Korea-Japan
relationship suffers sudden slump Aug. 12,
By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldm.com)
The relationship
between South Korea and Japan has suffered its biggest setback in recent memory
after President Lee Myung-bak made an unprecedented visit to Dokdo on Friday in
a symbolic response to Tokyo’s growing claims to the islets.
Despite the repeated
calls for more efforts to resolve the issue of Korean women forced into sexual
slavery during World War II, Japan still argues that all such issues were
settled under a 1965 bilateral compensation deal.
Seoul has maintained
that the issue is a humanitarian issue, and thus was separate from the deal
signed when the two countries normalized their diplomatic relations.
The normalization deal
came as the South was in dire need of economic assistance from outside to spur
its development while Japan needed to mend fences with neighboring countries to
enhance its post-war status.
Hurting bilateral ties
even further, Japan has continued its territorial claim in its official
diplomatic and defense documents, and school textbooks, and even called on
Seoul to remove its description of the islets in Seoul’s diplomatic whitepaper
as Korean territory.
Japanese Foreign
Minister Koichiro Gemba said that his government would consider referring the
case to the International Court of Justice, a move Seoul dismissed as part of
Tokyo’s strategy to make the issue an international dispute.
Experts say that Japan
will continue to maintain a hard-line stance on territorial issues as China and
Russia will be watching its moves on Dokdo. Japan is mired in sovereignty
disputes over the Senkaku Islands with China and Kuril Islands
with Russia.
“China may carefully
watch the developments of the Dokdo case … whether Japan will be stuck in a
deadlock with South Korea or make some smart moves over the case,” said Chun
In-young, professor emeritus at Seoul National University.
Despite its
constitutional ban on war-related activities, the Japanese prime ministerial
panel has claimed the need to recognize Japan’s right for collective
self-defense ― the use of force to respond to an attack on an ally, namely the
U.S.
In June, Japan’s
legislature passed the first revision in 34 years to the Atomic Energy Basic
Act including “national security” among its goals, paving the way for the
archipelago state’s nuclear armament.
As tension with Japan
spikes, experts cast doubt over whether President Lee’s visit was strategically
appropriate and timely. Some argue that with a flurry of international media
reports over the visit, Dokdo has now been recognized as a disputed area.
“His visit to Dokdo
apparently caused concerns for Washington, which has sought to strengthen its
alliances with its key Asian allies amid a strategic pivot toward the region.
Any cracks in the Korea-Japan relationship would cause a problem for America’s
diplomatic strategy,” said Chun of SNU. Chun
In-young, professor emeritus at Seoul National University.
