By Jun Ji-hye
The government is stepping up efforts to have Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reflect on his country’s wartime misdeeds in his envisioned address next month to a joint session of the United States Congress.
“The government cannot block Abe’s speech. Instead, it will do its utmost to urge him to include contents which reflect on the country’s wrongdoings during World War II,” a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Korea Times, Friday.
The remarks came amid reports that Abe is expected to become the first Japanese Prime Minister in history to address the U.S. Congress.
The ministry believes that the address could be an opportunity for Abe to show a correct view on history as the U.S. was among countries attacked by Japan during the war.
The ministry also expects protests by Korean civic groups there against any address to pressure Washington and Tokyo.
The official said, once the address is fixed, the ministry will mobilize various levels of diplomatic channels to deliver Seoul’s position that a sincere message regarding the past misdeeds by Imperial Japan should be included to normalize trilateral cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
Seoul has so far demanded that Japan show sincerity by resolving an issue of its sexual enslavement of Korean women during the war to “comfort” its troops in a way that is acceptable to the surviving victims.
But Japan has long dismissed Seoul’s demands, saying that all grievances related to its 1910-45 colonial rule were settled through a 1965 treaty that normalized their bilateral ties.
The opposition parties and some critics argued that the envisioned address by the Japanese premier shows how incompetent the diplomatic skills of the Park Geun-hye government are.
“The address, which will come only after 70 years of Japan’s defeat, is a victory for Tokyo’s diplomacy,” said Kim Sung-soo, spokesman of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy. “This is in contrast with incompetence of the Park government.”
Hong Hyun-ik, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, said, “Abe’s address is the result of Japan’s lobbying power as well as the diplomatic inferiority of Korea sandwiched between the U.S. and China.”
Regarding the criticism, another ministry official argued that whether or not Abe addresses Congress cannot be used to judge a nation’s diplomatic skills.
Seoul is reportedly exchanging opinions with Washington about the address.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye