Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya met with his Chinese counterpart, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), in Beijing on Wednesday last week. To Japan, this was directly related to the high likelihood of South Korea’s left-leaning Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung winning South Korea’s probable presidential election this year. His win would have little if any direct impact on Taiwan.
South Korea’s political right holds a friendlier view of Japan, while its political left has a degree of enmity toward Japan. This is clearly shown in the attitudes toward Japan of former South Korean president Moon Jae-in and the suspended President Yoon Suk-yeol. Yoon’s friendliness toward Tokyo was supported by reliance on intelligence cooperation in military affairs, and gained the endorsement of South Korea’s chaebol conglomerate business empires. After Yoon’s inauguration, he led an economic entourage on an official visit to Japan, with former Samsung Electronics Corp executive chairman Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai Motor Group executive chairman Chung Eui-sun in attendance.
After Yoon met with then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean tourists flocked to Japan, breaking a 10-year record and surging past the number of Chinese visitors.
Koreanic and Japonic language and cultural families have millennia-old ties, and the two peoples have long had close relations and contact. Early in Japan’s history, many peoples from the Korean Peninsula and even the Korean royal family migrated to Japan, marrying into Japan’s aristocracy and helping to create a settled agrarian society.
Fast-forward to modern history, and the two lands have enjoyed much the same technology and capital. Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe led Japan for more than a decade, during which diplomatic relations with South Korea were largely disregarded, a situation that only got worse during Moon’s administration. China was able to replace South Korea in export trade and became the largest supplier of Japan’s foreign labor pool.
It is good that Japan’s relations with South Korea could continue following Yoon’s ousting. However, because of his short-lived declaration of martial law, Yoon, as well as the subsequent acting president, Han Duck-soo, were impeached. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba views the Yoon government as being on its way out.
It is unknown whether relations would return to past enmities. South Korea’s political left and Japan’s political right could force bilateral ties to nosedive. Both countries are unable to completely sever ties, but Japan has no real love for China. China has little to offer Japan other than being a source of foreign laborers and tourism, but these are viewed as “following in South Korea’s shadow in opposing Japan.”
If China-Japan ties warm up, Taiwan would need to make greater overtures toward South Korea. Even if Lee Jae-myung would lead South Korea closer to North Korea and China, doing so would not be a huge issue for Taiwan, as South Korea has had a decade of experience in its government handling bumpy scenarios. Its left and right-wing politicians would not be fooled.
Taiwan-South Korea ties rely on industrial and political connections to reduce blowback from improvements in Japan-China relations. The government should aid the development of markets and political connections with South Korea’s ethnic Chinese community, related civic groups and hometown associations.
In doing so, Taiwan could collect intelligence on these groups’ pro-Beijing penetration to figure out a way to effectively grow ties with South Korea.
Wang Wen-sheng is a retired political operations officer and doctoral candidate researching the history of Australia and New Zealand’s ties with Oceania.
Translated by Tim Smith
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