The Forces Behind South Korea’s and Japan’s Thaw

For years, the forces driving South Korea and Japan, which share a bitter history, have seemed too strong to overcome despite repeated efforts and pressure from their ally, the United States.

South Koreans say that Japan has never apologized or atoned for its colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. For Japan, South Korea has often been an unreliable neighbor that has broken several promises, including treaty agreements designed to save history. wound.

But the arrival of two new administrations in neighboring countries – President Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Japan – has led to a rapid thawing of relations.

In March, the two countries began taking steps to resolve their long-standing dispute over forced labor during the war. In April, South Korea restored Japan’s status as a preferred trading partner, prompting Tokyo to begin the process of restoring the same status to South Korea. And Mr. Yoon drew attention in his country after declaring that Japan should no longer “bow down to our history of the past 100 years.”

Now, Mr. Kishida is making a personal visit to South Korea, in a meeting that is being watched closely for signs of new progress. Here are some of the global powers involved.

Tensions with China and Russia

Tokyo and Seoul are moving to align themselves more closely with Washington as China promotes an alternative vision of a world in which the United States has less power, and as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises alarms about a new era of militarization.

Both countries support the Biden administration’s “free and open” Indo-Pacific vision, attending a NATO summit last summer where leaders condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and expressed concern about China’s threat to undermine the rules-based international order.

Both countries have realized that the rapidly changing geopolitical environment creates challenges that they cannot handle alone. Joint maneuvers by Chinese and Russian military aircraft near South Korean and Japanese airspace in recent years helped drive that message home.

Mr. Kishida now calls South Korea an “important neighbor to work with.” And Mr. Yoon has urged South Koreans not to view Japan as a “militaristic aggressor of the past” but as a “partner who shares the same universal values.”

The trilateral relationship with South Korea and Japan “is central to our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, so I, along with other senior Department colleagues, have invested a lot of time and focus in this critical partnership,” the Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in March.

North Korea’s nuclear arsenal

North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats are an incentive for Seoul and Tokyo to recognize the strategic value of building trilateral cooperation with the United States. In recent months, North Korea has not only fired missiles at Japan, but also threatened a nuclear attack on South Korea.

South Korea has never formally allied with Japan and refuses to cooperate militarily with the country beyond humanitarian search and rescue missions on the high seas. But now they are developing military cooperation, mainly because of North Korea.

When the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea met in Phnom Penh, Cambodia last November, they agreed to share real-time North Korean missile warning data. The three countries have also stepped up trilateral missile defense and other military exercises in recent months.

One of the steps Seoul took to mend relations with Tokyo in March was to formally reinstate a bilateral military intelligence agreement that helps the two neighbors guard against North Korean missiles. announced plans to terminate the agreement.

Vulnerable global supply chains

In the same year, 2019, Japan imposed a ban on the export of chemicals vital to South Korea’s semiconductor industry. Seoul filed a complaint against Tokyo with the World Trade Organization. Both countries removed each other from the so-called white list of preferred trading partners.

Recently, however, Tokyo and Seoul agreed to lift those export controls, and Seoul withdrew its WTO complaint. Seoul and Tokyo also agreed to start an “economic security dialogue” to discuss cooperation in key technologies and supply chains. Yoon’s government recently expressed hope to attract Japanese companies to a $228 billion semiconductor complex it plans to build in South Korea near Seoul by 2042.

South Korea is the world’s leading producer of memory chips, and Japan supplies the tools and materials essential to making the chips. Last year, Washington proposed a so-called Chip 4 Alliance with two allies and Taiwan to keep China in the contest for the global semiconductor supply chain.

Growing fear about Taiwan

Seoul, Tokyo and Washington share a strong common interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Security analysts fear that China could try to invade Taiwan, similar to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. If that happens, some experts warn that North Korea could seize the opportunity to start a war on the Korean Peninsula and realize its own territorial ambitions.

The move would open up two simultaneous battlefields for the American military in the region.

“If a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, the United States will demand various kinds of cooperation from its allies and partner countries,” Kim Han-kwon, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, wrote in a paper in February. . “It sees bilateral alliances with South Korea and Japan, in particular, as key regional strategic assets in relation to the Taiwan Strait.”

Japan and South Korea have been able to develop economically because of the security provided by the United States by maintaining a large military presence in both countries. Now, the United States wants all its allies to play a bigger role in regional defense.

In addition to South Korea and Japan, Washington has recently strengthened military ties with Australia, India and the Philippines to balance China’s influence in the region and increase its ability to defend Taiwan.