Japan, South Korea take small steps to boost ties
TOKYO — Foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea held a rare meeting Sunday on the eve of the 50th anniversary of their countries normalizing relations marred by Japan’s colonization and Second World War conquest.
Yet, the ties between the most important U.S. allies in Asia are so low that the major outcomes of the talks were an agreement to keep discussing difficult historical issues and to work together to achieve a first meeting between their leaders.
As a small step, the two countries’ leaders will attend Monday’s ceremonies in their respective capitals, instead of just exchanging written statements as once anticipated.
Yun Byung-se’s visit Sunday was the first by a South Korean foreign minister since 2011.
Yun and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, shook hands but made no comment during the several minutes of media coverage at the outset of their highly sensitive talks.
The ministers then held talks for two hours before talking for another hour over Japanese tempura cuisine, which Japanese officials said was a good start. But Japanese officials were tight-lipped about whether any progress was made on Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women and other outstanding issues related to wartime history.
Yun is set to pay a courtesy visit to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday before attending anniversary events in Tokyo.
Kishida told reporters late Sunday the two ministers agreed to regularly meet and make efforts to have their leaders meet “at an appropriate time.” He also said the two sides agreed to co-operate to promote UNESCO World Heritage listings of each other’s sites.
Seoul has objected to Japanese industrial sites, criticizing Japan for neglecting their dark history of using Korean slave labourers.
Japanese officials said Monday’s appearance by both leaders at the ceremonies would be a significant step to show their intention to improve the relations.
Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye have yet to hold fully fledged bilateral talks since taking office in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Washington has been concerned about its allies’ strained relations.
“It’s a grave situation, and what’s more serious is that Japan’s diplomacy toward South Korea has turned harsher against the backdrop of public sentiment,” said Junya Nishino, a political science professor at Keio University.
They are rooted in Japan’s colonization of Korea, from 1910 to the end of the Second World War. The relations improved in the late 1990s, following Japanese apologies, cultural exchanges and a Korean pop culture boom in the 2000s, but nosedived a few years ago largely because of historical differences.
Many Koreans still remember Japan’s 35-year colonization as the era of brutality and humiliation, during which they were forced to use Japanese names and language while their pride, heritage and sense of identity were severely threatened.