Abe victory to deep freeze Seoul ties

By Chung Min-uck

Shinzo Abe Japan’s prime minister

Following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition’s majority victory in the parliamentary upper house elections, Korea-Japan relations are expected to remain frozen without a drastic turnaround, experts said, Monday.

“The Abe government will seek for a stable and long-term management. It is unlikely that Japan will take immediate actions that can irritate its neighbors,” said Jin Chang-su, director of the Sejong Institute’s Center for Japanese Studies. “Seoul-Tokyo relations will remain frozen as they are now.”

Sunday’s elections victory presented Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its ruling coalition partner New Komeito, with a mandate to press ahead with nationalist agendas after the alliance gained a combined 135 out of 242 seats in the parliamentary upper house.

Together they also control two-thirds of the seats at the lower house, following December’s electoral victory.

Revising the country’s pacifist constitution to give the Japanese military a larger role was one of Abe’s representative election pledges that upset its neighbors such as China and Korea.

The revision requires two-thirds approval by both houses to stage a national referendum.

The next elections for Japan are slated for 2016, meaning the Abe government will rule the nation for at least three years, unless a snap election is called and the parliament is dissolved.

Notwithstanding the advantage, experts say Abe wouldn’t be politically active enough to push for the nationalist agendas right away.

“Abe’s popularity in Japan is based on his economic stimulus policy of ‘Abenomics,’” said Professor Lee Jong-won of Waseda University in Japan. “Abenomics worked well because of people’s ‘expectations’ of the policy.”

Effects of the stimulus package are yet to be proved. So in terms of diplomacy, Abe will likely refrain from creating friction with the neighbors, Prof. Lee said, adding that the likelihood is that Abe will leave the ideological agenda to the latter half of his term

Abe’s remarks on former Korean sex slaves have fueled tensions between the two countries.

Abe also denied South Korea’s sovereignty over its easternmost islets of Dokdo.

Seoul called off a foreign ministers’ meeting with Japan in April, while Cheong Wa Dae appears to be in no hurry about holding a summit between the two countries.

Cheong Wa Dae and the Foreign Ministry refused to comment on Abe’s majority victory, Monday, allegedly factoring in the prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment among South Koreans.

First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun came under fire last week for “wishing the LDP an outright victory” in the upper house elections when he met Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Kim was in Japan for a three-day stay to attend the opening ceremony of a new building for the South Korean embassy there.

The Foreign Ministry had to later downplay Kim’s remarks, saying they were just well-wishing words with no special significance.