Restoration of Shuttle Diplomacy and The Effect of the Tolerance Policy on Japan

Myonwoo Lee

Vice President

mwlee@sejong.org

   Prime Minister Kishida returned to Japan on May 8 after a two-day visit to South Korea. The Korea-Japan summit held for the second time this year since March 16, received different assessments in domestic and internationally but varies depending on ideological orientation and political color, but the opinion to normalize Korea-Japan relations has converged among political parties. Therefore, Prime Minister Kishida's visit to Korea and the subsequent summit mean the restoration of shuttle diplomacy that allows more practical consultations and exchanges to improve relations while avoiding conflict between the two countries. Restoration of the relation itself is a positive evaluation that was difficult to expect under the previous administration.

   The issues between Korea and Japan, such as historical awareness issues such as comfort women and forced labor issues, security issues regarding North Korea's nuclear and missile development, territorial issues such as Dokdo issues, Japan's exclusion from the whitelist, and economic issues such as Fukushima nuclear power plant treated water, are not easy to be completed in a short time. Hence, these are not simple problems due to their relation with domestic and international structures. In addition to the official position such as the Kim-Obuchi Declaration, Prime Minister Kishida's remarks that he was heartbroken by the pain of the victims of conscription and the agreement to dispatch the inspectors in consideration of South Korea's concerns over the release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

   In particular, these noteworthy achievements were made possible with the positive outcome of the tolerance policy made by President Yoon's determination and leadership along with creating a virtuous cycle. For current government's tolerance policy is based on a belief that Japan is a country that shares the common value of "freedom, human rights, and legal order" with Korea, and aims to maintain and develop relations with Japan regardless of short-term achievements, such as apology but to create, maintain and develop long-term national interests against international environment's reality which creates various tasks. As a result, the March summit was promoted based on a "Third-Party Payment" plan on the forced labor issue despite domestic criticism and opposition, which could lead to the April Korea-U.S. summit's "Washington Declaration," leading to Prime Minister Kishida's visit to Korea.

   There are various opinions about the reason for Prime Minister Kishida's early visit to Korea, but considering President Yoon's visit to the U.S. might have been the main factor in the consistent identification of Korea's liberal democracy and the restoration of trust. For Japan, the Washington Declaration, which includes the establishment of a Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) had an impact, such as how Sankei Shimbun, critical to Korea, pointed out that Kishida's Administration should follow President Yoon's steps, but does not mean it triggered haste visit to Korea as there were also an argument about Japanese nuclear armament or nuclear sharing in Japan. For a recent example, it was suggested by previous Prime Minister Abe as a way to prevent situations such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine but was rejected by the Liberal Democratic Party's security investigation which the three non-nuclear principle is different from Nato's case, excluding to revised security documents at the end of 2022.

   Therefore, rather than such reasons, the Yoon Administration's restoration of trust is based on value or identity diplomacy-centered norms such as "freedom," human rights," and 'law and order" presented before and after the inauguration of Yoon Administration has been moved to action over past years. In particular, Prime Minister Kishida pushed the 2015 Comfort Women Agreement during his position as a Minister of Foreign Affairs and witnessed its failure in implementation in both countries. The reason for his progress away from the cautious attitude and positions seen from March Summit is largely due to the factor of restoring trust, a source of improvement of relations.

   In this way, the tolerance policy has the charm of monitoring the influence and convincing the other party to induce their response by themselves. In recent years, Korea-Japan relations has been showing changes from restraint relation due to historical experiences from the past. It can be described that the complex crisis in international situation encourages such trends, resulting the necessity to maintain the hardly created trust-based policy in a more developed way to sustain Japan's Tolerance Policy.​