On paper, Japan and South Korea should be the best of friends. The two neighbours are free, democratic societies. Both were devastated by massive wars, but rebuilt themselves as wealthy, high-tech economies. Both have a mutual enemy in North Korea, while China and Russia pose security risks too. Together with the United States, they form an important quasi-alliance responsible for maintaining security right across north-east Asia. The recent Freedom Edge trilateral military exercises emphasised air defence coordination and anti-surface combat, much to the chagrin of the Kim regime in Pyongyang.
In practice, though, solidarity hasn’t always been easy. Though 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Japan and South Korea officially normalising relations, the past six decades have been a rollercoaster mix of cooperation and nationalist hatred. That’s clear enough recently — in 2019, Tokyo and Seoul became embroiled in a bitter trade war and mutual boycott. Foreigners are often baffled at why two countries with such similar systems of governance, and both surrounded by nuclear-tipped threats, get into such heated spats. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo even tried to get both sides to get along during the 2019 trade dispute. To no avail.
In part, the answer involves the normal ebb and flow of politics, with parliamentarians in Seoul and Tokyo happy to exploit their neighbours for short-term gain. In 2023, for instance, opposition politicians in South Korea’s parliament bashed President Yoon Suk-yeol for a summit with then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, calling it “humiliating, subservient diplomacy”. At root, though, what really matters here is history, and the brutal legacy of Japan’s long occupation on the mainland — even if Trump’s foreign policy revolution may, finally, bring the two sides together.
Following its defeat in 1945, Japan relinquished imperial control of the Korean Peninsula. The spheres of influence which would define the Cold War for the rest of the century soon formed, as the US occupied Japan and what became South Korea, while the Soviet Union backed the Kim regime in Pyongyang. The Korean War broke out in 1950, following Kim Il Sung’s invasion of the South, which quickly drew America into the conflict. Despite Washington pressuring Seoul to allow Japan to get involved, South Korea’s dictator Syngman Rhee baulked at the idea of Korean soldiers fighting alongside their erstwhile enemy, not least when memories of the occupation were still fresh in everyone’s mind. While acknowledging Japan’s strategic importance as a base for US forces, Rhee staunchly refused to normalise relations.
That would only happen in 1965 when both countries signed the Treaty on Basic Relations. Rhee had been ousted from power, but the parliamentary system that replaced him was weak and ineffective. President Park Chung-hee took advantage of the instability and launched a coup, cementing himself as a brutal military despot. Though he was also a militant anti-communist like Rhee, he also recognised the need to partner with Tokyo to face down the reds in China and the DPRK. It probably helped that Park had collaborated with the Japanese during the Second World War, working with the Empire as an officer instead of against it as a rebel. He graduated top of his class at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, one of the few Koreans allowed to attend.
In other words, then, though relations between Japan and South Korea were officially normalised decades ago, it only happened within the context of Cold War geopolitics and through a controversial Korean president who didn’t truly speak for his people. That meant Tokyo and Seoul moved on from their tragic past — but only for a while. This was proved after South Korea emerged as a democracy in the Eighties, and there was now more space for free discourse among Korean citizens.
For better or worse, old wounds reopened. There is no getting around the fact that, for 35 years, Imperial Japan subjugated the Korean people to its whims. Slave labour was widespread throughout the Empire, while by 1944 Korean males were being drafted into the army to assist with manpower shortages. These men saw direct combat with Allied forces, with over 22,000 dying on the battlefield. Between 270,000 and 810,000 Korean forced labourers also perished in coal mines and military factories under appalling conditions. The lack of clear data makes precise figures hard to determine, in turn allowing those with political agendas to inflate or diminish the number of victims as needed.
Even more emotionally charged is the issue of “comfort women” — a euphemism for the Korean and other Asian women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops. Intense debates persist around exactly how many comfort women existed, and to what extent the highest echelons of the Imperial Japanese state were involved in the practice. Just as striking, some Japanese politicians continue to show a distinct lack of contrition for the affair. In 2012, for instance, the late governor of Tokyo said that “prostitution was a very good way of making a living for women at that time and they chose the trade not unwillingly.” Osaka, for its part, terminated its sister-city relations with San Francisco over a proposed comfort women monument.
To be fair, Japan has tried to make amends. In 2015, for instance, a bilateral agreement signed between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye included apologies and financial reparations — and was supposed to have been the final word on the scandal. Yet by 2019, the deal was essentially dead in the water. The conservative Park was ousted after a major corruption scandal, while the succeeding progressive Moon Jae-in administration was uninterested in maintaining the status quo.
Moon chose to capitalise on the anger of activist groups that probably wouldn’t ever have accepted any settlement to start with, even as he made Korean nationalism, fuelled by anti-Japanese feeling, a key pillar of his government. This was further seen when South Korea tried another round of diplomacy with North Korea in 2018. This bickering explains that 2019 trade war, with some restrictions in place as late as 2023.
Yet, once again, the vagaries of politics are making themselves felt. After Moon finished his term, South Korea again went conservative. Affirming that Japan has “transformed from a militaristic aggressor of the past into a partner” President Yoon Suk-yeol made repairing relations with Tokyo one of his main priorities. On the Japanese side, meanwhile, the nationalistic fervour of Shinzo Abe’s faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has largely been replaced by Shigeru Ishiba and his more emollient tone. Into this mix came Joe Biden, and his focus on preserving America’s traditional alliances. The result was a rare moment when South Korea, Japan and the United States all backed their tri-party partnership against the looming Chinese threat.
If all of that sounds too good to be true — it was. Yoon is now in hot water for his failed attempt at enforcing martial law, a botched effort to harm the progressive opposition. It’s unclear if the disgraced President’s impeachment will be upheld, but if an election were held today, it’s almost guaranteed that Korea’s progressives would return to power. The leader of the opposition, Lee Jae-myung, is notorious for his anti-Japanese views. Some say these are genuine beliefs; others that he’s just an opportunist. Either way, Tokyo can probably expect some awkward conversations if Lee becomes South Korea’s next president.
As for Japan, the timing couldn’t be worse. The ruling LDP coalition recently lost their Lower House majority for the first time in 15 years, while Ishiba is hardly as sly a political fox as Abe. With little domestic backing, he must walk a fine line between pushing for Japan’s interests and maintaining a good relationship with the tariff-happy Trump. Their first summit in February wasn’t a disaster — but Ishiba pragmatically chose not to take sides in Washington’s criticisms of Ukraine.
Going forward, then, Japan will do its best to keep the US onside, but it’ll also have to work hard at maintaining good terms with South Korea. Ironically, anyway, pressure from one might prompt friendship with the other. If Trump introduces serious tariffs against both countries, they’ll inevitably need to boost mutual economic exchange. Not that American power is likely to vanish altogether. Especially on security, the US has always played a key role in getting Japan and South Korea to play nice. Washington’s last-minute intervention saved a pivotal information-sharing pact between Tokyo and Seoul during their 2019 trade war. Given Trump’s tough attitude on Europe, expect the commander-in-chief to make similar demands of his Asian partners once more — whether they want to get along or not.
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/
