Reset ties with Japan

Korea needs longer-term, cooler-headed approach

Japanese anti-Korea protests, though mainly led by a few ultra-rightist groups, are going way too far by insulting and trampling on Korea’s national flag. Many ordinary Japanese do not hide their contempt and dislikes of their former colony, either. Koreans can’t help wondering what made them decide to stop being hypocrites and betray themselves.

President Lee Myung-bak seems to have provided them with timely, long-awaited excuses. His Aug. 10 visit to the Dokdo islets followed by comments on Japan’s waning influence as well as calls for an apology by its king dealt triple blows to Japanese people’s pride.

Still, what many Koreans regard as overreaction from the part of their former occupier is hard to understand, especially compared with Tokyo’s relatively low-key approach toward China in a similar territorial dispute.

One can find few other reasons ― except of course President Lee’s lack of thorough strategic calculation ― than the gap in national power of Korea and China, or Russia for that matter. All the more so, considering Korea has maintained effective control over Dokdo, as Japan has done with the Senkaku Islands. But there is something more at work here than the proverbial case of a coward venting his anger at a third person.

The conclusion, once again, is Japan has long waited for an occasion to shift from defense to offense in the bilateral relationship. And the Japanese might be thanking the Korean leader in their minds. It is noteworthy in this regard that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, while claiming Japan has finished compensating for former sex slaves in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, said any more demands from Korea would hurt the feelings of “conscientious” Japanese people.

That Noda cited the Japanese people in making the outrageous claim means Japan has no longer a sense of indebtedness to Korea.

We don’t think the Japanese leader represents all conscionable Japanese people, but if there are some who think that way, it may be because of the incomplete and unfair post-World War II readjustment of Japan, multilaterally and bilaterally. The San Francisco Treaty of 1951 failed ― or neglected ― to change the psyche and consciousness of the Japanese people and instead instilled a sense of justification ― “we did nothing wrong but lose the war” ― or even victimhood, although what Japan did during the war was little short of Germany’s holocaust.

Bilaterally, the 1965 Korea-Japan Basic Treaty should be seen as one of the most unfairly-negotiated international pacts Korea has ever signed because of U.S. pressure, the enormous economic gap between Seoul and Tokyo, and military dictators’ anxiety to enhance legitimacy through economic jumpstart financed by Japanese compensation. Buried underneath were the countless Korean victims, including sex slaves, forced laborers and those who were killed and injured in two atomic bombings but have received little compensation, and are still suffering from discrimination in a country not of their own choice.

If Japan wants to forget the past, Korea should include the unjust pact in it and reestablish a bilateral relationship from the ground up. The two countries, whose gap in gross domestic product has narrowed to 5 to 1, cannot live by a treaty made when the difference was 100 to 1. Korea must take issue with everything not covered by the pact on various international stages.

Seoul should start with bringing the sexual slavery issue to the U.N. General Assembly thorough Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan’s address Friday. Reports say Seoul may omit it to win Japan’s support for its bid to become a non-permanent member of the Security Council. But the humanitarian issue of sexual slavery cannot be bartered with diplomatic gains.

It’s time for Korea-Japan relationship 2.0, by overhauling fundamental approaches to the regressive neighbor. <The Korea Times>

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