Will Abe come to PyeongChang?
By Yi Whan-woo
The upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics are emerging as a major factor in turning around South Korea’s relations with Japan.
The Moon Jae-in administration’s review of a controversial bilateral agreement on “comfort women” is expected to overshadow Seoul-Tokyo relations for the time being, but the Olympics could provide a turnaround, analysts said Thursday.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not yet responded to Moon’s invitation to the opening ceremony for the Winter Games. If Abe comes to PyeongChang, that would be an encouraging sign for the future of Korea-Japan relations.
Abe, however, has linked his participation in the ceremony to Seoul’s stance on the comfort women deal.
The Moon administration will decide whether to retain, modify or scrap the accord reached in December 2015 based on an assessment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ taskforce.
The taskforce did not explicitly ask to go over the deal struck between the governments of Abe and Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye.
But its findings were apparently not in favor of the Abe administration, as it concluded the two neighbors failed to take the opinions of the former Korean sex slaves sufficiently and thus added fuel to public calls here to revise it.
On Thursday, Moon also hinted at renegotiation of the accord, saying “Serious flaws have been found regarding the 2015 deal.” “Abe may find Seoul’s move offensive,” a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute said, pointing out Japan repeatedly claimed that the agreement was “final and irrevocable” and Korea should implement it faithfully.
“He may also find it not necessary to improve Seoul-Tokyo ties for the time being and not come to PyeongChang.”
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, Thursday, Abe told his aides the 2015 agreement “shall not move even by one millimeter” and he will never comply with Seoul if it asks to take any follow-up measures accordingly.
The newspaper said Japan’s distrust toward Korea is beginning to grow although the Abe administration appears to be monitoring the case in a calm manner.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources said the Moon administration is likely to hold off its decision on possible renegotiation until after the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, slated for Feb. 9 to 25, in a bid to not provoke Abe.
The sources said Abe’s possible boycott of the PyeongChang Winter Games will not benefit Japan as it needs Korea’s support in its preparation for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
The 2015 deal was intended to resolve the diplomatic row over Japan’s imperial-era mobilization of Korean women as sex slaves but only complicated the historical conflict.
The taskforce accused the Park government of failing to listen to the surviving victims and also concealing sensitive parts of the deal to avoid public criticism.