Partnership Within Hierarchy: The Evolving East Asian Security Triangle by Sung Chull Kim

Author:Sung Chull Kim [Kim, Sung Chull]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, General, Political Science, Asia, History, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781438463957
Google: wwwtDgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34178962
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2017-02-21T11:59:07+00:00

7

Controversy over Historical Issues

In the post–Cold War era, the most contentious issues between Japan and South Korea have been those concerning the Korean “comfort women,” or military sex slaves, and the islets of Dokdo/Takeshima. With the passage of time, these issues have become more troubling both on the diplomatic front and within the two societies. Diplomatic tension between Japan and its neighbors has not been limited to the comfort women issue; the Nanjing massacre is another case that has caused Japan diplomatic tension, in this instance with China. Likewise, Japan has other territorial disputes with its neighbors apart from the one with South Korea concerning Dokdo/Takeshima, including the disputes over the Northern territories/Southern Kuril and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.1 Not surprisingly, disputes over historical events have gone hand in hand with competing territorial claims. With U.S. intervention, the ROK and Japan reached an agreement on December 28, 2015, whereby Tokyo admitted the Imperial Army’s involvement in sex slavery, expressed apology, and offered financial support (one billion Japanese yen, equivalent to $8.3 million) for the establishment of a foundation for the victims; in return, Seoul accepted the resolution as final and irreversible.2 Strictly speaking, the agreement was not a resolution but a product of negotiation. Long enmity entrenched in each society is not likely disappear anytime soon.

In explaining Japan’s disputes with its neighbors, most accounts have adopted one of two approaches. Those favoring the nationalism approach attribute these problems to the rise of Japanese nationalism, or more broadly a “clash of nationalisms,” in East Asia,3 whereas proponents of the collective memory approach have identified channels of memory, using terms and concepts developed in interdisciplinary contexts—such as psychological defense mechanism4 and cultural identity.5 Although both of these approaches have their merits, neither of them accounts for why contentions over historical issues emerged at this particular time, that is, in the mid-1990s. This chapter shows the ways in which the contentions, which had been suppressed during the Cold War, came to the surface and continued to trouble the Japan-ROK relations.

I argue that internal dynamics in the security triangle—incremental changes in South Korea and Japan during the Cold War and a substantial balancing between the two as the Cold War thawed—allowed these historical issues to reemerge. For South Korea, the internal dynamics meant a record-breaking rate of economic development and an impressive process of democratization before the end of the Cold War, and a rise in its middle-power standing in the post–Cold War era. South Korea normalized its relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and with China in 1992, and in 1996 it ceased to be a recipient of Japanese aid and joined the OECD, becoming a donor of official development assistance (ODA) and humanitarian aid around the world. Advocacy groups within South Korea’s increasingly empowered civil society have taken up such long-suppressed issues as the rights of the victims of state-sponsored violence, human rights violations, and gender discrimination. The advocacy groups have also unearthed the painful stories told by former comfort women.

In Japan,

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