivocated by saying that he “couldn’t disclose all of the leaders’ conversations at the summit.”

Ultimately, the government’s explanation that “the above issues were not discussed” gives the impression that Kishida stated the Japanese government’s position on Dokdo and other issues, but Yoon did not respond by reaffirming the South Korean government’s official stance on the given matters.

A senior diplomat who has long been involved in South Korea-Japan relations stated, “I am dismayed by the Yoon administration’s inability to provide a proper rebuttal to Japanese media reports that Prime Minister Kishida said ‘Takeshima is Japanese land’ during his meeting with President Yoon.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer; Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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

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