There was no post-summit joint statement or news conference. President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not even have lunch, even though their meeting extended after noon. Obviously on the basis of little news about their first one-on-one summit, the two had a clash of personalities and views.
Park stated that the summit should be the start of a healing process for the “painful history,” in reference to atrocities that Japan committed against Koreans during its colonial occupation in general and, particularly, the girls and woman forced to serve in Japanese army brothels under the name “comfort women.”
Abe claimed that there should be no barriers to future-oriented bilateral relations. The two sides agreed to accelerate negotiations for the early settlement of the comfort women issue.
Given these statements, there appeared to be little progress in their summit. Park wanted Japan to heed the elderly comfort women who want Tokyo to apologize and to pay compensation as soon as possible. The Abe government claims that everything was settled through the 1965 normalization of ties and subsequent government-to-government compensation.
Park also pressed Abe on his lack of trustworthiness by invoking an aphorism by a Japanese forefather.
The Park-Abe agreement most likely means a repetition of their respective stances. Adding to this was a report from Tokyo while the meeting was in progress that a government spokesman said there would not be any change in Japan’s stance.
Abe also went one step further by telling some reporters that he had said what Japan had to say about impending issues, and calling on Park for prompt action. The outstanding issues he raised could include damages suits filed by Koreans forced to work for war material-producing factories, and a libel suit against the former Seoul branch chief of the ultra-conservative Sankei newspaper for writing a speculative report that Park was allegedly engaged in a tryst during the initial stages of the Sewol ferry sinking last April. Prosecutors demanded 18 months behind bars for the Sankei reporter. Abe said that honest talks were pivotal to improved bilateral relations and that the doors for dialogue should always remain open.
By any indication, Abe has little intention of retreating from his unilateral stance, highlighted by his ignorance of his ancestors’ colonial crimes and Japan’s march toward being a “normal state” capable of projecting its military might beyond its borders, forgoing its pacifist constitution, which the U.S. imposed after World War II.
This poses a chain of questions for Korea. The first and cardinal one is: Does Korea need to continue dialogue with Japan knowing that Japan is unlikely to change its stance? If Korea opts for continued dialogue, what would be the purpose?
We believe that engagement is better than disengagement, at least for the time being. Japan is, geographically, the closest neighbor to Korea and it is important for the two countries to realize that their animosity helps neither side. Korea needs Tokyo’s role in resolving North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship and so does Tokyo. To prevent China from being overly assertive, Korea, Japan and the U.S. should cooperate where they should. Staying away from and antagonizing Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, could cost Korea many opportunities.
It hard to know for sure where such efforts will lead Korea, because Japan can be an unpredictable vengeful genie out of the bottle and taming it would be challenging to say the least. For this kind of question, we would be better to take time to think of an answer than to proceed in haste. Let’s sleep on it for now.