- Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
- South Korea’s President Park Geun-Hye in central London on November 5, 2013.
Despite polling data showing public support in South Korea for a Seoul-Tokyo summit,President Park Geun-hye has labeled such a meeting “pointless” in an interview with the BBC. This rebuff has as much to do with current domestic political dynamics as it does with historical grievances with Japan.
President Park has declining but solid approval ratings in the low-60 percentage point range. But the key figure is that only 50% approve of her performance on domestic issues following a series of policy missteps and scandals. Thus, the administration has less wiggle room than is imagined when it comes to spending its political capital.
Because of this domestic vulnerability, there is little appetite to take the risk of moving first on Japan for uncertain rewards. Particularly important to understand is that such a move would invite her domestic critics to revive comparisons with her father, Park Chung-hee, and his complicated legacy.
As noted by Park Cheol-hee, a professor at Seoul National University and no relation to the president, this inherited legacy is the most underappreciated challenge in dealing with Japan. The elder Park, who led the country from 1961 to 1979, was a lieutenant in the Japanese Army and is accused by some Koreans of signing treaties overly favorable to the Japanese to normalize relations in 1965.
Given an ongoing election-meddling scandal, which critics have continually tried to spin as an artifact of her father’s regime, engaging Japan will invite the added criticism of also being pro-Japan—the contemporary Korean equivalent of the scarlet letter.
As the Park administration likely sees it, it would assume all of the domestic political risk by standing up to its anti-Japan minority while Mr. Abe does nothing to take on Japan’s anti-Korea minority.
Thus, the Park administration requires two things to move forward. First, as Professor Park notes, is an assurance from Japan that if a summit does take place, Japan will not follow up with actions that would embarrass President Park domestically.
The most obvious case is a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Abe. So far he has avoided such a visit, but a senior aide to the Prime Minister equivocated on Mr. Abe’s plans to do so later this year. While this may very well have been a message directed to a domestic audience, it only increases fear among the Park administration that such a visit could follow a summit.
Second, if talks are to take place Korea needs a tangible outcome. The Park administration recently rebuffed talk of moving forward with a stalled military information sharing agreement with Japan, and there is no movement on the territorial dispute over the Liancourt Rocks.
In her interview with the BBC, President Park made it clear that resolving the “comfort women” issue is foremost on her agenda, and a resolution might pave the way for improved Korea-Japan relations. There are no indications that this is around the corner.
With President Park’s approval rates slowly declining, and recent statements from her administration that any improvement in Korea-Japan relations will hinge on Japan’s ability to take a correct view of history, it seems decreasingly likely that the President will be able to create a favorable narrative for a Korea-Japan summit.
Perhaps all involved should prepare for a longer, rather than shorter, freeze in Korea-Japan relations.
The author is a Program Officer in the Public Opinion Studies Center at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and a Mansfield Foundation U.S.-Korea Nexus Scholar. Views expressed here are his own.
