Future-oriented, strategic cooperation needed

Yu Myung-hwan

The author is a former minister of foreign affairs and trade.

After the Korean government on March 6 proposed to Japan to resolve the wartime forced labor issue through payments through a third-party fund without participation of Japanese companies that had used conscript workers, relations between the two countries have started to recover. What stood out more than Tokyo’s response to Seoul’s bold decision was Washington’s reaction. That day, U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the development, calling it a “groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership between two of the United States’ closest allies.” U.S. State Secretary Tony Blinken also described the South Korea-U.S.-Japan relationship as being “central to our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the U.S. — which took place amid Washington’s welcoming mood for the improvement of Korea-Japan relations — was more successful than any previous summits. It is rare for both the Washington Post and the New York Times to report the Korea-U.S. summit in details with photos. The two leaders’ declaration after the summit, which reassured the strengthening of the U.S. extended deterrence to counter North Korea’s nuclear threats, elevated the Korea-U.S. alliance to a new level. President Yoon’s geopolitical judgment that improving relations with Japan will be the most effective means for Seoul to move Washington was a success.

Monitoring the Korea-U.S. summit from Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a trip to Seoul on May 7, shortly before the G7 Summit in Hiroshima. It was a part of the shuttle diplomacy the two leaders promised to restore between Seoul and Tokyo, but it was clearly a decision that took into account Biden’s thoughts.

Leaders of Korea, Japan and the U.S. had meetings on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima on May 21 and they agreed to have another meeting in Washington in the near future at the invitation of Biden. It is expected that they will discuss plans to expand the extended deterrence consultative body to include Japan to counter North Korean nuclear threats. South Korea is facing an extremely fluid geopolitical security environment in Northeast Asia. It is very ominous that Russia and China are cooperating over the Ukraine war, the structural Sino-U.S. conflict and the Taiwan issue. North Korea’s move to use China-Russia cooperation in the United Nations Security Council to advance its nuclear and missile development programs also cannot be left unattended.

Some show concerns that President Yoon’s move to bolster the Korea-U.S. alliance based on the values of liberal democracy and his efforts to bolster the trilateral cooperation with the U.S. and Japan may provoke China and Russia. This concern may sound reasonable. But the geopolitical risks South Korea is facing are more serious. In the current situation, the paradigm of leaning toward the U.S. for security matters while leaning toward China for economic matters can hardly be maintained. The so-called balancer theory by positioning South Korea in the middle of the two superpowers has a high risk of causing distrust from both sides. As we see in the chip war between America and China, it is difficult to separate economy and security from one another. As the concept of “economic security” implies, we cannot ignore the security risk triggered by the trades of advanced technologies.

South Korea is facing a major crisis in the chip front. While the country is fighting against Japan over the wartime past, the U.S., Japan and Taiwan have formed a semiconductor coalition against China. From the views of the U.S. and Japan, there must have been concerns that South Korea might side with China. TSMC, a mighty Taiwanese chipmaker, had scrapped a plan to invest in South Korea and is building a massive plant in Kumamoto, Japan, posing a huge challenge against South Korea’s semiconductor industry. With active supports and cooperation, Japan is making enormous investments to become a semiconductor powerhouse once again.

We must not forget the tragedy of the late Joseon Dynasty in the early 20th century, when we lost the country due to insensitivity toward changes in the power balance and geopolitics over the Korean Peninsula, which was — and still is — surrounded by four major powers. With the support of Britain and the U.S. to keep Russia’s advance into East Asia in check, Japan managed to win the war against Russia in 1905 and established a superior position on the peninsula. Japan closely studied the evolution of power among great powers from the geopolitical perspective and formed an alliance with Britain to take advantage from it. In contrast, the feeble Korean Empire failed to secure allies to defend its independence and eventually fell into the fate of becoming Japan’s colony.

For Japan, it is also an important geopolitical task to improve relations with South Korea and forge security cooperation. For Yoon’s courageous political decision to bear fruits, Kishida must respond actively. If South Korea’s domestic political situation worsens and bilateral tensions escalate again, Japan also will suffer strategic losses. Future-oriented, long-term and strategic thinking is desperately needed.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.