Mutual trust holds the key to co-prosperity

Only when political leaders humbly accept historical facts can they bolster trust with their counterpart and move toward a prosperous future together.

Chung Un-chanThe author, a former prime minister and former president of Seoul National University, is the chairman of the Korea Institute for Shared Growth.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s summit with U.S. President Joe Biden on April 26 opened a new horizon for the 70-year alliance. In the Washington Declaration released from the White House, the two leaders pledged to respond to nuclear attacks from North Korea immediately. The United States vowed to deter the North’s aggression by mobilizing all American military capabilities, including nuclear weapons. The two countries cemented their alliance more than ever.

The seven-decade alliance goes back to 1953, shortly after the end of the Korean War, to effectively deter the North from launching another massive aggression on the South. Though the alliance was based on the Mutual Defense Treaty in formality, it was actually a security guarantee from Uncle Sam for South Korea given its mediocre military and economic might at the time. The achievement was possible thanks to our founding president Syngman Rhee, who obtained a doctorate from Princeton University with the thesis titled “Neutrality as influenced by the United States.” Seventy years later, South Korea has become a proud member of the so-called 30-50 Club — countries whose population is over 50 million and have more than $30,000 GDP per capita — together with the U.S., Japan, Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

In his best-seller “Japan Inside Out: The Challenge of Today,” published in July 1941, Rhee foresaw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December that year and the consequent Pacific War. In the book, he pointed to the historical responsibility of the United States for unilaterally abrogating the Joseon-U.S. Treaty of 1882 and helping Japan annex Korea with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905. The first Korean president was courageous enough to point out the wrongdoings of the U.S. in the lead-up to Japan’s colonial rule of the country. Such an upright attitude helped Korea build closer ties with the U.S. than otherwise. In a book review in the Asia Magazine, Nobel laureate Pearl Buck welcomed Rhee’s criticism of America for allowing Japan to pillage Korea after shamefully withdrawing from the Joseon-U.S. Treaty of 1882.

The insights of Rhee into international politics are needed even today. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration must heighten our national prestige by strongly protesting against the U.S. intelligence agency’s spying on its ally and holding the U.S. accountable for betraying mutual trust. At the same time, the government must stress the need for the United States to reconsider its industrial and trade policy toward the goal of mutual growth after the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at rebuilding supply chains and restricting Korea’s investment in China went into effect under the Biden administration. The government must convince Washington that U.S. prosperity at the cost of the ally’s losses will not only adversely affect the South Korean economy but also do more harm than good for the U.S. economy.

Korea’s relations with Japan is no different. Since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965, Tokyo has made a meaningful effort to improve bilateral ties. Laying stepping stones were the 1995 Murayama statement and the 2005 Koizumi statement both expressing a regret and apology for Japan’s aggression of Korea and the 2010 Kan statement admitting to Japan’s colonization of the country against the Korean people’s will, except for the 2015 Abe statement which damaged bilateral relations.

Just as a new law outweighs an old law, a new statement redeems an old one. Unfortunately, the Abe statement represents the general understanding of history in Japan today. A number of Japanese people now regard Japan’s colonial rule as justified. Under such volatile circumstances, any quick fix cannot be a fundamental solution.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, has a trilateral summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, center, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid, June 29, 2022. [AFP/YONHAP]

President Yoon has made a bold decision to resolve the wartime sex slave and forced labor issues to improve Korea’s relations with Japan. The president must demand that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishda express a more sincere apology when he visits Korea this Sunday. It will be better if he can deliver a more future-oriented apology than Koizumi’s. But without concessions from both sides, they cannot reach a compromise.

More important than the diplomatic effort to find a solution is the process of persuading their own people about their solution. Yoon and Kishida must convince them of their agreements once they are reached.

I also hope the U.S. helps Korea draw a sincere apology from Tokyo over the two thorny issues so that Washington can take responsibility, albeit belated, for its original sin of conniving at Japan’s colonization of Korea over a century ago. Only when political leaders humbly accept historical facts can they bolster trust with their counterpart and move toward a prosperous future together.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.