[ANALYSIS] Yoon-Kishida summit may 'raise ceiling' for trilateral cooperation with US: expert

President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee pose with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko during a dinner hosted by Kishida at a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo's Ginza, March 16. Reuters-Yonhap

In relations with Japan, Yoon advised to think a few steps ahead to avoid checkmate

By Kim Yoo-chul

During a speech on the sidelines of his participation at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF), President Yoon Suk Yeol highlighted the country's strengths in manufacturing, specifically of electric vehicle batteries and semiconductors.

Yoon hopes South Korea can leverage these advantages to become a "global pivotal state" and a crucial partner in supply chains worldwide, helping advance the progress of Seoul's version of the U.S.'s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Clearly, space for collaboration and cooperation is limited by the continued confrontation between the world's two largest economies ― the U.S. and China ― in the Indo-Pacific region regarding issues over the Taiwan Strait, North Korea's nuclear threats and the securitization of semiconductor technology.

Since he took power last year, President Yoon has been vocal about backing Washington's quite protectionist geoeconomic-centric trade initiatives, most of which are focused on countering China's growing role in global supply chains and cross-border investment. He has praised the CHIPS and Science Act and expressed interest in joining in the Chip 4 alliance, a strategic grouping aimed at securing semiconductor supply chains, offering subsidies and coordinating policies, with like-minded countries including Japan and Taiwan.

Because of the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, Washington's important East Asian allies are now finding their autonomy constrained when it comes to handling U.S.-related foreign affairs.

Unlike the previous Moon Jae-in administration, which had pursued "strategic ambiguity" as a means to carefully navigate between the U.S. and China, the incumbent Yoon administration is clearly moving toward "strategic clarity." President Yoon favors "extended deterrence" with more positioning of U.S. military assets closer to the Korean Peninsula as a way to deal with the evolving threats from North Korea.

And from Washington's standpoint, one major hurdle was cleared after President Yoon agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to resume regular visits to each other's countries, as well as ease trade and historical tensions, when the former unveiled his controversial plan to resolve the wartime forced labor issue.

According to the plan, South Korean victims of forced labor will be compensated through a foundation funded mostly by South Korean companies without direct contributions from the Japanese companies they toiled for during World War II. This idea is a major reversal from a 2018 ruling by Seoul's top court, which ruled that Japanese companies should compensate South Koreans who were forced to work in their factories.

Multiple polls have shown over 60 percent of South Korean citizens opposed Yoon's proposal, with many of them demanding that the Japanese companies must contribute to the foundation.

President Yoon Suk Yeol joins Japan Business Federation Chairman Masakazu Tokura, right, and Kim Byong-joon, acting chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, at a Japan-Korea business roundtable meeting in Tokyo, March 17. AP-Yonhap

"Bad Japan-South Korea relations do serve as a ceiling for what can be expected in trilateral cooperation (with the U.S.), so these actions are raising the ceiling higher," Scott A. Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the New York-headquartered Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told The Korea Times.

Conundrum?

Washington has been a facilitator, indirectly, in mending the soured Seoul-Tokyo ties, as the U.S. would prefer their relations be unfettered by historical tensions and able to advance mutual interests in keeping an open Indo-Pacific region.

Sarah E. Kreps, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, another influential think tank based in Washington, assessed that the Yoon-Kishida summit, the first such official state-level meeting in 12 years, was a meaningful signal of strength to help deter North Korean threats. However, she added President Yoon may face a conundrum ahead.

"There's a reason why international politics are often seen as a chess game. The moves are complicated and not thinking a few steps ahead can lead to checkmate. In this case, the South Korean president has a real conundrum," Kreps told the Times, separately.

"The history creates a complicated and salient backdrop to any detente because the Korean domestic audience is skeptical of warming relations with Japan. Further, the tight economic relationship between China and South Korea removes one of the potential upsides of closer relations with Japan, a tripartite relationship that the U.S. has seen as an obvious counterbalance to China," she observed.

Kreps, also a director of the Cornell Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, stressed there's an element of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" dynamic that is incentivizing a thaw between South Korea and Japan.

"These relationships are complicated but the last seems to be winning out for now," she responded. Regarding any visible deliverables for South Korea from Yoon's summit with Kishida, Kreps said, "Because South Korea-Japan relationships are so sensitive, the only deliverable may be the meeting itself."

But Snyder assessed that deliverables have been the unwinding of the negative spiral of Seoul-Tokyo relations and their restoration to the level of 2017, prior to the 2018 decline. "Yoon also sees a number of potential tangible benefits going forward ― a possible G7 invite, Kishida's reciprocal visit and the removal of Japan-related obstacles as Yoon prepares to visit the U.S. next month."

The CFR expert didn't expect President Yoon to face a conundrum, though he will have to contend with some messy domestic politics as a result of Japan's restrained response to South Korea's compromises.

"The risk here is that political polarization in South Korea makes progress with Japan potentially reversible under a different South Korean administration. It is in the best interest of all concerned to have a sustainable rather than a reversible solution to problems between Korea and Japan," Snyder said.

People gather in front of the Japanese prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, March 16, to protest the meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. Xinhua-Yonhap

The high-level contest between economic prosperity and security considerations in South Korea's strategic outlook was a key matter of concern even during the former Moon administration, after Seoul's relations with Beijing turned bad because of South Korea's decision to allow the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in the country.

But with semiconductor and battery technologies being strategic disruptors in the country's relations with both the U.S. and China, the emerging reality is expected to create difficulties for Seoul in continuing a policy of "strategic clarity." The reconciliatory mood between Seoul and Tokyo will be used as a booster to accelerate the process of Beijing becoming marginalized in the manufacturing of advanced chips.

As China is still dependent upon South Korea's help to improve its chip self-sufficiency rate, Beijing is highly sensitive about Seoul's position. Multiple research firms estimate that a complete decoupling from China in the global semiconductor supply chain could lead South Korea to lose up to 50 trillion won worth of investments.

Experts say it's necessary for South Korea to avoid an overly adversarial relationship with China, while also aligning more closely with the U.S. Kreps said Japan's decision to drop export controls with respect to South Korea will have the effect of isolating China on the issue of chip supply chains.

"South Korea continues to play a balancing act between the U.S. and China, leaning toward the former but seeking not to alienate the latter. But increasingly, because the U.S. takes steps to isolate China on everything from chips to TikTok, South Korea is having to take sides," Kreps at Brookings said.

"I do not expect Yoon to say much about China other than that improvements in relations with Japan are not aimed at China," Snyder said. "But an improved Japan-South Korea relationship does remove a pretext that China has historically utilized particularly under the (impeached) Park administration in efforts to create distance between South Korea and Japan."