By Choi Sung-jin
On Monday morning, I watched the nationally televised ceremony celebrating the 102nd anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement.
Maybe it was partly because of COVID-19 and unseasonably heavy rainfall and because no interesting movies or dramas remained for me on Netflix. Anyway, I watched the ceremony almost from start to end, for the first time in my life. I was also a little curious what President Moon Jae-in would say to Japan in his address to mend the worst bilateral relations in decades.
As expected, President Moon emphasized the need not to get bogged down by the unfortunate past but to look forward while reiterating Seoul's readiness to resume dialogue with Tokyo anytime. Equally expectedly, he fell short of making concrete proposals or diplomatic concessions to do this.
It was understandable, given the Japanese government's unrelenting pressure on Korea to back off over the comfort woman and forced labor issues. For Moon to go any further would appear to be waving the white flag diplomatically.
Incomprehensible were responses from right-wing media outlets here. The trio of mainstream conservative dailies ― Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A, or ChoJoongDong ― criticized President Moon for paying only lip service but failing to come up with action plans. In an editorial, the Chosun Ilbo rebuked Moon and his administration for taking a hardline stance against Japan over the past four years but turning around to appeasement in its final year only because the occupant of the White House has changed to one who stresses the importance of friendly ties between Korea and Japan.
A columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo lambasted the Korean leader for "pretending to be close to his Japanese counterpart" by saying, "I'm pleased to meet you, Prime Minister Suga," at an international conference in November. The writer then wrote, "The current words and acts of President Moon and his aides regarding Japan are quite unpleasant to the eye because the changes were not the result of their belated recognition of Japan's importance but were political tactics aimed at using the Tokyo Olympics to improve inter-Korean relations." Readers might have thought they were reading the Yomiuri or Sankei Shimbun.
Few gurus of international politics deny President Joe Biden's election has prompted Seoul's change of policy toward Tokyo. Unlike his predecessor, Biden is an experienced diplomatic hand who knows the U.S. strategic interests in this part of the world would suffer severe damage if Seoul and Tokyo remain estranged from each other for long. And the new U.S. president ― and almost all of his predecessors for that matter ― is closer to Japan than Korea, for strategic and historical reasons no matter what they say "diplomatically." Like it or not, Korea has few other choices but to compromise with Japan if the nation is to keep Washington by its side.
And that has been so for more than a century. The organizers of Monday's event introduced something new by having the Declaration of Independence read in five languages ― Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. Reading the English part was Jennifer Taylor, the granddaughter of Albert Taylor, an AP correspondent who played a pivotal role in letting the world know what was happening in the Land of Morning Calm. What was the response of the U.S. government to these reports, then? It was little short of a disparagement. In a statement issued on March 14, 1919, the U.S. State Department downplayed the movement as a "riot started by Koreans to demand the freedom of speech and address other complaints."
For those with just a sparse knowledge of modern history, finding the reason is not hard, either. As early as the late 19th century, the U.S. decided to recognize Japan's occupation of Korea to counter the influence of the two continental powers of China and Russia on this peninsula and Northeast Asia. Stipulating that was the Taft-Katsura Agreement in July 1905, which came four months before Japan annexed Korea. America's siding with Japan over Korea continued through the post-WWII talks in San Francisco in 1945, which excluded Dokdo from the Korean territory to be recovered, providing room for dispute between Seoul and Tokyo.
More recently, the Basic Agreement in 1965, hurriedly progressed at the behest of Washington to contain the southern advances of two Communist giants, also created causes for future conflicts between the former colony and its colonizer, including the individuals' rights for compensation aside from that on the governmental level. Even more recently, the 2015 agreement on comfort women was also the work of the then Barack Obama administration to reconcile Seoul and Tokyo to form a joint front against an increasingly assertive China.
No one else but the then Vice President Biden orchestrated the accord, which was so unsatisfactory for most Koreans, not to speak of comfort women themselves, that Moon had to scrap it upon taking office. Biden reportedly was satisfied with his work and recalled his role in the process, saying, "I was like a divorce counselor restoring a couple's marital relations."
It's no small surprise then that the Moon administration hurriedly revised its tactics toward Japan, with Biden calling for the mending of bilateral ties. Suppose Biden has to take up the role again. In that case, most Koreans will be hoping he will stand closer to the side of the injured rather than the injurer, at least in matters of human rights and historical justice, especially if the U.S. wants a genuine trilateral alliance instead of a superficial and fragile one that might fall through at a critical moment.
As an old Korean saying goes, the one who tied the knot ought to untie it.
Choi Sung-jin (choisj1955@naver.com) is a Korea Times columnist.
 |
Maybe it was partly because of COVID-19 and unseasonably heavy rainfall and because no interesting movies or dramas remained for me on Netflix. Anyway, I watched the ceremony almost from start to end, for the first time in my life. I was also a little curious what President Moon Jae-in would say to Japan in his address to mend the worst bilateral relations in decades.
As expected, President Moon emphasized the need not to get bogged down by the unfortunate past but to look forward while reiterating Seoul's readiness to resume dialogue with Tokyo anytime. Equally expectedly, he fell short of making concrete proposals or diplomatic concessions to do this.
It was understandable, given the Japanese government's unrelenting pressure on Korea to back off over the comfort woman and forced labor issues. For Moon to go any further would appear to be waving the white flag diplomatically.
Incomprehensible were responses from right-wing media outlets here. The trio of mainstream conservative dailies ― Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A, or ChoJoongDong ― criticized President Moon for paying only lip service but failing to come up with action plans. In an editorial, the Chosun Ilbo rebuked Moon and his administration for taking a hardline stance against Japan over the past four years but turning around to appeasement in its final year only because the occupant of the White House has changed to one who stresses the importance of friendly ties between Korea and Japan.
A columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo lambasted the Korean leader for "pretending to be close to his Japanese counterpart" by saying, "I'm pleased to meet you, Prime Minister Suga," at an international conference in November. The writer then wrote, "The current words and acts of President Moon and his aides regarding Japan are quite unpleasant to the eye because the changes were not the result of their belated recognition of Japan's importance but were political tactics aimed at using the Tokyo Olympics to improve inter-Korean relations." Readers might have thought they were reading the Yomiuri or Sankei Shimbun.
Few gurus of international politics deny President Joe Biden's election has prompted Seoul's change of policy toward Tokyo. Unlike his predecessor, Biden is an experienced diplomatic hand who knows the U.S. strategic interests in this part of the world would suffer severe damage if Seoul and Tokyo remain estranged from each other for long. And the new U.S. president ― and almost all of his predecessors for that matter ― is closer to Japan than Korea, for strategic and historical reasons no matter what they say "diplomatically." Like it or not, Korea has few other choices but to compromise with Japan if the nation is to keep Washington by its side.
And that has been so for more than a century. The organizers of Monday's event introduced something new by having the Declaration of Independence read in five languages ― Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. Reading the English part was Jennifer Taylor, the granddaughter of Albert Taylor, an AP correspondent who played a pivotal role in letting the world know what was happening in the Land of Morning Calm. What was the response of the U.S. government to these reports, then? It was little short of a disparagement. In a statement issued on March 14, 1919, the U.S. State Department downplayed the movement as a "riot started by Koreans to demand the freedom of speech and address other complaints."
For those with just a sparse knowledge of modern history, finding the reason is not hard, either. As early as the late 19th century, the U.S. decided to recognize Japan's occupation of Korea to counter the influence of the two continental powers of China and Russia on this peninsula and Northeast Asia. Stipulating that was the Taft-Katsura Agreement in July 1905, which came four months before Japan annexed Korea. America's siding with Japan over Korea continued through the post-WWII talks in San Francisco in 1945, which excluded Dokdo from the Korean territory to be recovered, providing room for dispute between Seoul and Tokyo.
More recently, the Basic Agreement in 1965, hurriedly progressed at the behest of Washington to contain the southern advances of two Communist giants, also created causes for future conflicts between the former colony and its colonizer, including the individuals' rights for compensation aside from that on the governmental level. Even more recently, the 2015 agreement on comfort women was also the work of the then Barack Obama administration to reconcile Seoul and Tokyo to form a joint front against an increasingly assertive China.
No one else but the then Vice President Biden orchestrated the accord, which was so unsatisfactory for most Koreans, not to speak of comfort women themselves, that Moon had to scrap it upon taking office. Biden reportedly was satisfied with his work and recalled his role in the process, saying, "I was like a divorce counselor restoring a couple's marital relations."
It's no small surprise then that the Moon administration hurriedly revised its tactics toward Japan, with Biden calling for the mending of bilateral ties. Suppose Biden has to take up the role again. In that case, most Koreans will be hoping he will stand closer to the side of the injured rather than the injurer, at least in matters of human rights and historical justice, especially if the U.S. wants a genuine trilateral alliance instead of a superficial and fragile one that might fall through at a critical moment.
As an old Korean saying goes, the one who tied the knot ought to untie it.
Choi Sung-jin (choisj1955@naver.com) is a Korea Times columnist.
![[INTERVIEW] German professor hopes to boost appreciation for Korean traditional music](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/bfd15b77cdda4f549455b97d6ce4863c.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
