'Abe is out of touch with international legal norms'

A poster with an image of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to denounce Japan's trade restrictions is seen on a street in Seoul, Oct. 24, 2019. AP-Yonhap

By Do Je-hae

Korea and Japan have been locked in a historical battle over 2018 Supreme Court rulings here which ordered Japanese firms to compensate Korean victims forced to work for them during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the peninsula. Due to Tokyo's rigid position, claiming that the ruling was a breach of international law, the two sides have not been able to engage in meaningful negotiations for a compromise. In June, Seoul proposed the so-called 1+1 plan to establish a joint fund by Korean and Japanese firms for the victims, which was rejected by Tokyo. Cheong Wa Dae has continued to stress that it will seek a resolution that is acceptable to the victims as well as the Korean public, but in reality, their voices have not been duly reflected in negotiations.

Alexis Dudden, professor of history at University of Connecticut, stressed that both parties need to listen to the victims while they are still alive in a recent written interview with The Korea Times. The historian specializing in modern Japan, modern Korea and international history, also noted that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's claim of a "breach of international law" against Korea shows that Japan is out of touch with current international legal norms. She also called on the U.S. to do more to mediate the conflict between the two neighboring countries.

Professor Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut Korea Times file

The following are edited questions and answers from a written interview with the historian, who led a movement among U.S. scholars in 2015 against Abe's historical revisionism. She is currently working on "The Opening and Closing of Japan, 1850-2020," about Japan's territorial disputes and the changing meaning of islands in international law.

Q) Abe has continued to claim that Korea is breaching international law by going against the 1965 treaty and the 2015 agreement on the so-called comfort women. Is there any truth to his claim?

A) Fundamentally, the Abe administration's contentions in this regard do nothing more than underscore how out of touch the Japanese government is with current international legal norms.

For several decades, human rights law has come to infuse international practice, and now a victim-centered approach to any agreement addressing historical injustice is common global practice. Japan is very much an outlier in this regard, and many Japanese lawyers recognize this and hold views different from their current administration. Forced labor and forged documents are now defined as “illegal” in international law and impel state responsibility. And, moreover, it is on this issue of state responsibility that the Japanese government is entirely out of step with regards to the 1965 and 2015 agreements.

Q) How do you feel about Japan's claim that the 1965 treaty took care of all claims related to the colonial era?

A) In my understanding as a historian who has studied countless documents leading up to the 1965 treaty ― documents in Japanese, Korean, and English ― the treaty was deeply problematic from the moment it was signed.

Once South Korea achieved more accountable levels of democratic rule in the 1990s everything began to change, and since 2000 individuals have been seeking compensation for their personal suffering under Japanese occupation. This is not unique to South Korea, and in this instance the German government has established a variety of ways to compensate individuals who suffered at the hands of Nazi rule ― and still is establishing new means as new claims emerge ― making the current government of Japan stand out in its insistence that the "past" is "taken care of." This is simply not how history evolves, and we will only continue to learn more about forced labor and slave labor at the hands of Japanese rule, the more the current government of Japan denies it bears any responsibility.

To say that a treaty between a now defunct South Korean government ― the dictatorship rule of President Park ― takes care of everything is narrow-minded. That the Japanese government is claiming the 1965 treaty settled everything denies that South Korean society has radically transformed ― let alone that North Koreans will also want compensation for their suffering, too. To say nothing of Chinese forced and slave labor as well.

Listening to victims

Q) In June, the Korean government proposed the so-called 1+1 plan (a joint voluntary fund by Japanese and Korean firms) to Tokyo to narrow their differences on the Korean Supreme Court ruling. Is there a proposal regarding the implementation of the forced labor ruling that can appease the Japanese and satisfy the Korean public at the same time?

A) To be honest, more important than appeasing and satisfying the Japanese and Korean publics, everyone needs to listen to the victims while they are still alive. There may never be able to be a true resolution to these issues. Like some victims of South Africa's notorious apartheid system, some may want to stay angry and never forgive. Their voices need to be part of history. If a fund that is shared between the Japanese government and South Korean companies whose origins rest with the era of Japanese occupation satisfy some survivors and victims' families, then that is part of a solution. With all these issue, only broader education can truly help by making clear that these peoples' lives mattered. In other words ― and similar to victims of state-sponsored atrocities around the world ― those who suffered want their suffering to be dignified through inclusion in the historical record not erasure in an agreement that declares matters “settled.”

Q) How do you feel about South Korean President Moon Jae-in's response to the trade row so far?

A) Fundamentally, I think that President Moon is doing the only thing he can do in terms of respecting the South Korean court's decision and also in coping with the truly unfortunate position that the Japanese government has taken, which is ― yet again from Tokyo ― akin to blaming the victim for the crime.

The cases involving Korean forced labor have been working their way through South Korea's courts for nearly 20 years and are part of a long-standing truth and reconciliation process. Some cases are also in American courts, and we have yet to see how they play out. There are so few survivors alive, and the money the courts has awarded would be easy for mega-corporations such as Mitsubishi to pay. Like the related issues involving survivors of Japan's system of sexual slavery, these are issues that would be straightforward for the Japanese government and business community to lead on rather than to dismiss outright.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the ruling party in Japan would steer Japanese society in a different direction, which harms not only regional relations but ultimately Japanese society as well by urging it to turn further inward. To me, this is most disturbing as the region benefits from an open Japan, not one that isolates itself.

Q) If a Moon-Abe summit were to be held, what should they say to each other to at least stop making things worse?

A) If I were allowed to arrange the meeting, I would invite survivors to tell both leaders what they want. Yet this is not going to happen. The important thing for the leaders to do at this point is to shake hands and acknowledge that Japan and South Korea have become very different places from what existed under Japanese rule and also in 1965. As such, both leaders should acknowledge that there is work to do for both societies to have an empathetic understanding of one another. This is also unlikely to happen, yet if both leaders persist with their rigid positions I'm afraid that there won't be much change in the ongoing politics of blame and recrimination.

Q) Despite continuous problems in bilateral relations since the 1965 normalization treaty, there has been a principle that separated politics and economics so far that has been applied to bilateral relations. Why do you think the Abe administration is going against this tradition by slapping trade restrictions on Korea in retaliation for its top court's rulings on wartime history?

A) It is difficult fully to guess at the motivations of the Abe administration's economic restrictions on these several export items to South Korea. Although the Abe team still maintains “security concerns” as its rationale, there is zero evidence of these goods being mishandled as the Japanese government maintains, and we know that this decision has harmed the Japanese companies involved.

Prime Minister Abe so emulates American President Donald Trump that he thought he could try to do something similar to Trump's sanctions against China with South Korea. Ultimately, both these policies (the America and the Japanese) turn reasonable relations into counter-productive diplomatic blow-ups, which always run opposite to economic benefit and reveal other intentions. For Abe, it's clear: playing the “untrustworthy Korea” card is the easiest means with which to generate domestic support.

Washington's mediation

Q) Do you think Korea should reverse its decision on terminating the military intelligence-sharing pact called the GSOMIA, considering the opposition from both Washington and Tokyo?

A) In July, the government of Japan fabricated its claim that South Korea could not be trusted for security reasons and imposed economic restrictions. Both governments fanned mutually constitutive and oppositional nationalist fires, while Washington made tepid interventions enjoining the countries to work together.

Ultimately Seoul decided it was a no-win situation, and announced its intention to ditch the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). Important for the record, Seoul's termination has still technically not gone into effect, placing the ball in Japan's court. If the Japanese government were to announce that it is satisfied with South Korea's security measures and that it regards South Korea as a “trustworthy” nation, then it would be in Seoul's interests to work with this effort.

It would help matters enormously for Washington to use its leverage with Tokyo to encourage the Japanese government to desist in labeling South Korea “untrustworthy” and a “security threat” to Japan. These claims are simply not borne out in reality yet have outsize political weight in Japanese domestic politics, and Washington could do more on this front.