Japan, South Korea seek to mend ties

TOKYO — The leaders of Japan and South Korea are set to hold their first formal meeting in 15 months, a bid by the U.S. allies to ease a longstanding historical dispute that has hurt trade and hindered cooperation on dealing with North Korea.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in were set to hold talks on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with China’s Premier Li Keqiang in the mainland city of Chengdu on Tuesday. The event comes as Pyongyang signals it may fire a long-range missile as nuclear talks with the Trump administration stall ahead of a year-end deadline for progress set by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Ties between Japan and South Korea have plunged to new depths over the past year, in a series of disputes rooted in disagreements over whether Japan has shown sufficient contrition for its 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

While prospects for any breakthrough are slim, the fact that Abe and Moon are talking is seen as a positive sign that could make it easier for them to bridge differences on simmering disputes that include Japan’s export curbs on goods vital to South Korea’s massive technology sector.

“They have come to the point of holding a summit without having patched up their differences,” said Makoto Abe, who researches South Korean industry at the Institute of Developing Economies near Tokyo. While both sides realize the importance of the overall relationship, “it’s going to be difficult to resolve them all at once,” he added.

The standoff has damaged trade and tourism ties, with the number of South Koreans visiting Japan in November falling by almost twothirds on the previous year, while Japan’s beer exports to its neighbor collapsed to virtually zero in October.

Under pressure from the U.S., however, South Korea last month suspended its plan to withdraw from a military information-sharing pact with Japan. Since then, there have been hints of a potential thaw in ties.

After the two countries’ trade officials met last week, Japan was reported to have relaxed some of the stricter export controls it had placed on goods sold to South Korea.