Solving the Japan-South Korea Relations Tangle
New administrations in both countries seem inclined to try
By: Myong Woo Lee
With the inauguration of President Yoon Seok-Yeol, South Korea’s relations with Japan, which many considered to be at their worst state ever, are showing the possibility of improvement. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Tokyo on July 26 as the two countries seek progress in resolving long-festering issues. But while the meeting was seen as a positive sign, the two assiduously avoided concrete discussion about wartime labor and other contentious issues during their brief 20-minute meeting.
Prospects for bilateral relations under the new Yoon administration are divided into optimistic and pessimistic camps two months into the new administration’s tenure. Optimists believe relations will improve thanks to Yoon's willingness to improve them and that his leadership will be effective, while pessimists are more cautious, believing that the ongoing conflict was not caused by only one or two factors, but by a wide variety of complex issues, making it difficult to improve the relationship.
Rapport between the two biggest economies in north Asia is crucial for a variety of reasons, not least because of the need to present a united front against a newly belligerent China as well as to keep a rein on North Korea, whose government openly menaces both of them. Although both are main allies of the United States in East Asia, they have been at loggerheads over territorial claims of islets between the two countries, claims over WWII treatment of women and a long list of other issues…