The show must go on

Seo Seung-wook
The author is a political news director of the JoongAng Ilbo.

My phone rang loudly at 6 a.m. one day in 2019, when I was working as a correspondent in Tokyo. I assumed it was the sound of my alarm, but it was not. It was a call from a high-ranking government official in Seoul. “Isn’t it a completely wrong report?” the official said in protest of an exclusive report on Korea-Japan relations published in the JoongAng Ilbo that day.

The article claimed that the Korean government had come up with a new resolution behind closed doors over the issue of compensating the victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor, a volatile point between the two countries at that time. In fact, the article was nearly a transcript of a press conference by a leading Japanese politician from the Liberal Democratic Party, who had just returned from a three-day trip to Seoul. The press conference was a recount of his dialogues with Korean government officials in Seoul, and the politician who made the call that morning was one of the people the Japanese politician had contacted.

The report, which accurately quoted the press conference, could have not been wrong. But the environment at the time was so harsh that such an article prompted strong protests from the Moon Jae-in administration. Even conveying ideas to Japan to improve Korea-Japan relations was considered a sin. The mood was so tense that a senior government official had to make a call in protest, early in the morning.

I had a crazier experience around that time. I ran into a diplomat from the Korean Embassy in Tokyo at a bar in the Shibuya neighborhood. At the time, the JoongAng Ilbo ran reports highlighting the activities of the Korea-Japan Vision Forum, an organization under the Korea Peace Foundation created to find a breakthrough in the strained Korea-Japan relations. The forum was attended by former and current diplomats, politicians, business leaders, as well as experts on the two countries. And yet, the diplomat threatened me. “What is the real intention of the JoongAng Ilbo?” he asked. “Why is your newspaper shaking the government? I won’t let you get away with this.”

After he asked why the newspaper was opposing the government’s anti-Japan drive, I argued with him, using swear words. The trip to the bar was ruined, of course. It was the bare face of the bureaucrat, who had sold his soul to the ruling forces’ anti-Japan policy. Seoul’s Japan policy has changed dramatically under the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration, but the diplomat who was so protective of the previous administration is still doing fine.

I recalled the uncomfortable memories of the Moon administration because of the memoir of former President Park Geun-hye, which the newspaper recently started running. “I was overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling of devastation when I heard from prison that the painstakingly crafted [2015] comfort women agreement was unilaterally scrapped by the Moon administration,” she wrote. The scrapping of the comfort women deal was a prelude to the dark period in Korea-Japan relations. From then on, anti-Japan sentiments were fueled by the Moon administration, and I was working as a Tokyo correspondent at the time.

Every scene in history has several characters. So too does Korea-Japan relations. Some stay silent, while others — like the diplomat in Tokyo — make obstructive moves. On the other hand, there are those who knocked on the door to improve the bilateral ties without anyone asking them to do so — as if they were trying to break a rock by hitting it with eggs.

President Yoon’s apparently blunt decision may have broken the rock, but behind the scenes, many people have worked hard to create a crack. Former National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang, despite his Democratic Party affiliation, made a groundbreaking proposal to resolve the forced laborer issue. The executives of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians’ Union and friendship associations from both countries have traveled between the two countries whenever they have a chance to narrow the perception gap. Participants of the Korea-Japan Vision Forum provided many insights.

Pianist Lee Kyung-mi — a professor emeritus at Kyungnam University who will perform at the Korea-Japan Friendship Concert with Japan’s Excelsior Quartet at Lotte Concert Hall on Nov. 7 — is also someone who hit the rock with eggs. She hosted a friendship concert with a Japanese guitarist in Tokyo in May 2019, when relations between the two countries hit rock bottom. “I want to do my part to thaw the frozen ties,” she said at the time, and I still remember her words vividly. It is the people like them that keep history moving forward even if the saboteurs are out in full force.