Northeast Asia, which has long been an arena for animosity and competition, is rapidly turning into a stage of amity and cooperation.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who will arrive in Seoul Wednesday, said Saturday he hoped to see the ``realization of both the Korea-China free trade agreement and an East Asian community in the not so distant future."
On the same day, Ichiro Ozawa, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan, stressed the need for enhancing solidarity among the three Northeast Asian nations, during a lecture in Seoul.
Pessimistic Koreans might have felt that both Secretary-General Ozawa, widely considered a ``kingmaker" in Japanese politics, and Vice President Xi, who is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as China's top leader in 2012, were competing to bring Korea to their side in a new hegemonic battle in this part of the world. Optimists, however, can look at the situation as a new chance for the country to enhance its status as a mediator and coordinator.
Since the global financial crisis, regional integration seems to be accelerating throughout the world, as seen in the Treaty of Lisbon in Europe and the tightening of other existing regional groupings in Africa and Latin America. So it would be rather strange if East Asia, whose combined economic might was forecast to exceed that of Europe's next year by the International Monetary Fund, remains an exception. For Northeast Asia in particular, which together accounts for 70 percent of East Asia's economy, the time has long past to pay attention to this new global trend.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether the first power transfer in Japan after a half-century rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party and the advent of the fifth-generation leadership in China will dissolve the deeply-accumulated historical enmity between the three countries. Much depends on how sincere Japan will be in its admission of past wrongs and how determined it is in opening a new era of cooperation. Considering the three old rivals cannot remain as such forever, the atmosphere in this part of the world will begin to change, sooner or later. What matters is whether Korea is prepared to meet such regional, global political and economic changes.
Some Korean politicians and academics say Korea could be a catalyst or bridge making the most of its geographic advantage as a peninsula linking the two giants. The experiences of the past century, however, show that the small in-between country is nothing but a means of passage, unless it is wide awake and solidly united.
Even now, President Lee Myung-bak seems to think the hosting of regional and global summits will automatically enhance the nation's international status. Again, history shows only countries that have sufficient humanistic merits, such as freedom and fraternity, deserve international respect.
The only weapons Korea, the smallest and weakest of the three Northeast Asian players, has to stand shoulder to shoulder with its larger neighbors, are its genuine democracy (compared with China's still authoritarian governance) and civic, grassroots strength (compared with Japan's largely statist strategy). Sadly, both have undergone noticeable setbacks under this administration.
Moreover, Korea, which would have to wage an uphill battle even in its entirety, is now divided in half, and the ``clock of reunification" also seems to have been set back over the past few years. There can be no East Asian Union without a peaceful solution to the North Korean problem.