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| President Moon Jae-in and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. AP-Yonhap |
By Oh Young-jin
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1) Japan's export curbs caught the Moon Jae-in government off guard.
Many factors indicate this may have been the case because, above all, there had been no efforts to stock up on those items following Tokyo's announcement. Broadly, it appears correct that the government had anticipated a reaction one way or another from Japan after the Supreme Court ruled that Japanese firms mobilized for their country's war efforts owed Korean workers compensation. There are indications that efforts were made to delay the ruling under the previous Park Geun-hye administration because of the potential damage to the already soured bilateral relationship.
The Moon government has been consistent in dealing resolutely with Japan's aggressive act. President Moon first called on Japan to drop its plan and warned Abe about the consequences. This consistency was due to the guiding principle of the Moon administration to liquidate past ills, many of which it sees as stemming from Japan's 45-year imperial rule of Korea. Moon is among those who want the distortions brought by collaboration and cooperation during that era that affect today's Korea straightened out.
Whether Moon's effort will succeed or not is not clear because such past efforts have failed or backfired. But the chance is that Moon will not deviate as was the case with the effort of the late President Kim Young-sam. This means that the Moon-Abe duel will continue for some time if the Japanese prime minister is as prepared to do as reports say he is.
2) Korea's current situation is a carbon copy of the jam Joseon Kingdom was in at the turn of 20th century before being absorbed by Japan.
Similarities do exist primarily because the cast of players in Korea's tragic saga is very much in the game. But differences between now and then are much greater. Joseon was called the "hermit kingdom" for its self-imposed isolation, relying on any big power that came its way. Now Korea is among the world's leading economies, being No. 1 producer of semiconductors for instance ― Samsung Electronics and SK hynix ― in the world that are indispensable to smartphones, TVs and internet of things (IOT) items. Hyundai Motor is among the world's leading carmakers.
Already, it is strongly argued that Japan's provocative act, if Korea retaliates and the dispute escalates, would hurt the global value chains affecting production of many important items for which Korea provides parts. Decades of globalization has made the world's economy so interdependent that a problem with the economy of Korea's size can surely be contagious and adversely affect the rest of the world.
That is why Japan's move is doubly deplorable because it comes against the background of the U.S.-China trade war that has kept the world in suspense for months.
Often, some skeptics point out that Korea's 1997 currency crisis started when Japan pulled its money out in retaliation for the Kim Young-sam's government's hardline policy against Japan. But this storyline should be updated because Korea's reliance on Japan has been reduced further. Rather a competing storyline is that Japan's motive is much the same as that of the U.S. in its fight against China, trying to prevent Korea's rise that could be exponentially strengthened if peace prevails on the Korean Peninsula.
The bottom line is that we should learn from history, not succumbing to the Toynbeean concept of "history repeats itself."
3) The U.S. will support Japan over Korea.
The U.S. under President Donald Trump would find it difficult to intervene and tell Japan to stop its embargo because that is exactly what Trump is doing with China in the ongoing trade war. Abe has invested a lot to buy Trump's friendship. An isolationist Trump would find no "financial incentives" to step in. Trump does not share the old definition of alliance as his predecessors did with Korea or Europe.
But if he does not, the chance is that his handlers would see an important role for Korea in keeping down the rise of China in the U.S. effort to maintain its global hegemony. Besides, the full-blown, protracted slugfest between Tokyo and Seoul could overshadow Trump's quest for the Nobel Peace Prize for officially ending the war with North Korea and establishing lasting peace on the peninsula.
Now, here is one football analogy. FIFA rankings have Korea No. 37, nine steps down from the No. 28 Japan. In its 78 national team matches, Korea has won 41, while Japan has 14, with 23 draws. The reason for this discrepancy between the rankings and their match results is the Korean spirit ―_ "We can lose anybody but Japan." The moral is that by fighting each other, they have a lot to lose and on the flip side of it, they would gain a lot by cooperating. As things stand now, it may look impossible for the two to make up. But do they not say that the art of impossible is diplomacy? Let's do some art.
Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is digital managing editor of The Korea Times.
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