South Korea's new president and the Comfort Women

January 20, 2017

What is the commitment South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in has toward the Comfort Women and historical justice. The following is a brief review of Moon’s actions and words regarding the Comfort Women.

Whereas Moon never focused on women’s issues as a human rights lawyer, he has displayed an honest interest in the Comfort Women. Unlike former President Park, he has met publicly and directly with Korean Comfort Women. Park attended briefly the February 2007 Comfort Women congressional hearing in Washington, DC, where two Korean and one Dutch Comfort Women testified.

Moon was the Chief Presidential Secretary during the 2007 Comfort Women debates in the US House of Representatives. His approach to the December 2015 CW arrangement, appears more nuanced than others. He appears to be of moving beyond this “agreement” toward a more satisfying, legal settlement. 

On May 15, the UN Security Council holds an open debate on sexual violence in conflict. Its objective of the debate is to raise awareness on the issue of sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism, focusing particularly on patterns and trends identified in the annual report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (S/2017/249). This timely discussion will highlight the broader concern of women’s rights and ending impunity for sexual violence in conflict that is integral in any discussion of the Comfort Women and Japan's responsibility.

On May 12, the UN Committee against Torture Concluding observations on the third to fifth periodic reports of the Republic of Korea ADVANCE UNEDITED VERSION, supported Moon desire to revise the December 28th understanding by concluding:

48. The State party should:

(d) Revise the Agreement of 28 December 2015 between the Republic of Korea and Japan in order to ensure that the surviving victims of sexual slavery during World War II are provided with redress, including the right to compensation and rehabilitation and the right to truth, reparation and assurances of non-repetitions, in keeping with article 14 of the Convention;

Moon Jae-in (문재인) / Democratic Party (더불어민주당)

As an university student, Moon led student movements against the Park Jung-hee’s authoritarian regime, and was imprisoned briefly in 1975. After his release, he was conscripted into the military where he served in special forces. In 1980, he passed the bar exam and became lawyer. He ran small law firm with the former President Roh Moo-hyun (Roh) in Busan, and worked as a human rights lawyer. After Roh was elected President in 2003, he became Chief of Staff and Senior Presidential Secretary. When the Comfort Women resolution H Res 121 was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2007, he was Chief Secretary. (February 25th, 2003-February 25th, 2008)
Businesspost, 5.9.2017

In 2012, during his first run for presidency, Moon, expressed officially for the first time his personal views on Comfort Women issues,. On August 15th, 2012, Independence Day, Moon attended the weekly Wednesday Demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, which demands an apology to the former Comfort Women by Japanese government. Moon promised that he would negotiate with the Japanese government to receive compensation and a sincere apology for the Comfort Women.
Asiaeconomy, 8.15.2012

In regard to the negotiations between Seoul and Tokyo to achieve a Comfort Women “agreement” on December 28, 2015, Moon believes that a first priority is to reveal the details leading to the two documents of understanding. Thus far, the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not disclosed these to the public. He has also said that the “agreement” should be nullified, and any the next administration needs to renegotiate it. He has also insisted that new negotiations are necessary to clarify the Japanese government’s legal responsibility regarding the Comfort women.
Ilyoseoul, 1.21,2017

On December 31, 2015 after Comfort Women “agreement” was announced, Moon visited the House of Sharing, which houses surviving the former Comfort Women, and argued that receiving a sincere apology from Japanese government should be a guarantee of any deal with this issue. He wrote comment on his Facebook page that Koreans should do their own fund-raising to establish the foundation for the former Comfort Women, instead of receiving money from the Japanese government.
Heraldpop, 2015.12.31

On January 11th, Moon visited graves of the former Comfort Women in Choenan. He said that 1 billion yen compensation from Japanese government doesn’t stand for a genuine apology. Additionally, he criticized the fact that Japanese government had summoned Japan’s ambassador and consul to Japan as a reprisal against erecting Comfort Women statues in Korea.
Focusnews, 1.11.2017

On January 20th, Moon was photographed clasping the “hand” of the Comfort Woman statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan.
MBN, 1.20.2017

On April 4th, Moon officially expressed his condolences on death of Lee Soon-duk, one of the former Comfort Women, by sending a floral tribute to her funeral. He pledged again to amend the former Comfort Women “agreement”, and to elicit an apology from Japanese government.
Insight, 4.5.2017

On April 13th, Moon published his major campaign promises, which included a renegotiation pledge. However, on April 17th, the Moon camp excluded this renegotiation pledge from his major campaign promises, and replaced it with the statement that he will deal with historical issues with Japanese government in principle. His camp said that Moon’s stance toward Comfort Women issues have not changed, but had decided to modify the statement to be more comprehensive.
NEWSIS, 4.17.2017

On May 3th, Kim Ki-jung, diplomatic and security advisor to Moon, said that Moon will not make the Comfort Women issue the starting point of diplomatic negotiations with the Japanese government. He will pursue “two-track” talks with Japan. This is to show that the wants to cooperate with neighboring countries to establish peace and stability in Northeast Asia as well as to hold talks over historical issues. Bilateral relations will stall if South Korea takes a stance of doing nothing unless this unless this issue is resolved. In addition, he felt that Moon would find it difficult to arrange the removal of statues symbolizing the Comfort Women because they were installed by private civic groups.
JIJI Press, 5.3.2017

On May 3th, Moon campaigned in Masan and stopped to lay flowers on their Comfort Women statue.
Starseoul, 5.3.2017

On May 4th, his camp publicly denounced the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family of Korea for not adhering to its original plan to publish a government-led White Paper on Comfort Women issues, but instead conceded the release to a private NGO of its own report.
Moon Jae-in Camp, 5.4.2017

On May 8th, during Moon’s campaign, he embraced Lee Yong-su, one of the former Comfort Women, and she declared officially her support for Moon.
News1, 5.8.2017

On May 9th, the former Comfort Women living at House of Sharing, expressed their delight on Moon’s win. One, Lee Oak-sun said that the Comfort Women agreement will now be nullified as it did not reflect the victims’ opinion or perspective.
Kyunghang, 5.9.2017

Trump and South Korea: It's Awkward

By Dennis P. Halpin, Former Adviser on Asian Issues to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Visiting Scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute (SAIS), Adviser to the Poblete Analysis Group and APP Senior Fellow

Originally published in the Weekly Standard, February 7, 2017.

President Trump's January 30 phone call to South Korean prime minister (and acting president as of December 9) Hwang Kyo-ahn, reportedly spelling out the U.S. "ironclad" commitment to South Korea, came at a particularly opportune moment. Likewise can be said for the decision of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to schedule his first official trip abroad to South Korea (and Japan) last week. The reason: leadership circles in Seoul and Korea-watchers in Washington have had increasing jitters over the fact that South Korea has been largely paralyzed by a domestic political crisis just as the newly arrived Trump Administration undertakes the formulation of its Asia policy. The concern is that a new, four-year policy will be cemented in place in Washington within the next six months while South Korea is still embroiled in political turmoil, with the possible removal of a president to be followed by a 60-day snap election.

The sidelining of South Korean president Park Geun-hye since her impeachment by the National Assembly late last year prohibits her from engaging in any official duties, including meeting with or even contacting other world leaders to advocate for issues of national importance to South Korea. These issues include not only the escalating North Korean nuclear threat but a number of alliance and bread-and-butter matters as well. Until her ultimate fate, including possible removal from office, is determined by South Korea's Constitutional Court, which could take up to six months, she will remain a virtual prisoner within South Korea's presidential mansion, the Blue House. A judicial decision, however, could come as early as March.

In the meantime, Asia's other main actors, including Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe (the first foreign leader to call upon the President-elect at Trump Tower), China (through its energetic advocate Henry Kissinger's renewed shuttle diplomacy between Beijing and Trump Tower) and Taiwan, (through a precedent-changing phone call from its president to then President-elect Trump), will have made their own priorities crystal clear. And while Trump's publicly avowed renewed commitment to Seoul is soothing, a number of outstanding issues indicate potential difficulties ahead for the alliance.

President Trump made the issue of greater cost-sharing for stationed U.S. forces (there are approximately currently 28,500 in South Korea) a central issue of his presidential campaign. During a presidential debate, Trump declared, "We defend Japan. We defend South Korea. We defend Saudi Arabia. We defend countries. They do not pay us what they should be paying us because we are providing a tremendous service and we're losing a fortune." The Diplomat carried an article on January 21 indicating that. "Seoul pays around half of the overall cost of stationing U.S. forces in South Korea, roughly $821 million in 2016."

The next negotiations on the level of cost sharing under the US-ROK Special Measures Agreement (SMA) for the 2019-2023 period are set to begin later in 2017. Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, a liberal presidential aspirant if a snap election is called, indicated to the Korea Times on January 5 that U.S. pressure for an increased level of cost sharing could become a campaign issue, stating that "South Korea is actually paying more than Japan and Germany," both of which have a U.S. forces presence.

Another area of potential friction in the U.S.-South Korean alliance would involve moves by the Trump Administration to renegotiate some of the terms of the US.-South Korean free trade agreement (KORUS FTA). This trade pact, which took effect in 2012, was hailed as "the second-largest US FTA" (after NAFTA.) Voice of America reported on July 28 of last year that then candidate Trump had referred to KORUS FTA as "a job killing deal." Matt Blunt, the president of the American Automotive Policy Council, was quoted in the same news report as stating that "there is no question the Korean marketplace is one of the most difficult for any automaker to export into, in the world." A particular focus of concern for the Trump administration has been automobile issues, since it was blue-collar voters in the automobile-producing states of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin who propelled the President to victory. These voters, previously largely Democratic party supporters, responded to the campaign promise to stop "the stealing" overseas of American manufacturing jobs. During the KORUS FTA negotiations, automobiles and automotive parts were also key concerns of Members of Congress, including Democratic former Ways and Means Chairman (2010-11) Sander Levin, who represents a district from the metropolitan Detroit area.

President Trump underscored the continued importance of automobiles as a trade and job creation issue during a January 24 White House meeting with the chief executives of the big three American automakers. He urged them to build more cars in the United States, reminding them of his previous threat to impose 35 percent tariffs on imported automobiles, a considerable percentage of which are made in South Korea (although Korean automakers also operate plants within the United States.)

Cooperation between America's main northeast Asian allies, in the meantime, has hit another impasse as the long-smoldering issue of Imperial Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of mainly Korean "Comfort Women" has again emerged as a major controversy. The construction of a "Comfort Women" statue in the port city of Busan near the Japanese Consulate in December (there is already one opposite the Japanese Embassy in Seoul) led to the recall of both the Japanese Ambassador from Seoul and the Japanese Consul General from Busan. In addition, the announcement in mid-January by 34 members of South Korea's Gyeonggi Provincial Council that they will start a fund to build a "Comfort Women" statue on the disputed island territory of Liancourt Rocks/Dokdo/Takeshima by year's end led to a public condemnation by Japanese foreign minister Kishida Fumio. According to the Korea Times, Kishida told reporters on January 17 that "Takeshima is Japanese territory."

Additional fallout from deteriorating South Korean-Japanese relations included Seoul's cancellation of a proposed joint trilateral submarine drill with the U.S. and Japan. The proposed drill was obviously aimed at the growing threat from both North Korean submarines and nuclear weapons.

The December 2015 agreement on the "Comfort Women" issue between the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers has become yet another heated target of Park's impeachment imbroglio. It is cited as an example by her growing number of critics of her insensitivity and alleged incompetence. President Park, for example, is being verbally criticized for never personally meeting with the "Comfort Women" survivors, as Pope Francis did during a visit to Seoul and as former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou did in Taipei. Given the level of importance of this issue to the average Korean voter, the lack of such a meeting is indeed a mystery. The rumor which swirled in Seoul that the 2015 deal included a verbal promise by the Park administration that the "Comfort Women" statue, which has gained a level of symbolic importance for many Koreans akin to the importance of the Statue of Liberty for many Americans, would eventually be removed from the vicinity of the Japanese Embassy led to a decision by South Korean students to provide around-the-clock protection for the statue to prevent its surreptitious removal in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, however, Abe's deft handling of the history issue with the American public, including his December visit to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and his scheduled February 10 summit meeting in Washington with President Trump has raised some disquietude in Seoul. The view is that Korean concerns over outstanding Pacific War history issues will be presented to the incoming Administration by Tokyo as mere emotionalism not worthy of the new Administration's serious attention.

A final issue involves South Korea's domestic politics. With the conservative governing party in South Korea suffering badly in last year's parliamentary elections and under a cloud with the presidential impeachment, the likelihood that the new South Korean president will be a progressive in the mold of the late Roh Moo-hyun has greatly increased. This was underlined last week when the strongest conservative contender, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, unexpectedly dropped out of the race.

If a snap 60-day election is called this spring or summer, due to the Constitutional Court's removal of President Park from office, South Korea could be in the midst of a heated election campaign just as the new Trump Administration finalizes its Asia policies. The temptation of South Korean progressive presidential candidates to play the anti-American card to energize their electoral base over such issues as troop cost-sharing negotiations or the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system may prove strong. This has happened previously. Former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Henry Hyde had to cancel a large Congressional delegation visit to Seoul during the December 2002 South Korean presidential election campaign due to heated anti-American demonstrations over the death of two school girls in a traffic accident involving U.S. military personnel. President-elect Trump's strong reaction in November to flag-burning by New Hampshire college students indicates that there would be far less tolerance for any South Korean students burning American flags than was displayed by then President George W. Bush in 2002.

With these multiple security, alliance, trade, and historical issues on the table for the new Trump administration, the current political paralysis in Seoul could not have arisen at a more inopportune time. And the fallout from South Korea's current political crisis points to potential rough sailing for the alliance in the months ahead.

Japan's path to the terrors of the past

The pretext of counterterrorism covers many sins
By Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan and APP member

The Japan Times, Mar 19, 2016

The Japanese government’s track record on respecting civil liberties and the rule of law is suspect, as I detailed in last week’s Counterpoint.

In 2002, the former Defense Agency, which is now a full-fledged ministry, spied on people who filed information disclosure requests, while the police and courts railroaded antiwar protesters on dubious charges of trespassing after they passed out flyers encouraging members of the Self-Defense Forces to oppose deployment in Iraq as war raged there in 2004.

These weren’t the only cases. A Buddhist priest was also apprehended while passing out antiwar flyers (imagine that, a peace-loving monk!), and the police kept a tail on one civil servant so they could catch him distributing copies of the Communist Party newspaper — arresting him even though it was on his day off. Don’t the cops have anything better to do than harass ordinary citizens exercising their constitutional rights? Is this how they pretend to keep the nation safe from terrorists?

In any society governed by the rule of law, it is essential to protect civil liberties by applying reasonable limits to police surveillance powers. In battling terrorism, such limits are portrayed by critics as handcuffing the police and other security agencies and thus endangering public safety. Unlike despotic societies defined by tyranny and the denial of human rights, however, democracies depend on ensuring that civil liberties are not trampled and human rights are respected. Debating the balance between an individual’s privacy and the state’s desire to pry strengthens a democracy and the rule of law — but this is a project that is never fully realized and depends on constant vigilance and an ongoing commitment.

As Japan wades ever further into the “war on terror,” it is important to ask what protections should be accorded to ethnic and religious minorities. It is evident that the police have zeroed in on Japan’s tiny Muslim community, seeing it as a potential hotbed of terrorism. But can this profiling of an entire community based on religious belief be justified? Is it not a violation of fundamental rights such as freedom of religion and privacy? Are such discriminatory practices consistent with democratic norms?

The it-can’t-be-helped school of thought asserts that terrorists don’t abide by any rules, so democratic societies are vulnerable and therefore sometimes need to curtail civil liberties and discriminate for the greater good.

Germany, however, has found that such blunt instruments are ineffective. According to a report by the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a German profiling program known as Rasterfahndung gathered information on 32,000 Muslim residents in Germany, but failed to identify any suspected terrorists.

There are an estimated 100,000 Muslims in Japan and it has been reported that the government has compiled dossiers on 70,000 of them. It has so far failed to identify a single terrorist, but has succeeded in indiscriminately invading privacy. The courts have sided with the police, affirming their right to conduct surveillance based on profiling alone without an iota of evidence suggesting criminal activities or terrorist inclinations.

Back in 2010 there was a leak of documents from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department that revealed just how intrusive this surveillance is, prompting a lawsuit that accused the police of violating constitutional rights to privacy and religion, and protections against discrimination. In 2014 the court awarded token damages for the leak of personal information, but dismissed the constitutional claims and held that the police surveillance was necessary and inevitable. This means it is open season for the police to collect personal information and conduct surveillance of designated groups of people based on ethnicity or religion, absent any concrete evidence justifying intrusions of their privacy and human rights.

So, with judicial backing, the police can take the picture of everyone who enters a mosque in Japan and intercept the communications of any resident solely based on the individual’s faith. As Japan boosts tourism in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics it is attracting many Muslim tourists, but are they all being tracked as potential terrorists? Can customers of halal restaurants expect special scrutiny? That’s a sinister twist on the welcoming spirit of omotenashi.

You only need to look at South Korea for an example of a nation struggling to prevent the wholesale expansion of police powers under the pretext of cracking down on terrorism. President Park Geun-hye’s ruling Saenuri Party is pushing through an antiterrorism bill that would give her country’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) sweeping new powers that are “justified” by the “security emergency” associated with North Korea’s recent nuclear test — despite a lack of concrete evidence that shows Pyongyang is preparing terrorist attacks on South Korea.

There are concerns that the law would primarily serve to repress internal dissent in line with Park’s efforts to tame the press and intimidate critics, including educators. Opposition parties tried to block the new law by mounting a record-breaking filibuster because there is no pressing need to expand the extensive snooping powers the NIS — an organization indelibly associated with terrible excesses under a succession of authoritarian governments — already enjoys.

Moreover, the NIS has been implicated in a dirty tricks campaign that helped Park win elections in 2012 by a slim margin, and oversight mechanisms remain feeble. One can understand why security agencies seek indiscriminate authority to collect intelligence, tap wires, conduct investigations, track financial transactions, delete online posts and impose travel bans — that is the nature of the beast. But giving them a blank check is perilous to civil liberties and constitutional rights. Rather than unleashing the NIS, it needs to be reformed and subject to more extensive monitoring to prevent abuses. As Japan ratchets up its counterterrorism capabilities, the NIS provides a worrying example.

Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi has gained notoriety for her comments warning that the government could suspend broadcasting rights if programs are deemed “politically biased. “Problematically, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s idea of bias seems to be defined as criticism of its policies — an essential element of democratic societies. So it’s not enough that media firms have ousted several newscasters critical of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies, or that they have hired relatives of Abe (a nephew at Fuji TV) and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso (a nephew at TBS), now they are being warned that in the coming battle over revising the Constitution, the government is taking off the gloves.

These developments are having a chilling effect on freedom of the press and expression in Japan, and raise real concerns about expanding police powers under the guise of counterterrorism. Attempts to muzzle the media while subverting the public’s right to know through the new state secrets law imperils democratic freedoms and highlights the need to strike a virtuous balance between ramped-up counterterrorism, civil liberties and accountability.

Japan-ROK pact on ‘comfort women’

all three ships eventually became
troop/POW transports

Will it help heal the wounds?

by Dr. Mike M. Mochizuki, holds the Japan-US Relations Chair in Memory of Gaston Sigur at George Washington University. He co-directs the “Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific” research and policy project of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He is co-editing a book entitled Reconciling Rivals: War, Memory, and Security in East Asia. He is a board member of APP.

First published in The Oriental Economist, January 2016.

On December 28th, instead of signing a written document, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se of the Republic of Korea (ROK) read carefully crafted statements regarding their respective government’s understanding of a bilateral agreement to address the “comfort women” issue. Comfort women is the euphemism used to describe women coerced into providing sexual services for the Japanese military during World War II. Soon after this public announcement, Prime Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Park Geun-Hye of the ROK spoke on the phone to confirm their intention to implement the agreement and to strengthen bilateral cooperation. Like most international deals forged after difficult negotiations, this agreement entailed a delicate compromise. Its political viability will depend on perceptions of fairness on both sides about the concessions made and expectations about the outcomes achieved.

A delicate compromise
During the negotiations, the South Korean government sought to address as much as possible the demands of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery for Japan (hereafter Korean Council) and the comfort women survivors whom this non-governmental organization represented. The Korean Council had been insisting that the Japanese government give an official and irreversible apology to the comfort women, admit legal responsibility, and provide compensation legally designated as reparations. From the Korean Council’s perspective, an official and irreversible apology would ide- ally be a resolution passed by the Japanese Diet, the highest organ of state power; but the council appeared open to an apology that had the imprimatur of a Japanese Cabinet decision like the August 15, 1995 Murayama Statement.

In the December 28 agreement, Tokyo did not provide an apology that was explicitly approved by the Japanese Cabinet or the National Diet, did not admit to legal responsibility, and did not offer legal reparations. But it went a bit further than the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) initiative, which was inaugurated by Japan in 1995. Under the AWF program, Japanese Prime Ministers sent letters to former comfort women that extended their “most sincere apologies and remorse” and acknowledged Japan’s “moral responsibilities” as well as “an involvement of the Japanese military authorities.”

In making the new agreement, Prime Minister Abe not only reiterated the language of the previous apology and acknowledgment of Japanese military involvement, but also declared “the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective.” While the Japanese statement of December 28 refrained from referring to legal responsibility, it was explicit about the government’s awareness of responsibilities. By not using the modifier “moral,” which was included in the Prime Minister’s apology letters under the AWF, Abe’s apology implied that the government’s responsibilities were not just moral in nature.

In the AWF program, state funds had been allocated to provide medical and welfare support—¥3 million ($25,000) per person—to Korean comfort women survivors, and private contributions were to be used for “atonement” money, ¥2 million ($17,000) per person. Arguing that this amounted to charity rather than legal reparations, many Korean comfort women survivors with the encouragement of the Korean Council refused this Japanese contribution. This time around, the Japanese government agreed to make “a one-time contribution” of ¥1 billion yen ($8.3 million) from the public budget to a foundation established by the South Korean government to provide support to the comfort women (there are just 46 still alive) and to engage in Japan-ROK cooperative projects “for recovering the honor and dignity and healing the psychological wounds of all former comfort women.”

“No more demands for apologies”
The Abe government was seeking an agreement that would be final. In the view of many Japanese, Japan had addressed the issue of its colonial and wartime responsibility with South Korea on previous occasions, such as through the 1965 normalization process and the 1995 Asian Women’s Fund; but rather than finalizing the issue, South Korea kept “moving the goal post.” Not only did Japan want a new agreement to resolve the comfort women issue once and for all, but also it did not want to undermine the parameters of the 1965 Normalization Treaty by acknowledging legal responsibility or offering legal reparations. Moreover, Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party sought to have the statue of a girl depicting a comfort woman, located across the street from the Japan Embassy in Seoul, removed and, if possible, bring an end to building comparable comfort women statues and memorials in the US. Finally, Tokyo wanted to stop criticisms of Japan in UN–related bodies as well as other international organizations. It was irritated that South Korea was preparing materials concerning comfort women to be included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

As already noted, Japan succeeded in avoiding “legal responsibility” and “legal reparations” in the deal. It also got Foreign Minister Yun to state that the “issue is resolved finally and irreversibly.” Moreover, the fact that the new foundation would be established by South Korea made it difficult for Seoul to backtrack. Although South Korea made no public promise to remove the comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese Embassy, it acknowledged Japan’s concern about the statue “from the viewpoint of preventing any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity,” and it agreed to “strive to solve this issue in an appropriate manner through taking measures such as consulting with related organizations.” The ROK government also declared that it would refrain, together with the Japanese government, from “accusing or criticizing each other regarding this issue in the international community, including at the United Nations” under the condition that the Japanese government would implement the bilateral agreement.

In short, both sides made concessions while achieving an outcome that moved toward their original objectives. South Korea acquiesced to Japan’s opposition to legal responsibility and legal reparations, but it did get Japan to commit public funds to establish a South Korean foundation to address the comfort women issue and to have the Japanese Prime Minister express “his heartfelt apology and remorse” and acknowledge government responsibilities. Moreover, the irreversibility of the agreement suggested that Abe and other like-minded Japanese conservatives would have to refrain from future moves to repeal or dilute the 1993 Kono Statement of apology toward comfort women. Japan acquiesced to an acknowledgment of Japanese military involvement and government responsibility, but it did get South Korea to state that the agreement was final and that the government would refrain from criticizing Japan in the international community.

Public reaction: Japan vs. Korea
With only 46 Korean comfort women survivors alive, both Seoul and Tokyo recognized the urgency of reaching an agreement. Washington was also encouraging the two sides to resolve this issue, not only for humanitarian and moral reasons, but also for geopolitical ones. Given North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and provocative behavior and the increasing assertiveness of a rising China, US policymakers have been concerned that continuing animosity between its two Northeast Asian allies would have major opportunity costs for promoting regional security cooperation and could even encourage South Korea’s strategic drift toward China. Although President Park had initially rebuffed Japanese overtures to improve bilateral relations, growing concerns about her country’s economy as well as the North Korean threat probably convinced her to assume the risks of negotiating an agreement on the comfort women issue with the Abe government. The ambiguities in the agreement and different expectations on each side, however, will make its implementation politically challenging.

On the Japanese side, the political reception has been generally positive. Even liberal and leftist leaders who have been critical of Abe have expressed their support of the agreement. Most of the grumbling has come from the conservative camp. Several prominent Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politicians have insisted that the comfort woman statue near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul must be removed expeditiously, and a few have complained that the agreement did not mention the comfort women statues and memorials in the United States or that Abe did not need to apologize and compromise since South Korea is entirely to blame for the deterioration in bilateral relations. Despite this discontent, given his nationalist credentials, Abe should be able to manage and deflect intra-LDP opposition.

President Park faces a more serious political predicament. Although her ruling Saenuri Party has come out in support of the agreement, the opposition Minjoo Party has called for rescinding it and renegotiating with Japan. With a National Assembly election scheduled for April 2016, the opposition will be tempted to make this an election issue. According to Korean opinion surveys conducted soon after the agreement was announced, most South Koreans are critical of the agreement and question the sincerity of Abe’s apology. According to one poll, 74% are opposed to moving the comfort woman statue.

Much hinges on whether the Korean Council and the comfort women survivors will be able to block implementation of the agreement. The Korean Council has publicly denounced the agreement and expressed its strong opposition to removing the statue, which the organization erected in 2011 to commemorate the thousandth time demonstrators staged their regular Wednesday protest in front of the Japanese Embassy. In a dramatic display of anger, comfort women survivors affiliated with the Korean Council criticized a senior Korean diplomat, who visited to explain the agreement, for not consulting them before reaching the accord. A Korean diplomatic spokesperson later revealed during a press briefing that the government had been consulting with former comfort women and their support organizations during the negotiations.

The handling of the comfort woman statue could unravel the agreement. Some Japanese media outlets have reported that the Japanese government sees the statue’s removal as a precondition for the allocation of public funds for the foundation in South Korea. Korean officials have vehemently dismissed such reports as notorious attempts to unravel the accord. Given the current Korean sentiment against moving the statue, a decision by Japan to withhold funding until the statue issue is resolved would likely intensify Korean public opposition to the pact itself. A better course would be to see a resolution of the statue issue as a possible outcome of a healing and reconciliation process that a Japanese state-funded foundation in South Korea would promote. Prime Minister Abe faces a difficult decision whether or not to go ahead with funding the new South Korean foundation even without progress on the statue issue. To save the agreement, he might have to go against his own preferences while simultaneously finding a way to placate his nationalist political base.

A path to historical reconciliation
Successful implementation of the December 28 accord may open the way to regular Japan-South Korea summit meetings, greater bilateral security cooperation, and deeper economic relations. But just as the October 1998 historic summit between then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and President Kim Dae-Jung failed to promote long-term historical reconciliation, the recent comfort women agreement will be insufficient. Reconciliation requires more than interstate bargains built on compromises. The societies of both nations must be engaged and involved to foster empathy and trust. All too often, Japanese leaders and citizens focus on what it would take to bring an end to historical issues and to make relations with South Korea truly future-oriented. Deep reconciliation at the societal level, however, is not some diplomatically established goal post, but rather an ongoing and never-ending process. State-to-state agreements can facilitate the process, but actions and processes that resonate with the public are essential.

Prime Minister Abe, representing the country that is responsible for the comfort women’s suffering, should personally visit the comfort women survivors and directly express his apologies and remorse. Of course, such an act would involve substantial political risks, but it is precisely the riskiness of it that would make the apologies powerful and sincere. The new foundation to be established in South Korea with Japanese money could also embrace the “Butterfly Fund” proposed by several comfort women survivors and established by the Korean Council. This fund now allocates donations received in honor of the comfort women to victims of sexual violence during war in other countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Vietnam. Japan could even consider an additional contribution specifically to this fund as part of Prime Minister Abe’s campaign to promote women’s rights and empowerment throughout the world.

Finally, Japan together with South Korea and the United States should promote non-governmental international institutions for research, exchanges, and education regarding not only the comfort women issue, but also the many other historical issues that cause tensions in East Asia. Such an initiative would be consistent with Abe’s August 14, 2015 statement in which he declared, “We Japanese, across generations, must squarely face the history of the past. We have the responsibility to inherit the past, in all humility, and pass it on to the future.”

No kniefall from Abe

December 7, 1970, Warsaw Ghetto

‘Comfort women’ problem requires a grand gesture

by Jeff Kingston is the director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan and an APP member
The Japan Times, January 9, 2015

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye understand something needs to be done about the “comfort women” issue, but they still have a way to go. It is unlikely that the Dec. 28 “final and irreversible resolution” to issues surrounding the women who worked in wartime brothels at the Japanese military’s behest will prove to be much of a resolution at all. Indeed, it could easily unravel and become another bone of contention and trigger mutual recriminations.

Prospects would have been better if they had negotiated a more substantive agreement and not missed the opportunity to advance reconciliation. This would require launching a process and dialogue rather than disingenuously declaring closure concerning a past that cannot be neatly exorcised by fiat. Japan is shifting state “ownership” of this problem to South Korea, just as it tried to do back in 1965 with the normalization treaty, and it is likely to be disappointed yet again, because democracy has politicized history in South Korea.

The fudging and murky nature of the agreement is characteristic of artful diplomacy, ensuring that it falls well short of a grand gesture and thus contributes little to reconciliation. One could ask whether in fact there really is an agreement, since the statements issued and brief transcript of the phone call between Park and Abe are curiously vague on all the key points.

Already there has been sniping in both countries about what has been left deliberately oblique. For example, what is the actual sequencing of Tokyo’s promised payment of ¥1 billion (about $8.3 million)? Is Seoul required to move the comfort-women statue that peers across the street at the Japanese Embassy before Tokyo antes up? What if Seoul is unable to convince civic groups or the remaining comfort women about the necessity of moving the statue? Will Tokyo withhold the pledged disbursements? If so, the agreement will probably collapse and ignite a new round of finger-pointing and denunciations.

How will the South Korean government gain the understanding of the Korean Council to remove the statue this civic group erected in 2011 on the site where comfort women and their supporters have held weekly protests over 1,000 times during the past two decades? Given the Korean Council’s repudiation of the recent accord, how can it be convinced to help the government “solve” the problem?

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se affirmed that his government understands Japan’s position on removing the statue, and pledged to prevent “any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity” and to “strive to solve this issue in an appropriate manner through taking measures such as consulting with related organizations about possible ways of addressing this issue.”

What exactly is an “appropriate manner,” and who decides? If government discussions with the Korea Council don’t bear fruit, can Seoul explain to Tokyo that it did its best, and would Tokyo accept this as a good-faith effort and wire the funds, or resort to pulling the plug? Conversely, in the extremely unlikely event the Korea Council concedes on relocating the statue, will the South Korean government allow the weekly protests to continue? Or, would such demonstrations “impair the dignity” of the embassy and thus provide a pretext for Tokyo to renege? Would Park order security forces to quell such protests, and if so, what would be the implications for democracy?

Alternatively, to deliver what Tokyo expects, might the South Korean government remove the statue without the agreement of civic groups or the comfort women, arguing that it is in the national interest to do so? Surely that would ignite a backlash, since recent polls show 66 percent of South Koreans oppose relocation of the statue.

For the Japanese government, the statue has become a lightning rod for accumulated anger over the comfort women issue. Tokyo’s diplomats feel badly burned by the failure of the Asia Women’s Fund, which operated between 1995 and 2007, and a perception that every time they make an offer to finally settle the matter, their South Korean counterparts “move the goalposts.” Usually this refers to the South Korean insistence on the Japanese government assuming legal responsibility and providing official reparations. The recent agreement sidesteps those issues, with the Japanese government vaguely acknowledging state responsibility for the comfort women issue without admitting legal responsibility, and allocating funds from the budget earmarked for them without calling such funding “reparations.”

But can such clever evasions really consign shared history to the past? This so-called agreement seems an inadequate Band-Aid for the gaping wounds that divide these neighbors, because it resolves very little. The hedged wording provides just enough ambiguity and political cover for both sides, but it is naive to assume that such semantic parsing will really do the job.

So what comes next? More joint history study groups and grass-roots exchanges? A joint comfort women declaration signed in Washington? It seems improbable to relocate the statue to the entrance of Yasukuni Shrine’s Yushukan Museum next to the locomotive that commemorates the horrors endured by tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war and Asian forced laborers building the “Railway of Death” on the Thai-Burma border, but it’s an idea.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in speaking with Park after the agreement was announced, Abe “expressed anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.” Also in 2015, Abe declared his commitment to the 1993 Kono statement that acknowledged Japan’s state and military responsibility for the comfort women system, so the stage is set for something bigger, if he is equal to the task.

Alas, it is highly unlikely that Abe will quietly kneel in front of the comfort women statue, like West German Chancellor Willy Brandt did in 1970 at the monument commemorating the Nazi-era Warsaw ghetto uprising. Such a grand gesture of contrition would enhance Abe’s stature on the world stage and do much to advance bilateral reconciliation. Hardliners in Japan closely associated with Abe would be aghast, but due to his unassailable nationalist credentials, he is uniquely positioned to make such a powerfully symbolic gesture — one that would be a major step towards improving relations between these “frenemies.” Such an act would enhance the dignity of Japan and ensure Abe’s legacy as a statesman who understands the virtues of pragmatism and humility, and how atonement is empowering. Imagine.

‘Japan Lobby’ takes the gloves off in PR battle

BY  Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan and APP member

First published in THE JAPAN TIMES, October 31, 2015

The Sankei Shimbun advocates a more aggressive diplomatic stance on history issues and this dovetails with the mission of Japan Conference, a reactionary organization that includes numerous lawmakers. From their perspective, Japan has been too reticent and polite on the world stage and the gloves need to come off.

It never seems to occur to them that this might be a counterproductive strategy and that on history issues it leaves Japan vulnerable to criticisms of promoting an exonerating narrative that glorifies wartime and colonial excesses.

But Japan is not exactly a public-diplomacy wallflower. The Japanese government, foundations and firms have developed an influential network in the United States that dates back to the 1970s. That era of acrimonious trade frictions spawned what American scholar Robert Angel has dubbed the “Japan Lobby,” a multipronged public- and private-sector effort to shape U.S. policy and attitudes. ProPublica estimates that total Japanese spending on lobbying and public relations was a whopping $4.2 billion in 2008, putting Japan third behind the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, while South Korea ranked eighth with $2.9 billion.

Like many of my university colleagues in Japan and the U.S., in September I was sent copies of two books from Liberal Democratic Party Upper House lawmaker Kuniko Inoguchi — “History Wars: Japan — False Indictment of the Century,” which was compiled and published by the Sankei Shimbun [and written by Yoshihisa Komori, Sankei reporter-at-large in Washington, DC], and “Getting Over It! Why Korea Needs to Stop Bashing Japan,” by Takushoku University professor Sonfa Oh. It turns out that this thinly veiled attempt at propaganda was also sent to the foreign press corps in Tokyo, but it’s not clear which organization paid for this extravagant gesture. The U.S.-registered nonprofit Global Alliance for Historical Truth, however, claims credit for the distribution of “History Wars” on its website.

It is unlikely that these polemical jeremiads will convince anyone to change their mind. The tone of the Sankei book is closer to unhinged ranting rather than reasoned argumentation and stretches credulity in asking to be taken seriously. It trots out the familiar assertion that there is no documentary proof of coerced recruitment of “comfort women,” but undermines its own case by acknowledging that Dutch women were coercively recruited by force. The soldiers involved were convicted solely on the testimony of these white comfort women while testimony by Korean comfort women about coercive recruitment is dismissed outright — an unseemly double-standard that speaks volumes about Sankei’s bias.

The Sankei book also points out that in 1993 when the Kono statement acknowledging state responsibility for coercive recruitment of comfort women was issued, the government clearly defined coercion as including threats and intimidation. This is an awkward point given the Sankei’s disingenuous efforts to downplay the comfort women issue by focusing exclusively on denying coercive recruitment involving physical force. The Sankei apparently thinks that if it can redefine coercion and convince everyone that there were no comfort women recruited at bayonet point, then Japan can wriggle off this hook of history as if the entire sordid system is not the issue.


Korean scholar Park Yu-ha, who is often cited by Japanese conservatives, refers to archival documents that prove private recruiters, including Japanese civilians dressed in military uniform, recruited comfort women through intimidation and deception at the behest of Japanese military authorities. She believes the Korean women who testify that they were coercively recruited, and also maintains that Chinese women and others across Asia were pressed into sexual service through coercion. Park also wants the Diet to issue an apology to the comfort women.

Moreover, scholar C. Sarah Soh also found that in battlefront areas wherever Japanese troops were stationed, local women were forced to serve in improvised comfort stations. It is also documented that the military transported the comfort women to the comfort stations on military bases where they were denied freedom of movement. So what exactly is the Sankei’s point?

The Sankei is also up in arms about China’s alleged backing of a comfort woman statue and Pacific War Museum in San Francisco [WWII Pacific War Memorial Hall, the first overseas anti-Japanese war memorial, VIDEO], apparently misunderstanding the local politics that drive these initiatives. It conveniently overlooks how, in 2013, Toru Hashimoto, as mayor of Osaka, sister city of San Francisco, drew the ire of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and city residents with his apologist comments about the comfort women system.

Raising the alarm about ongoing “History Wars” being waged in the United States, the Sankei asserts that China is orchestrating discord between the U.S. and Japan over history. If so, Beijing is doing a lousy job as more Americans by far distrust China: Only 38 percent of Americans have a high opinion of China while 74 percent have a favorable view of Japan. Tokyo’s best bet here is just to get out of the way and enjoy China’s self-inflicted wounds. It’s time Tokyo grasped that attacking criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his historical views as anti-Japanese, makes it look both paranoid and malicious.

San Francisco Bay Area activists assert that before the board unanimously approved the comfort women memorial in September, the Japan Lobby was vigorously working behind the scenes to kill the resolution. Locals privately assert that there was an anti-statue campaign of disinformation, and that local Japanese-American organizations were pressured to lobby against the resolution, with continued Japanese corporate funding hanging in the balance.

The board disregarded allegations about incidents of discrimination and bullying targeting ethnic Japanese children in Glendale, California, after a comfort woman statue was erected there. Glendale authorities dismissed these unsubstantiated claims by opponents to the statue, pointing out there were no reports to schools or police at the time. It seems that Japan would do better to shrug off these comfort women statue and memorial initiatives because intervention seems to backfire, throwing fuel on the fires of recrimination over the shared East Asian past thereby ensuring that more will be built.

So what should we make of the newly established organization Voices of Vietnam, a well-funded group that has hired former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman [lobbyist with Hogan Lovells, Embassy of Japan's longtime lobbying firm] to serve as point-man in demanding President Park Geun-hye apologize for Vietnamese comfort women who served some 320,000 South Korean soldiers fighting at the behest of Washington in the Vietnam War? This organization held a press conference on Oct. 15 in connection with Park’s summit with U.S. President Barack Obama. In a Fox News op-ed published on the eve of the summit [President Park should publicly apologize for South Korea's sexual violence in Vietnam], Coleman demanded Park apologize to the Vietnamese victims of Korean sexual predations: “Failing to make such an unequivocal apology would only undermine President Park’s moral authority as she presses Japan to apologize for the sexual violence perpetrated against South Korean ‘comfort women’ during World War II.”

Apparently whacking Park is the main mission of an organization that seems, rather curiously, to have sprung up out of nowhere, according to sources in the Vietnamese diaspora in the U.S.

Certainly, amends to these women — there are an estimated 800 survivors — and the thousands of children of mixed ancestry born to them, are in order, but why hasn’t Coleman spoken out about the far larger, similar problem involving U.S. soldiers? And, given the expense of hiring ex-senators to be lobbyists, as the Japanese government has already done with Tom Daschle, who is paying the bills here?

The New Year in Asia

Photo by Kami Ryosuke, December 2014
Haiku by Egawa Tan'nan
Villages are still in the pall of the night, while the summit of Fuji now foretells the approach of a new dawn  

Every year begins with many hopeful words 

THE VATICAN: No Longer Slaves, But Brothers And Sisters Message of HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS For The Celebration of the World Day Of Peace.
     I invite everyone, in accordance with his or her specific role and responsibilities, to practice acts of fraternity towards those kept in a state of enslavement. Let us ask ourselves, as individuals and as communities, whether we feel challenged when, in our daily lives, we meet or deal with persons who could be victims of human trafficking, or when we are tempted to select items which may well have been produced by exploiting others. Some of us, out of indifference, or financial reasons, or because we are caught up in our daily concerns, close our eyes to this. Others, however, decide to do something about it, to join civic associations or to practice small, everyday gestures – which have so much merit! – such as offering a kind word, a greeting or a smile. These cost us nothing but they can offer hope, open doors, and change the life of another person who lives clandestinely; they can also change our own lives with respect to this reality.

CHINA: CHINESE PRESIDENT XI JINPING'S 2015 NEW YEAR SPEECH.
     The New Year bell is about to ring. We will continue our efforts to act upon people’s expectations and turn their aspirations into reality. We will continue to deepen the reform in an all-round way. This is an unstoppable train. Only those who brave hardships would prevail. We will push forward the rule of law in an all-round way, safeguard the rights of people in line with law, maintain social justice and promote national development. For an eventual accomplishment of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way in due time, both deepening the reforms and strengthening the rule of law should function as the two wings of a bird, or as wheels on both sides of a vehicle.

JAPAN: His Majesty the Emperor's New Year Thoughts 2015
      Last year many lives were lost to natural disasters such as heavy snow, torrential rains, and the volcanic eruption of Mt. Ontake, and my thoughts go out to those who lost their loved ones and their homes in those disasters.
     This is the fourth winter since the Great East Japan Earthquake, and it pains me to think that there are still so many people who cannot return to the places they used to live because of radioactive contamination and so many who face the prospect of a cold, harsh winter in temporary housing. These conditions have made me reflect on the importance of people becoming concerned about and involved in disaster prevention in their respective regions and being prepared to protect their own localities.
     This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which cost many people their lives. Those who died on the battlefields, those who died in the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those who died in the air raids on Tokyo and other cities-so many people lost their lives in this war. I think it is most important for us to take this opportunity to study and learn from the history of this war, starting with the Manchurian Incident of 1931, as we consider the future direction of our country.
     It is my sincere hope that the new year will bring happiness to the people of our country and the people around the world.

JAPAN: NEW YEAR’S REFLECTION BY PRIME MINISTER SHINZO ABE.
     The Japanese people had resolutely risen to their feet from a devastated land after the war. This was the era in which Japan, having successfully concluded the Tokyo Olympics, was beginning to regain its confidence that it could play an active role on the world’s center stage. There is no doubt that these words of Coach Daimatsu, filled with determination, greatly inspired the Japanese people of that era.
     Our predecessors accomplished rapid economic growth, making Japan one of the greatest powers in the world. There is no reason whatsoever that the Japanese of that era could achieve this but the Japanese of today cannot.

New Year's Press Conference by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Monday, January 5, 2015.

     Over these 70 years, Japan has earnestly built up a free and democratic nation while feeling deep remorse regarding World War II. We have also made our greatest possible contributions in order to bring about the peace and development of our friends in Asia and around the world. Taking pride in this, as we head towards the 80th, 90th, and 100th anniversaries to come, Japan must make still greater contributions towards world peace and stability under the flag of “Proactive Contribution to Peace.” In this milestone anniversary year, I intend to send out to the world the message of our clear resolve regarding this.

China’s reaction: We have taken note of Japanese leaders’ relevant remarks. Only by honestly facing up to history can Japan have a future.
Jen Psaki, Spokesperson US State Dept., Daily Press Briefing, Washington, DC, January 5, 2015
     We did see President – Prime Minister Abe’s remarks. As you know and we’ve stated many times from here, the apologies – our view is that the apologies extended by previous Prime Minister Murayama and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono marked important chapters in Japan’s efforts to improve relations with its neighbors. As we’ve indicated many times, we encourage Japan to continue to work with its neighbors to resolve concerns over history in an amicable way through dialogue.

MONGOLIA: NEW YEAR ADDRESS TO THE NATION OF TSAKHIAGIIN ELBEGDORJ PRESIDENT OF MONGOLIA.
    It is time for us to create. In the last few years, a number of factories have been opened in Mongolia, accelerating the creation. For instance, construction material manufacturers, iron processing plants, food production companies and other key factories are complete and ready for commissioning. Creation in our country is arising against the economic setback.

NORTH KOREA: 2015 NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS BY KIM JUNG UN.
     And there is no reason why we should not hold a summit meeting if the atmosphere and environment for it are created. In the future, too, we will make every effort to substantially promote dialogue and negotiations. The entire Korean nation should turn out together in the nationwide movement for the country’s reunification so as to glorify this year as a landmark in opening up a broad avenue to independent reunification.

RUSSIA: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN’S NEW YEAR ADDRESS TO THE NATION.
     In the coming year we will have to jointly address quite a few tasks. The new year’s shape is in our own hands, it will depend on how effectively, creatively and productively each of us will be doing one’s job. There are just no other recipes. We must accomplish and implement every single plan of ours - for our own sake, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of Russia.

SOUTH KOREA: PRESIDENT PARK GEUN-HYE’S NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE TO THE NATION.
     This historic year marks the 70th anniversary of liberation and, at the same time, of the division of the country. Over the past 70 years, all Koreans came together to achieve the Miracle on the Han River with an indomitable determination and have also defended and developed liberal democracy.
Now, we are standing at a starting point for another 70 years of the Republic of Korea. We are tasked with a historic duty to leave a proud Republic to our posterity just as the generations before us did.

TAIWAN: RECONCILIATION, COOPERATION, AND PEACE BY President Ma Ying-jeou
     Achieving reconciliation within our society is only part of the picture; in addition, cross-strait peace must be consolidated. As I see it, we seek but three goals in our conduct of cross-strait relations. The first is peace. The second is also peace. And the third, once again, is peace. The things we've achieved over the past six years stand as proof that seeking peace in this way is the right way to go.

All Quiet in the Blue House

South Korea's New President

All Quiet in the Blue House

September 2, 2013 | by YOUNG-SIM SONG

From the Sustainable Development Indicator's project of the Bertelsmann Stiftung

The Blue House in Seoul, seat of the South Korean president © Jirka Matousek/Flickr

The election of Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s first female president signaled a historic change of governance. Yet, after her first six months in office Ms. Park still needs to translate her words into deeds.

In the perception of many South Koreans it has been rather quiet lately in the Blue House, the official residence of the president located in Seoul. During the first six months of Park Geun-hye’s term of office the biggest event has been a trip to the United States to meet with President Barack Obama. And this trip ended in a disaster clouded by a scandal of sexual harassment.

It is not Ms. Park’s first time in the Blue House. She is the oldest daughter of Park Chung-hee who ruled South Korea as a military dictator from 1961 to 1979. She was born in 1952. After her mother was shot in 1974, she acted as the de facto First Lady. After her father’s death in 1979, Ms. Park stayed away from the public limelight for more than 20 years. In December 2012, the former party head of the major conservative party Saenuri-dang (New Frontier Party) – formerly Hannara-dang (Grand National Party) – was elected as president.

While Park Chung-hee had to fight starvation and try to build up an economy, people nowadays are more concerned with the distribution of wealth than with headline GDP figures. "The popular perception is of a successful country that is stricken with economic inequality, excessive power in the hands of the chaebol conglomerates (family-owned business conglomerates), and a lack of decent jobs for young graduates", writes the Economist after the inauguration on February 25, 2013.

Before the general’s daughter was elected as president she promised to fight these problems and expand the welfare state. She spoke of "a new era of happiness" for South Korea. When she was sworn in, Ms. Park also assured a tough stance on national security, saying that she would "not tolerate any action that threatens the lives of our people and the security of our nation".

The new president promises to reduce social inequality

On the economy, Ms. Park promised more focus on a "creative economy" based on "economic democratization" that would expand beyond existing markets and sectors. South Korea's economic growth has slowed, the population is rapidly aging, and demands for a fairer distribution of wealth are now being voiced.

Policies will be brought in to help small and medium-sized enterprises flourish, Ms. Park said. Unfair practices will be abandoned and misguided habits of the past rectified. She also promised a "clean, transparent and competent government".

According to the South Korea report of the new Asia study by the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) project, Ms. Park has been "very smart in asserting new political goals such as welfare state policies as a means of attracting low-income voters". Opposition parties have been caught off guard by these political shifts.

The SGI report shows that the former government has had little success in persuading the huge export-oriented business conglomerates to engage in corporate social responsibility, support small suppliers and leave certain markets to small companies. It remains uncertain, however, if the new president will prove able to act more forcefully in limiting economic concentration and facilitating greater transparency and accountability among the primarily family-owned companies through new laws and regulations.

Moreover, given that Ms. Park is the first female president in the history of South Korea it will also be interesting to see whether she will push for greater women rights. Discrimination is a big problem in South Korea and women remain underrepresented in almost all important sectors, according the SGI study. The wage gap between men and women is on average 38 per cent, the biggest in the OECD.

"More participation of women in the economy is a core engine for the nation’s growth," Park Geun-hye said on a campaign in July 2012. A work-life balance is no longer just an issue for women but the entire country. However,ensuring an easier combination of parenting and participating in the labor market might not be a heartfelt desire for a president who is 61 years old, unmarried and has no children.

South Koreans are divided over their new president

The SGI South Korea report also indicates that it might be a cause for concern that Ms. Park has not clearly distanced herself from the policies of her father. For many South Koreans this is a controversial issue.

Some people acknowledge the achievements of Park Chung-hee as the leader of the "miracle on the Han River". This refers to South Korea's rapid economic growth after World War II which brought racy industrialization, technological achievements, a boom in education as well as large improvements in living standards and fast modernization. Park Chung-hee had no choice back in those days, many older South Koreans say. He had to fight poverty and starvation first. Others – especially people who have been affected by the strict regime and military suppression – fiercely contest this claim.

But in the eyes of many South Koreans today – supporters and opponents – not much has happened in the first six months of Ms. Park’s presidency. She keeps on saying that she will fabricate a "creative economy", but what this really means hasn’t even been defined yet clearly. Nobody even knows what is meant by "creative economy".

Thus far, the issue many ordinary citizens in South Korea associate most with their new president is her first trip abroad, which ended in a disaster. Ms. Park fired her spokesman Yoon Chang-jung amid allegations that he sexually harassed a young South Korean woman. Later the senior secretary for public relations to the president took responsibility for the incident and resigned. South Koreans were shocked and hardly anybody paid attention to the outcome of the state visit.

Young-Sim Song, a business school graduate, is a journalist for economic affairs covering the European power and gas markets. She lives in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Korea Scores a Milestone with President Park's Address to Congress

Dennis Halpin, former professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has recently become a Senior Fellow at Asia Policy Point. He is a retired Foreign Service officer who served in South Korea as U.S. Consul in Pusan and is a former Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. He is currently a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. The CSIS Korea Chair on May 14, 2013 published his essay below reflecting on the significance of the Park Geun-hye address to the U.S Congress on May 8, 2013.

~~~~~

Despite reports of a scandal involving a member of the Korean President's official party, the recent Washington visit of President Park Geun-hye scored some notable successes. Perhaps, most prominently, President Park's May 8th address to a joint meeting of the Congress demonstrated that the Republic of Korea is in the top rank of American allies. The last foreign leader to address Congress before her, in fact, was another Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, in October 2011 (There was no address by a foreign leader in the election year of 2012). With President Park's address, the Republic of Korea is now in fifth place (tied with Ireland and Italy) as to the number of times one of its leaders have addressed Congress. South Korea is behind only the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and Mexico in this regard.

More important, the Republic of Korea is unique among America's Asia-Pacific allies in having had six appearances by its presidents. Australia and the Philippines have only had three such occasions and Japan has never been given this honor (two Japanese Prime Ministers, Kishi and Ikeda, addressed House meetings but NOT joint meetings of both Houses of Congress).

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was widely expected to address a joint meeting of Congress during his 2006 visit. A letter from then-Chairman of the International Relations Committee Henry Hyde, a World War II veteran of the Pacific campaign, to then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, however, raised concerns about Koizumi's reported plans to visit the Yasukuni Shrine after his Washington visit. The shrine contains the spirit tablet of Hideki Tojo, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, as well as other Class-A war criminals. While Hyde said that he welcomed Prime Minister Koizumi, on behalf of a major U.S. ally, addressing Congress, he added the concern that then visiting Yasukuni would be "an affront to the generation that remembers Pearl Harbor and dishonor the place where President Roosevelt made his 'Date of Infamy' speech." When the Hyde letter leaked to the Asian press, the informal plans to have an address to a joint meeting of Congress were dropped. President George W. Bush's trip with Prime Minister Koizumi to Graceland (Mr. Koizumi being an Elvis fan) ended up being the high point of that visit.

President Park also received a rare honor in being invited to address Congress so soon after her inauguration as the Republic of Koreas eleventh chief executive. It was common knowledge among Congressional staff in 2009, of which I was one, that, when President Lee Myung-bak first visited Washington in his official capacity, informal feelers sent out by the Korean Embassy for an address to the Congress were rebuffed.

Then Speaker Pelosi reportedly thought that it was premature for Lee, having served only a little over a year in the Blue House, to be given such an honor. President Lee had to wait until a return visit in 2011, and the successful passage of KORUS FTA, to be invited.

One of the reasons that President Park may have received this honor so early on in her tenure is her status as the first elected woman leader from East Asia. The failure to shatter the glass ceiling in the White House during the 2008 presidential campaign continues to be a source of severe disappointment for a number of American women, including those in political leadership positions. Honoring Confucian Korea which achieved this goal before the United States would, then, seem quite natural.

One hundred and nine foreign dignitaries and leaders have addressed joint meetings of Congress (and only two foreign dignitaries have addressed Joint Sessions of Congress the French Ambassador in 1934 on the 100th anniversary of the death of the Marquis de Lafayette and the Cuban Ambassador in 1948 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cuban independence following the Spanish-American War of 1898). But among those one hundred and nine, only twelve were women. Two additional women addressed Congressional bodies prior to that: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands addressed the Senate in 1942 and Madam Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China addressed the House in 1943.

President Park, thus, joins a small, elite set of women leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who have been given the honor. She also is included in the smaller number of five Asia-Pacific women leaders who have appeared before the American Congress, including Madam Chiang Kai-shek, Philippine President Corazon Aquino, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Thus, from several different perspectives, President Park's recent address to the Congress was historic. It also represented a major diplomatic achievement for the Republic of Korea.

Japan-Korean Relations

"With the help of Japan, China,
and Manchukuo, the world
can be at peace"

On Friday afternoon, February 22, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe gave a speech to a hand-selected crowd at CSIS in Washington. He is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi who was an unprosecuted Class-A war criminal. He had been an administrator of Manchukuo and appointed by Tojo in 1941 as Minister of Commerce and Industry, and he held this position until Japan's surrender in 1945. In 1957, Kishi became a postwar Prime Minister through 1960. He subsequently played an important role in the normalization of relations between Japan and South Korea.

On the 25th, Park Geun-hye will be inaugurated as the first female president of South Korea. One of her many challenges is overcoming her father's legacy as ruthless dictator who was trained at Japan's Imperial Army Academy and served in the Manchukuo Army. Last September, Ms. Park made a painful apology for her father's abuses of human rights. 

During the Qs&As at this CSIS speech, Abe veered closer to his feelings than the diplomatic, prepared speech he gave had allowed. It is unlikely that Ms. Park was pleased with his answer. On the eve of her inauguration, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties moved to set up a forum to review human rights abuses committed under the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The research group assisting the the legislators is the Japanese Forced Labor & Peace Studies Research Group [일제강제동원&평화연구회].

Q: Mr. Prime Minister, it’s good to see you again. Victor Cha from CSIS and
Georgetown.
You mentioned in your speech about North Korea, and I’d actually like to ask you about South Korea. We have a new president in South Korea going to be inaugurated next week, Park Geun-hye. But at the same time, frankly speaking, it’s a period of some difficult tensions in Japan-South Korea relations. So I guess I would like to know what your vision is for the future of Seoul-Tokyo cooperation in the face of many of the threats that you mentioned in your speech.

PRIME MIN. ABE: (Through interpreter.) First of all, I would like to say that Korea-South Korea is the most important neighbor for us. And President-elect Park Geun-hye – I have had – I met her twice, I’ve also had a meal with her actually, and my grandfather was best friends with her father, President Park Chung-hee. So – but at the same time – so President Park Chung-hee was someone who was very close with Japan, obviously.