This photo shows ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol (left) and his wife Kim Keon-hee (second left), Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (right) and his wife Yuko Kishida (second right) attending a dinner at the presidential residence in Seoul on May 7, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)
Republic of Korea President Yoon Suk-yeol has faced heavy criticism domestically after he was accused of holding a controversial summit without substance and coming away “empty-handed” from his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
In a Supreme Council meeting on May 8, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party said Yoon, who held a summit with his Japanese counterpart in Seoul the previous day, ignored the public’s demands to look after national interests.
Asking what the ROK got out of the bilateral summit, minor opposition Justice Party leader Lee Jeong-mi said the result of the first day of the summit was “miserable”
The ROK was the only side that “filled the empty glass” of diplomacy through concessions, he was quoted as saying by public broadcaster KBS.
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Kishida’s visit to Seoul was intended to restore the so-called shuttle diplomacy as he made the first official bilateral visit by a Japanese leader to the ROK in over a decade. His two-day visit came after Yoon’s March trip to Tokyo.
The Democratic Party (DP), the main opposition party, issued a statement saying that “humiliating diplomacy” has become the foundation of the Yoon administration’s dialogue with Japan as Kishida did not make an apology for or even acknowledge the ROK forced labor issue during Japan’s colonial rule.
Commenting on Kishida’s statement that his “heart hurts”, for him personally, from pain stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of the ROK, Nam Ki-jeong, professor at the Institute for Japanese Studies at Seoul National University, said it was just a repetition of Tokyo’s previous stance.
“It’s a statement that avoids the essence of the matter,” Nam told local newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun on May 7.
Regarding the agreement by Yoon and Kishida that allows ROK experts to visit Fukushima later this month to inspect the planned release of nuclear radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant, the DP said it is intolerable if the Yoon government agreed with the plan just by sending a group of experts there.
Asking what the ROK got out of the bilateral summit, minor opposition Justice Party leader Lee Jeong-mi said the result of the first day of the summit was “miserable”.
The ROK president did not say a word against Japan’s radioactive water discharge plans, the Justice Party leader said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Several ROK organization rallied over the weekend to voice their disapproval at Kishida’s visit. Protesters called for Tokyo’s apology over its militarist past, opposed ROK-Japan military cooperation, and demanded withdrawal of Japan’s plan to discharge radioactive wastewater.
Yoon’s reconciliation plan may have no future with the next administration, said Lakhvinder Singh, director of the peace program at The Asia Institute, a Seoul-based think tank.
“Push for reconciliation with Japan is coming from fast changing balance of power in the region rather than genuine desire to forgive Japan for its wartime crimes,” Singh told China Daily.
In a survey by Gallup Korea in March, nearly 60 percent of people in the ROK opposed the push by Yoon’s government to resolve Japan’s wartime forced labor issue through a third-party reimbursement plan as it included no apology or reparations from Japan.
Noting Yoon has set clear aims for stronger cooperation with the US and Japan as he said his country is open to trilateral strategy and nuclear planning against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Singh said it is still more rhetoric than substance.
Singh said Yoon is “completely ignoring” how regional countries like China and the DPRK will react to his growing tilt towards Japan.
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“I feel he has to use due diligence and think through the whole thing (about) how it will play (out) in larger regional context,” said Singh. “Otherwise, his country might end (up) paying a heavy price (for) this indulgence.”
Park Sang-in, professor at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Administration, told China Daily that he does not think many people in the ROK will support Yoon’s reconciliation moves as far as Japan denies the existence of the forced labor.
The two leaders also vowed to bolster semiconductor supply chains cooperation but Park said there are no specifics and he does not expect to see any big changes on the ROK’s side considering the damages to ROK companies due to Japan’s previous sanctions on chip materials.
Contact the writer at kelly@chinadailyapac.com