South Korean and Japanese leaders will meet in Tokyo this week, hoping to resume regular visits after a gap of over a decade and overcome resentments that date back more than 100 years. The two major Asian economies and United States allies face increasing need to cooperate on challenges posed by China and North Korea, but previous rounds of diplomacy have foundered on unresolved issues from Japan’s 35-year occupation of the Korean Peninsula.  Seoul has offered Tokyo concessions on South Korean court orders for compensation over wartime forced labor, but it remains to be seen whether the South Korean public will accept reconciliation. The AP explains what’s kept the two neighbors apart, what they’re expected to talk about, and why it matters for the region.

Japan effectively colonized the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945, in a regime that imposed Japanese names and language on Koreans and conscripted many into forced labour before and during World War II. Japan gave $800 million to South Korea’s military-backed government under a 1965 accord to normalise relations, which were mainly used on economic development projects driven by major South Korean companies. A semi-government fund set up by Tokyo offered compensation to former “comfort women” when the government apologized in 1995, but many South Koreans believe that the Japanese government must take more direct responsibility for the occupation.

The two sides also have a longstanding territorial dispute over a group of islands controlled by South Korea but claimed by Japan. Seoul and Tokyo have attempted to establish better ties before. In 2004, leaders began regular visits, but these ended in 2012 after then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited the disputed islands. Tensions escalated over the past 10 years as conservative Japanese governments moved to rearm the country while stepping up attempts to whitewash Japan’s wartime atrocities, and in 2018 South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japan’s Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate forced labor victims. In 2019, Japan, in apparent retaliation, placed export controls against South Korea on chemicals used to make semiconductors and displays used in smartphones and other high-tech devices.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are to hold a summit and have dinner together during Yoon’s March 16-17 visit. Though leaders have met in multilateral settings, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York in September, this is the first formal bilateral summit since a meeting in Seoul in 2015.  Kishida is expected to reaffirm Japan’s past expressions of remorse over its wartime actions.  Both sides have signaled hopes that this summit will lead to a resumption of regular bilateral visits, although Kishida hasn’t yet announced plans for a visit to South Korea. Tokyo is also considering an invitation to Yoon to return to Japan as an observer at the Group of Seven summit Kishida will host in Hiroshima in May.

Yoon will be accompanied by high-profile business leaders who are expected to meet their Japanese counterparts. Masakazu Tokura, chair of the Japan Business Federation, said the two sides are considering establishing a separate, private fund to promote bilateral economy, culture and other key areas of cooperation.

Improved ties between South Korea and Japan could pave the way for the two US allies to cooperate more closely on shared concerns related to China and North Korea.  Washington is eager to get its allies on the same page, and appears to have worked intensively to bring about the summit. US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said his country and its two allies had about 40 trilateral meetings and he thinks cooperation in the process helped to build up trust. While Japan increasingly bolstered defense ties with the UK, Australia, India and the Philippines, challenges in Japan-South Korea relations were obvious and their closer relationship “in the larger context of our strategic alignment … is a very big deal.”

South Korean officials have denied direct pressure from the Biden administration to resolve the historical discord with Tokyo, but the plan is apparently part of South Korean efforts to strengthen security partnerships to counter North Korea, which has been expanding nuclear-capable missiles and issuing threats of preemptive nuclear strikes. While pushing to expand US-South Korea joint military exercises, the Yoon government has sought Washington’s stronger reassurances to swiftly and decisively use its nuclear weapons to protect its ally from North Korea.

Associated Press