Korea-Japan politics and Asian unity

By Danish Javed

Korea and Japan rank among the top 13 economic powers of the world today. Both are known for their state-of-the-art industries and the rapid progress they have made over the past few decades.

In my opinion, Korea is the country that has surprised a lot of global villagers and has taken huge leaps in development, faster than many other countries in the world in terms of technological and economic advances.

Even a person not really familiar with Korean history can just search the Web for pictures of Seoul a few decades ago and compare the capital to the present. There is no surprise that the difference is drastic and Korean people have worked really hard for it.

I am newly introduced to the tension between Korea and Japan but in this essay I will try to give a neutral perspective of how these tensions came about.

One of the main issues that I have discovered for the rift between the countries is Korea’s stance on the “comfort women” issue, the women forced into sexual service by Japan during World War II. Japan does not deny this fact and claims that it is not proud of this grey part of its history. Yet this issue is still very important in the relations between Korea and Japan.

I would like to give the example of many colonial-era incidents in which the colonizers have usually treated the natives badly, arguably with similar acts and even graver in many cases.

For instance, the natives of Brazil were conveniently used as slave labor by the Portuguese colonialists and the British also used native women as comfort women which is reflected in Bollywood movies even today as part of an arguably grey part of history on the Indian sub-continent.

The point is not that I want to justify what Japanese colonialists did to Koreans but how other countries have managed to overcome such atrocities. Japan today is nothing like what it was during World War II and the colonial era of Korea in terms of its military and record after World War II.

Another factor that Korea and Japan must consider is that the impact of such rifts promotes hatred between the people on official levels. The colonial era has long ended and I can quote examples of countries like India and Pakistan who have not made a plea for an apology on a state level from the British.

It was also shocking for me as a tourist to actually see an advertisement in one subway station in Seoul in which the comfort women issue was being advertised for foreigners to see and for the locals to be reminded of ``bad Japan.”

Alarmingly, such issues are given so much importance on a political level here. I can't think of a political party who takes a flexible stance on this and other grievances against Japan with the upcoming election.

Korea has come a long way since its colonization although with a history of being attacked by other nations the tides have swung in its favor now. I still believe that issues need to be resolved but both Korea and Japan have to show patience and restraint as they are global economic powers.

Maybe such issues have political motives for both countries’ politicians. But such rifts have hindered a Korea-Japan deal for intelligence sharing with military exchanges suspended in September 2012. Both countries are close to each other geographically and non-collaboration will not help anything, especially when around 5 million tourists travel between the two countries every year.

Maybe reduced tensions can result in much greater power for the region as a whole which could result in an Asian union with huge trade alliances and massive progress on offer for not just Korea and Japan but the whole area.

With the United States a strong ally of both nations I believe it and other global powers should do more to resolve rifts between Korea and Japan and put an end to them once and for all for a peaceful and progressive region and the whole world in the long run.

The writer is a Pakistani exchange student at Hanyang University. His email address is std_7488@iobm.edu.pk.