The priority displayed by the conservative South Korean president, Yoon Seok-youl, of bringing his country closer to Japan and, beyond that, to other liberal democracies, is not going smoothly. In doing so, Mr. Yoon displeases the Chinese neighbor and alienates part of South Korean opinion.
Taking advantage of the anniversary, Wednesday 1is March, of the 1919 independence movement against Japanese colonization (1910-1945), Mr. Yoon presented Japan as being “from the rank of militaristic aggressor to that of a partner who shares the same universal values as us”.
A positioning appreciated in the Archipelago, where the secretary general of the government, Hirokazu Matsuno, spoke of South Korea as a“an important neighbor” with which Tokyo had to collaborate to meet the challenges at the international level. “Bilateral cooperation with our allies is important, but so is trilateral cooperation. We strongly support this vision of President Yoon for a more cooperative and forward-looking relationship with Japan.”, added Ned Price, spokesman for the US State Department. Washington is pushing for rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo in the face of North Korean but also Chinese threats.
“sleepwalking state”
These reactions contrast with Beijing’s defiance, expressed in Global Timesthe voice of Chinese power, by describing a Yoon administration “hypnotized by an American lullaby” et “entry into a state of somnambulism in his diplomatic initiatives”.
The rapprochement with Japan serves the policy of Mr. Yoon, who, as soon as he came to power in May 2022, expressed his desire to make South Korea a player in international relations alongside liberal democracies against authoritarian regimes. This choice broke with past positions, aiming for a balance between the American ally and the Chinese neighbor, Seoul’s main trading partner.
This diplomatic turn is justified by the North Korean threat but also by the tensions with China, which had reacted strongly to the deployment, in 2016 in South Korea, of American anti-missile defense systems THAAD, considered in Beijing as a pretext for the Americans to spy on China. It is also part of the bipolarization observed at the global level, accelerated by the war in Ukraine.
“Shaping a common future”
To get closer to Tokyo, Mr. Yoon broke away from what he described as“instrumentalization” historical litigation for political purposes by his predecessor, the progressive Moon Jae-in (2017-2022). The latter had chosen to glorify the resistance movement of 1919 and to support memorial claims, in this case the questions of so-called “comfort” women, a euphemism to speak of women sexually exploited by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. , but also forced Korean labor for Japanese companies. Mr. Moon’s policy had permanently weakened ties with a Japan reluctant to repent.
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