TOKYO -- Relations between Japanand South Koreahave soured to near all-time lows in recent years owing to territorial disagreements, misperceptions of history and in no small part due to the ever-increasing right leaning ideology of Japan's current administration under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
In fact, such has been the severity of the diminishing ties between the two Asian neighbors, that Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye have not held official talks since Abe assumed office in 2012 and Park in 2013.
Bilateral talks between senior ministers on both sides have also been put largely on ice as tensions continued to grow regarding increasingly strained territorial issues, Japan's abuses committed during World War II that have yet to be resolved, particularly the thorny comfort women, or sex slaves issue, that Japan, under Abe's leadership, had tried to somewhat discredit under its new revisionist stance.
Also, a more recent bilateral furor has erupted caused by Japan looking to have 23 industrial sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, spanning facilities used in both the 19th and 20th century, listed as World Heritage sites, with the move being slammed by South Korea as a "distortion of history," as the 23 sites were used as forced labor camps where around 60,000 Koreans were held captive and made to work during Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula, with the severity of labor causing the death of 94 workers at the sites.
But a rare meeting between Japan and South Korea's foreign ministers starting Sunday in Tokyo, has led many political pundits to believe that this could be the embryonic beginning of tensions thawing between the two countries and if headway can be made on some of the outstanding issues, then the possibility of the first official summit between the two countries' leaders could lead to significant diplomatic headway being made, in a year the world stops to commemorate and reflect on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
"It's a big year for Japan in as much as the whole world is scrutinizing Abe and his war statement, to see if it follows that of previous administrations and includes sentiments and apologies that have been largely accepted by those that suffered during Japan's wartime colonial rule, but there's also a great deal of skepticism as well surrounding the government, due to its recent militaristic and nationalistic moves," pacific affairs research and defense analyst, Laurent Sinclair, told Xinhua.
"But at this point in time, however, it looks as though both sides are at least interested in holding progressive dialogue on some contentious issues, and considering the current climate in the Asia Pacific region, this is a good thing as tensions need to be diffused. That said, Japan and South Korea have a long way to go before the two countries are on a completely amicable footing. This is just the beginning," Sinclair said.
Sinclair was referring initially to Japan's foreign minister Fumio Kishida meeting his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se for talks in Tokyo on Sunday, which were aimed at looking into ways to improve relations of the two countries, ahead of observing the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties.
Kishida and Yun on Sunday traversed a number of pertinent issues that had contributed to both nation's bilateral diplomatic implosion, with Kishida saying that the issue of "comfort women," which refers to the Japanese army during WWII forcibly kidnapping, enslaving and raping Korean sex slaves, predominantly at military brothels, or comfort stations as they were dubbed, during the war, had been discussed with an eye to resolving the issue.
Yun's visit marks the first time a foreign minister has visited Japan since South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office in February 2013 and the first from a senior government official since 2011, as ties have soured between Tokyo and Seoul due to an ongoing territorial dispute and different perceptions of history.
"It's a fairly major step forward that Yun and Kishida met in the first place and managed to broach the very difficult topic of comfort women and agreed to keep the dialogue continuing in future talks, with Yun inviting Kishida to South Korea for further talks at some point later this year,' Sinclair said, adding that Japan's stance could well be softening.
"Japan has, at least up until now, taken a fairly uncompromising stance on the issue, but it could be that this is now softening as Japan's line on the issue has always been that the comfort women issue has been settled under the 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized diplomatic ties, but South Korea has always maintained that this has been unacceptable and Japan needs to compensate and apologize sincerely to the dwindling number of women who are still alive, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army," said the expert.
Regarding the UNESCO World Heritage listing of historical industrial sites in Japan, Kishida said talks on this topic with his counterpart were fruitful, although suggested no particular agreement had been made, inferring again that dialogue on the issue would continue, with both sides cooperating on the other's listings as far as possible. But sources close to the matter said Japan was more receptive to calls from South Korea to further clarify the tragic historical background of the sites in official UNESCO documents and, possibly, on signs in front of the sites.
But it is the possibility of summit talks being held in the near future between Abe and Park, as negotiated by the two foreign ministers that perhaps mark the biggest breakthrough for both sides, political pundits here attest. Up until now calls by Abe for one-to-one talks with Park have been flatly rejected, due to Abe's inflexibility on historical perceptions, attempts to dabble with the landmark Kono statement which admits and apologizes for Japan's use of comfort women, as well as the ongoing disputes regarding the Takeshima Islands as they're known in Japan, which are administered by South Korea and known as the Dokdo Islands, but claimed by Japan.
"It would appear that the leaders of both countries will both mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations Monday in person, by calling for a relationship that looks to the future of ties between the two countries," Dr. David McLellan, a professor emeritus of postgraduate Asian Studies in Tokyo, told Xinhua.
"For a while it looked as though Abe would not attend the event in Tokyo later Monday, but rather rely on former Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga attending the reciprocal event in Seoul acting as Japan's official representative. But it seems that talks between Kishida and Yun may have seen a shift, as Abe said to Yun Monday that along with Park he wants to 'further improve relations toward the next half a century' and that he would like to ' celebrate the anniversary with the people in both countries,' at the South Korean embassy in Tokyo."
"While it may be true that Kishida and Yun have been working hard to realize a summit between Abe and Park at an appropriate time, and that the anniversary commemorations by both leaders today is evidence, to a degree, of thawing ties, it's important to bet on the side of caution in as much as while improved bilateral relations are in the best interests of the region, there still remains a lot of controversy and variance on some very serious issues that Abe and Park will need to find common ground on, before any real headway can be made," McLellan concluded.
