How about cohosting the 2030 World Cup?

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How about cohosting the 2030 World Cup?

Published: 14 Sep. 2023, 20:23

Kim Hyun-ki
The author is the Tokyo bureau chief and rotating correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The stone-faced dentist in my Japanese neighborhood was unusually flush when I visited him for my checkup last week, speaking warmly about how impressed he was with my home country. He had taken his summer vacation in Europe, and everywhere he went he heard people rave about Korea. The 40-something owner of the barbershop near my office is a fan of President Yoon Suk Yeol. He not just admires, but “respects” him, he habitually says.

Aeon, the biggest retailer in Japan, runs a spacious Korean section at its grocery outlets. In a recent TV ad, Tokyo Gas, the largest natural gas utility in Japan, featured a mother and daughter who are fans of Korea learning Hangul and readying for their trip to Korea. The latest scenes are a dramatic change from the time when Korean soju disappeared from Japanese department stores and Korean programs were removed from TV amid the chilled bilateral relationship.

President Yoon Suk Yeol talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida after laying flowers at the Raj Ghat, the memorial to the late Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi, Sept. 10 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in India. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

I wasn’t that surprised by independent lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang attending a memorial ceremony hosted by the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan for Koreans massacred during the Great Kanto earthquake. Her attendance was just in line with the tendency of the leftist lawmaker. My attention was actually on a separate Seoul-backed memorial service for Korean victims marking the 100th anniversary of the Great Kanto disaster in Tokyo on Sept. 1. Some of the high-profile attendees included former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, Komeito party head Natsuo Yamaguchi, and Ryota Takeda, secretary general of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union.

But they have been regulars to the memorial event not recognized by the Japanese government. Instead, Suga Yoshihide, former prime minister and head of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union, and other heavyweights like Taro Aso, vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, were still missing despite the invitations the Korean government sent to them. Regardless of the thawed relationship, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not send condolence flowers to our disappointment. Tokyo remains stubbornly cold on past issues.

About six months have passed since the Yoon Suk Yeol administration proposed a third-party compensation for Korean victims of the wartime forced labor. The changes are evident on the civilian level. The Japanese, who used to frown at the mention of “Korea,” are all welcoming towards Koreans. But Tokyo maintains a strict position. Since the government officially does not acknowledge its liability in the massacre of Koreans, it does not send public delegates to the memorial service. Our Foreign Minister Park Jin said, “The cup is now half-filled. The rest must be filled by Japan,” after announcing the wartime forced labor compensation package. But Japanese bureaucrats have no intention to willingly fill the cup. There is no give-and-take in Japanese diplomacy toward the issue.

This may be due to deep-seated skepticism. Tokyo fears Seoul can reverse its attitude depending on who wins the next parliamentary elections in April and the next presidential election in 2027. The business and academic community also sits on the fence alongside the government.

But the problem is that disgruntlement and impatience could grow among Koreans. A myriad of disputes remains between the two countries that could spill over at any minute, such as Japan’s disregard of the UNESCO’s reprimand on the country for not acknowledging the use of forced labor in the very location of the World Heritage Site of “Battleship Island” known as Japan’s first coal mine. Such thorny issues cannot be addressed simply by the drinking poktanju — a boilermaker of soju and beer — between Yoon and Kishida.

To keep the explosives muted, the two countries need a common motivation. Regardless of bickering politics, Korea and Japan must build a common goal and drive to advance forward. A joint hosting of the 2030 World Cup could be the start. It could be the revival of the glory of 2002 when the two countries jointly hosted the football games. The location for the quadrennial competition for 2030 will be decided in the latter half of 2024. Although there is little time left, Seoul and Tokyo can surely pull it off together if they decide to do so. The two governments and people of the two countries were the closest during the 2002 World Cup.

I still remember the headline of the Japan Daily News (The Mainichi) on the day of Korea vs. Spain in the 2002 quarterfinal — which read “The 100 million people of Japan are rooting! [for Korea’s win]” — surprisingly written in Korean. The paper received just two calls of complaints from Japanese readers. Japan returned the goodwill after Koreans held up a massive English banner reading “Let’s go France together!” when the Japanese team played in a match in Seoul to qualify for the previous 1998 France World Cup.

The two countries urgently need such momentum of sharing. The Japanese citizens are capable of “give-and-take,” although bureaucrats are incapable of. Even if an attempt to co-host the World Cup fails, it should not matter that much. The ardent energy and sympathy the people share in the process will certainly overwhelm and diffuse the never-ending political conflicts between the two countries.