If the United States hopes to facilitate a genuine and sustained rapprochement between South Korea and Japan, thereby cultivating the foundations of a more peaceful, stable, and harmonious Indo-Pacific region, it must understand and recognize its own role in perpetuating these divisions.
An Exclusive Peace Treaty
In the crucial period after World War II, the United States’ decision to exclude Korea from the peace treaty with Japan dismissed Korean grievances against Japan and instead established a framework whereby the strategic interests of The United States would have priority over the resolution of the bad story. Read also : North Korea says US is shaping NATO Asia; swear stronger defense.
As World War II ended, the two American military occupations of South Korea and Japan added urgency to long-running discussions in Washington about what the future of East Asia would look like in a postwar era. American officials were initially motivated by idealistic goals of promoting a liberal peace, including allowing reparations that would recognize those who had suffered as a result of Japanese actions, and began drafting versions of an eventual peace treaty with Japan that he could accomplish such broad tasks.
The plan was this: A peace treaty would fully restore Japanese sovereignty, end the Allied occupation of Japan, and fulfill the spirit of the Allied wartime aspirations to achieve peace based on justice. Ideally, the treaty would do this without gutting Japan’s postwar recovery, avoiding the mistakes of the punitive Treaty of Versailles after World War I. community of nations
But as tensions rose with the Soviet Union and fears of communism rose to new heights in the years following the end of World War II, the primary imperative for American foreign policy mutated. The central value of the treaty became restoring Japan as a strategic asset in the Pacific and a sovereign ally, with the secondary benefit of addressing how Japan could resolve its imperial past. The treaty will function as a legal validation of the effort to rehabilitate and leverage Japan as a key link in the US regional security network.
Addressing Japan’s Imperialist Past
Dealing with Japan’s past was no easy task. The issues ranged from territorial disputes from the Kuril Islands to the South China Sea, to compensation for Allied citizens who might have suffered while living under Japanese rule, to the very question of who, in a world that seemed very different from that one. before the war, qualified as an “allied combatant” and therefore deserving of reparations from Japan.
A changing team of US diplomats and staff wrestled with these questions for years, as countries that stood to gain or lose from the peace treaty lobbied Washington. On the same subject : Lendlease joins a Dutch pension fund to develop real estate in high-tech centers. The treaty – which would finally be signed in San Francisco in September 1951 – was, therefore, a multilateral document that had to deal with the question of who could be a party to it.
The key question was whether newly independent states that had been colonies during World War II could be recognized for their wartime grievances. US officials had approved the inclusion of former Western colonies such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, considering their participation valuable in enhancing the treaty’s legitimacy. Normalizing relations between the newly independent states and Japan was crucial to regional stability, especially when nations such as India refused to attend, so it was important to get as many Asian states as possible to sign the treaty
Similarly, South Korea claimed that it deserved to be represented in the treaty, pointing to the history of Korean resistance to Japanese colonial rule. In particular, Syngman Rhee’s government demanded reparations from Japan, recognition that the Takeshima/Dokdo Islands would be under South Korean jurisdiction, and, most importantly, participation in the international treaty that would formalize Japan’s recognition of the his imperial conduct. It is important to note that the South Korean government did not demand reparations for Korean comfort women forced into sexual slavery, which was then still a taboo subject in Korean society, but instead saw reparations as a way to fuel Korea’s post-war recovery.
U.S. Priorities
Complications quickly materialized. The United States prioritized Japan’s reconstruction as a strategic asset and was eager to minimize Japan’s economic burdens from treaty reparations. Read also : US Air Force Secretary: China’s actions around Taiwan increase risk. Also, until the Korean War, the US government generally viewed the Korean Peninsula as less important. During World War II, the United States had explicitly rejected requests from the Korean Provisional Government and other Korean organizations to participate in early United Nations conferences.
To illustrate US priorities, the US military’s occupation of South Korea was characterized by the absence of any Americans on the ground with knowledge of or sympathy for its local context; the American occupation chief often complained that the Koreans were “untrained and uneducated Orientals . . . with whom it is almost impossible to reason.”
Before June 1950, US officials in the region were sometimes frustrated with the South Korean lobby and saw Korean representatives as troublesome and unpleasantly nationalistic, compared to the Japanese whom they considered relatively cooperative.
And while an early draft of a State Department peace treaty included Korea as a participant, archival documents reveal that the United States justified the participation of the South Korean government because, on the other hand way, “it would certainly feel entitled to participate and would be resentful if the United States were not in favor of its participation.” In other words, South Korea’s inclusion was motivated by a desire to avoid the headache of ‘a cry from Seoul, not necessarily by virtue of its claims.
American officials especially struggled to assess the long history of Japanese imperialism in Korea. Records in the U.S. National Archives also reveal a 1949 State Department report concluding that “Korea’s interests in the peace settlement seem to arise more from the consequences of annexation and forty years of exploitation rather than the war itself” later to criticize Korean claims to go beyond the “World War II” framing with which the United States was comfortable.
The Logic of Quick Solutions
The start of the Korean War in June 1950 triggered two offsetting factors regarding South Korea’s participation in the Treaty of San Francisco. First, it dramatically raised South Korea’s strategic profile and convinced some US officials of the symbolic benefits of getting South Korean representatives on an international stage. Peace treaty drafts in late 1950 and early 1951 included South Korea as a participant, acknowledging Korea’s grievances against Japan.
But second, the war amplified America’s concerns about ending the treaty quickly. Japan was still the main strategic asset for the United States. The peace treaty would be accompanied by a mutual security agreement with Japan, amid intensifying U.S. pressure on Japan to rearm its Self-Defense Forces, reinstate previously purged Imperial Japanese officers to equip those of military endowments and partially reverse the first efforts to eliminate Japanese wartime leaders. public life The revisionist wing of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is unapologetic about Japan’s imperial past, can trace its roots to the United States’ decisions to roll back its ambitions of demilitarization and democratization. Geopolitics, without addressing difficult history, changed the calculus and had lasting consequences.
This logic of quick fixes to maximize short-term U.S. advantages ultimately led to South Korea’s exclusion from the San Francisco Peace Treaty. When British diplomats expressed concern that including South Korea, but excluding North Korea, might upset Britain’s own trade interests with China, the United States quickly acquiesced. Moreover, the State Department was prepared to avoid Korean involvement. Japan had already lobbied aggressively against Korea’s participation, with Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida most concerned about claims to which Korean nationals living in Japan might be entitled.
John Foster Dulles, a future US secretary of state and then chief diplomat for the treaty negotiations, saw Korean officials as overly nationalistic troublemakers who could disrupt the carefully planned treaty process.
During the summer of 1951, the Korean ambassador to the United States sought ways for South Korea to remain a party to the treaty, but was repeatedly rebuffed. Archival evidence shows that the final US offer was only that a few South Korean officials could attend the conference as informal guests, and the State Department would help them book their hotels.
At this point, the US hoped that South Korea and Japan would ultimately be able to resolve their issues bilaterally. In the window of opportunity in which the United States could exert a dramatic influence on the future of relations in Asia, the suffering that Koreans might have experienced under Japanese control was not recognized. Without strong American mediation, it would take almost 15 years for South Korea and Japan to normalize relations in 1965, allowing historical problems and hostilities to fester.
Long-Term Consequences
The decisions of the United States in 1951 were not illogical from a certain point of view at the time, but the reason why the United States excluded South Korea from the peace treaty had long-term consequences and il ·illuminates the framework of US strategic decision-making that persists today. .
For more than 70 years, the Northeast Asia policy of successive US administrations has seen the historical problems that make the South Korean-Japanese enmity “their” problem, which has fired despite US efforts to encourage reconciliation.
On the contrary, the United States has often contributed to these crumbling issues by using its strategic imperatives to pressure the governments of South Korea and Japan to follow suit. Re-establishments of relations, such as the 1965 normalization treaty and the 2015 comfort women agreement, although sometimes publicly framed by the United States as an attempt to resolve historical enmities, had also been driven by the ‘spirit of strengthening the strategic interests of the United States. Subsequently, these resets have proven fragile despite achieving progress in the short and medium term: the first because of the total absence of public participation and the second because it did not consult with individual victims and left the impression that it was a political agreement rather than a conciliatory agreement.
Any rapprochement between South Korea and Japan should be more than a government-to-government agreement without popular discourse, although these are the kind of agreements that are convenient in the short term.
Owning Up to the Past
The United States can help reduce the political costs for South Korean and Japanese leaders by recognizing its own historical role in prioritizing security interests at the expense of Korean grievances and victims’ rights.
Official US recognition that the current state of relations between South Korea and Japan is partly due to the nature of the US strategic framework may perhaps redirect some of the blame between Tokyo and Seoul. Moreover, with the involvement of the United States, a holistic exploration of postwar history can also highlight the failure of the South Korean government itself to address the claims of individual Korean victims in the 1951 and 1965 negotiations.
A series of semi-official conferences involving Korean, Japanese and American scholars examining the legacy of post-war settlements could also be useful in producing joint policy-oriented publications. This could help policymakers start with a common factual basis for any conversation about reconciliation. While some in the U.S. may cringe at the prospect of any kind of “apology” for past U.S. actions, the legacy of diplomatic decision-making in post-World War II Asia may not necessarily be a charged topic in the United States that provokes internal reaction in the US government. And that approach is much more likely to lead to lasting public reconciliation than simply hoping that China and North Korea can be a common external threat that unites South Korea and Japan.
The legacy of the United States’ strategic decisions in creating its global security architecture left indelible marks on Northeast Asian relations. But Japan and South Korea need not be doomed to perpetual tension because of their unresolved history. Uncovering and acknowledging America’s past decisions can be an important first step in asserting Japanese culpability for its wrongdoing in World War II while dispelling the charge that only Japanese intransigence, Korean nationalism, or some combination of the two lead to the current state of affairs. . Rather, US security interests have necessarily contributed to limiting the opportunities and means of historical reconciliation since 1945.
Syrus Jin is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Chicago, where he researches the US military, East Asia, and the postwar creation of US global security architecture.
Which country is best friend of South Korea?
| India | South Korea |
|---|---|
| Embassy of India, Seoul | Embassy of South Korea, New Delhi |
| Sent |
Which country is most closely related to South Korea? The most similar country to South Korea is Japan, according to the index.
Which countries are best friends of Korea?
6 countries that are friends with North Korea
- Russia This is not really a surprise. …
- china Again, no surprise, given that during the Korean War, Chinese troops intervened on the side of North Korea. …
- Iran. …
- Syria …
- cuba …
- Equatorial Guinea.
Which country is friend of South Korea?
For more than 60 years, the Philippines and South Korea have nurtured this friendship, a partnership that began with military collaboration and continues to this day in the form of deeper and more comprehensive cooperation in diverse fields such as trade, political security concerns and society cultural exchanges.
Why North Korea and Japan are enemies?
There have been several clashes between the two nations over North Korea’s clandestine activity in Japan, in addition to kidnappings, including drug trafficking, marine poaching and espionage. North Korea’s missile tests are a concern for Japan because the missiles sometimes travel through Japanese airspace and territory.
Why Korea vs. Japan? Korea under Japanese rule The issue of “comfort women” has been the source of diplomatic tensions between Japan and Korea since the 1980s. Kim Il-sung led a Korean independence movement, which was active in the border areas of China and Russia, especially in areas with a considerable ethnic Korean population.
What did Japan do to Korea?
Japan formally annexed the Korean Empire with the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910, without the consent of the former Korean Emperor Gojong, the regent of Emperor Sunjong. After its annexation, Japan declared that Korea would be officially called ChÅsen from now on.
Are Japan and South Korea friends?
They have a historically bitter and contentious relationship that is rooted in the Japanese colonization of South Korea between 1910 and 1945, and which was inflamed by Japan’s use of sex slaves in wartime brothels, the victims of which are now euphemistically referred to as “comfort women”. Also, they are still locked in a 70-year dispute…
Are Japan and North Korea friends? Relations between the two countries are very strained and marked by tension and hostility. According to a 2014 BBC World Service poll, 91% of Japanese view North Korea’s influence negatively, with only 1% expressing a positive view; the most negative perception of North Korea in the world.
Who is South Korea’s biggest ally?
In 1989, the United States was South Korea’s largest and most important trading partner, and South Korea was the seventh largest market for US products and the second largest market for its agricultural products.
Why are Japan and Korea enemies?
In recent decades, disputes over history and history textbooks have strained relations between Japan and the two Koreas. The debate has exacerbated nationalist pride and animosity, as teachers and professors become soldiers in an intellectual war over events spanning more than half a century or even two millennia.
