President Yoon's bold diplomacy for the future

By Yun Byung-se

President Yoon Suk Yeol has just completed his milestone visit to Japan. Fierce debates are underway about the resulting balance sheet. Each has its own yardstick. I asked my imaginary ChatGPT about the key themes: 12 years, normalization, future cooperation, new era/chapter, past history and mutual trust were some words that popped up on my screen.

Believe it or not, it is the first time in 12 years that a South Korean President crossed the Korea Strait to have a summit with his Japanese counterpart. Some pundits used to call this period, particularly the last five years "a lost era" in Seoul-Tokyo relations to highlight the abnormal absence of summitry between the closest neighbors.

December 2011 marked the beginning of the breakdown. In Kyoto, then President Lee Myung-bak and then Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko had an intensive yet fruitless exchange on the comfort women issue. It was only four months after the Korean Constitutional Court's landmark decision on that issue.

This decision was followed the next year in 2012 by another tectonic Korean Supreme Court ruling on the forced work issue during the Japanese colonial era. The ruling was finally endorsed by the Supreme Court's full panel in 2018 but triggered a diplomatic earthquake in post-1965 Korea-Japan relations.

To make matters worse, in the course of 2017 and 2018 the preceding Korean government virtually killed the agreement between Seoul and Tokyo on comfort women issues formally announced in 2015 after four years of tough negotiations to follow up on the above 2011 court decision.

More than anything else, the follow-up process of the 2018 Supreme Court decision for monetization to compensate wartime forced labor victims turned into a nuclear time bomb that could explode the backbone of bilateral relations anytime. The Korea-Japan relations plummeted to the worst ever since the historic normalization in 1965.

What has happened since 2018 is too familiar to us. It was a de facto Cold War of "eye for eye, and tooth for tooth," routinized on several fronts ― political, diplomatic, economic and military, etc. Strategic and personal trust between the two sides was totally lost, with anti-Japanese and anti-Korean sentiment rising to critical levels but left unattended by both governments. It quickly turned into a five-year-long unprecedented frozen relationship or retrogression.

Even by the standards of progressive governments in Korea, such a situation was unusual. Particularly, it was a far cry from the approach of President Kim Dae-jung who in 1998 boldly offered an olive branch to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. Their leadership and statesmanship produced a historic joint declaration on the future-oriented ties in late 1998 titled "A New ROK-Japan Partnership towards the 21st Century." Prime Minister Obuchi expressed his "deep remorse and heartfelt apology" for the pains caused by Japan's colonial rule and President Kim reciprocated by stating that "the present calls upon both countries to overcome their unfortunate history and to build a future-oriented relationship based on reconciliation."

It was a bilateral initiative to roll back deteriorating relations by institutionalizing a framework for cooperation between the two countries on past history, North Korea, regional cooperation, and human security in a post-Cold War world.

As for President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida, both took office in an extremely adverse policy environment ― worst-ever bilateral relationship inherited from their predecessors, existential nuclear threat from North Korea, ever-growing U.S.-China strategic competition, the Ukraine war and global energy crisis as well as rising protectionism, not to mention divisive political landscape at home, to name just a few.

Against this background, it is no wonder that since the days of his candidacy, President Yoon chose to benchmark the 1998 Joint Declaration. Once in office, President Yoon made consistent efforts to tackle the deadlock head-on.

The Yoon government's March 6 formula to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor through a government-affiliated fund was the product of eight months-long intense efforts to cut the Gordian knot. Also, President Yoon's visit to Tokyo last week seems to be an expression of his strong resolve to translate his commitment into action. On both fronts, he had to bear the brunt of the opposition's criticism.

He probably knew a Tokyo visit at this stage could risk his approval ratings. Like Nixon going to China in 1972, with the Cold War at full boil, it was an act of extraordinary daring by a Korean President.

Last week, President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida made a crucial breakthrough in the deadlocked relationship and laid good ground for future-oriented cooperation in this year of the 25th anniversary of Kim-Obuchi Joint Declaration. They removed several stumbling blocks either simultaneously or by Korea's bold first move, showing their "potential of resilience." It is an important first step not only for normalizing the bilateral relationship but also for strengthening trilateral cooperation involving the U.S. which is keen to closer coordination of the linchpin (Korea-U.S. alliance) and the cornerstone (U.S.-Japan alliance).

The task ahead is to carry this positive momentum forward and build more trust between the two sides through specific follow-up actions. Resuscitated shuttle diplomacy between the leaders and diverse channels of strategic, economic, military and cultural cooperation should fill up the vacuum left by the prolonged confrontation and further serve to expand new windows of opportunities in bilateral, regional and global agendas. Prime Minister Kishida's reciprocal visit to Seoul will be another landmark in the reconciliation process.

Nevertheless, caution is in order, because the current state of affairs is not solid yet and the road ahead is expected to be bumpy, particularly due to Korea's domestic division on compensation formula and several intractable issues between Seoul and Tokyo that always require wisdom and finesse. If either side is tempted to score domestic political points, the barely regained momentum could be weakened. Neither side should be "penny-wise, but pound-foolish."

We already have several lessons from recent history. The historic 1998 Joint Declaration did not last long, due to the Japanese textbook dispute and other problems. In July 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's special envoy solemnly told the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) that "a large number of Koreans (and others) were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions (in Japan's Hashima Island)." This irreversible statement is contained in relevant official decisions of the WHC. While those decisions still remain to be fully implemented, another heritage issue is emerging as a new source of tension.

Thus, bold diplomacy should be reciprocated in good faith in the coming weeks and months in government, business and political sectors.

In that regard, Ambassador Hisashi Owada, former vice foreign minister and father of the current Japanese empress struck the chord of many people in both countries. He is reported to have told the annual Korea-Japan Forum last year that we need to understand human aspects of Korea-Japan relations in dealing with past historical issues, going beyond legalistic ones.

For his part, President Yoon also told the domestic and international audience on several recent occasions that Japan is our close partner for the future. As the saying goes, "Those who adhere to the past won't be able to cope with the future." Likewise, "Those who forget the past, cannot see the future." It is incumbent upon both of us in Korea and Japan to set out on a new and long journey at this historical inflection point, learning lessons from history. It takes two to tango.

Yun Byung-se, a former foreign minister of South Korea (2013-2017), is now a board member of the Korea Peace Foundation and a member of several ex-global leaders' forums and task forces, including the Astana Forum and its Consultative Council as well as the Task Force on U.S. Allies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This column does not necessarily reflect the views of The Korea Times.