'S. Korea never sought US mediation'

Kim Hyun-chong, center, deputy chief of the presidential National Security Office, responds to questions by a group of South Korean reporters before his return to Seoul after meetings with high-profile Washington officials to discuss the trade friction between South Korea and Japan, July 14. Yonhap

By Kim Yoo-chul

South Korea didn't ask the United States to mediate the ongoing bitter diplomatic conflicts with Japan, a senior presidential aide said Monday, though he added Washington “sufficiently understood the seriousness of the trade friction as it was getting worse.”

“The key purpose of my trip last month to Washington, D.C., wasn't aimed at getting Washington's support in resolving the trade friction between South Korea and Japan. If Washington steps in, then the bills would be forwarded to the South Korean government. Why would I ask for U.S. intervention?” Kim Hyun-chong, deputy chief of Cheong Wa Dae's National Security Office, said in a local radio interview.

The presidential aide said he met 15 U.S. politicians including members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the White House. “I've just used my meetings with them as a chance to appeal South Korea's position on the trade dispute with Japan and why Japan's decision to remove South Korea from its list of trusted trading partners is against fair trade rules and discriminatory,” he said.

“South Korea fully respects the order of the three fundamental pillars of democracy; therefore, Seoul doesn't want to rewrite the 1965 pact to settle property claims mostly stemming from wartime grievances. We respect the agreement, but the point is South Korea's top court ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to individual wartime laborers over the unethical treatment they suffered. I reminded Washington officials that the South Korean court ruling should also be respected,” he said.

The Japanese government claims the court ruling by Seoul broke the 1965 treaty normalizing diplomatic relations and an accompanying agreement that settled compensation “completely, fully and finally.”

Citing an 1882 treaty to establish official relations between Korea and the United States, the presidential aide Kim stressed the agreement was “another reason” why he didn't ask for Washington's help in the row.

When the 1882 treaty was signed, Korea was one unified country on the Korean Peninsula bordering China and Russia. Unfortunately, however, the treaty failed to help defend a weakened Korea against Japanese territorial ambition. And the peninsula had been ruled by imperial Japanese between 1910 and 1945. The 1882 treaty was viewed by most Koreans as “unfair.”

“The 1882 treaty included a clause requiring the United States to 'step in' in disputes, if any, between South Korea and Japan, but then U.S. President Roosevelt said because Korea was weaker than Japan on multiple fronts, there was no need for the United States to intervene in any disputes between the neighboring countries. The 1882 treaty led to the Taft-Katsura agreement,” Kim said.

The Taft-Katsura agreement reached between the United States and Japan back in 1905 amounted to a “secret treaty” that left the door wide open to Japanese imperialism in East Asian affairs including China, Korea, the Philippines and even countries in the Southeast Asia.

Seoul and Tokyo are key Washington allies that host a total of about 80,000 U.S. troops. But the Asian neighbors have become embroiled in diplomatic fights after Japan tightened controls on high-tech exports to South Korea.

“Because an intervention is a process by which one party intervenes in the progress of a given situation with showing its backing to its preferred party, if Washington intervenes in the trade row, then the bills have to come in. In the past, we sought U.S. mediation and intervention, but the results weren't satisfactory,” according to the presidential aide.