The Japanese government has been warned that if it does not take measures corresponding to the South Korean government's solution for compensating forced labor victims ahead of President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to Japan on the 16th and 17th, South Korea's efforts to improve relations could be thwarted.
Scott Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), stated in a blog post on the 15th (local time) that President Yoon's third-party compensation solution was praised by the U.S. Biden administration as a bold political maneuver to normalize relations with Japan.
He said, "According to a Gallup Korea survey, 59% of South Koreans opposed President Yoon's unilateral goodwill gesture," adding, "This suggests that if Japan does not respond when President Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meet in Tokyo this week, the political skill demonstrated by President Yoon risks failure."
Senior Fellow Snyder mentioned that the Yoon administration applied lessons learned from the 2015 South Korea-Japan comfort women agreement in the process of devising a forced labor compensation solution, engaging in consultations with victims and stakeholders, and conveyed to the Japanese government that a fund involving only the Korean side cannot be a sufficient solution. However, he assessed that the Japanese government seems to have drawn different lessons from that agreement.
He pointed out that Prime Minister Kishida, who has low approval ratings, finds it politically burdensome to express support or take political action to aid the South Korean government's efforts to improve South Korea-Japan relations. Accordingly, Japan is approaching South Korea-Japan relations from a strict legal perspective. Senior Fellow Snyder also criticized that while this stance may be politically safe within Japan, it could fuel political conflicts within South Korea and make it difficult to separate domestic politics from South Korea-Japan relations.
Furthermore, Senior Fellow Snyder emphasized that both President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida recognize the need for closer cooperation between South Korea and Japan amid worsening geopolitical conditions, and that the necessity to stabilize bilateral relations is greater than ever. He argued that only if both President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida demonstrate the political skill to establish a lasting agreement that protects South Korea-Japan relations from domestic political influences will efforts to improve bilateral relations endure and not be overturned in the future.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
