Reference: The Heritage Foundation
Abstract: Greater military and political cooperation between South Korea and Japan would protect South Korean, Japanese, and U.S. national interests in Asia. The growing North Korean and Chinese security threats to the region have motivated South Korea and Japan to cooperate more, but historical animosities and recent diplomatic missteps have constrained bilateral cooperation. The U.S. can best facilitate increased South Korean–Japanese cooperation by creating opportunities for more robust trilateral cooperation and by continuing to maintain the stabilizing force of a robust forward-deployed U.S. military presence in the region.
The Obama Administration has initiated what it calls an “Asia pivot” to demonstrate America’s commitment to peace and security in the Asia–Pacific, particularly in the face of a rising China and belligerent North Korea. The American initiative, a multifaceted strategy affirming U.S. resolve to protect national interests in Asia, has been strong in rhetoric but weak in implementation.
The Obama Administration’s bold rhetoric that its defense cuts will not degrade U.S. security capabilities in Asia drowned out the sections identifying the need for greater allied contributions. Asian and European allies have long underfunded security requirements, making it more critical that they now devote greater resources to their security needs.
Greater multinational cooperation would enhance allied military capabilities. Both South Korea and Japan have extensive, highly capable militaries. Washington has strong relationships with both countries, but the third leg of the military triad—between Seoul and Tokyo—remains virtually nonexistent due to bitter historic animosities arising from Japan’s brutal 35-year occupation of the Korean Peninsula (1910–1945) and bilateral territorial disputes.
In recent years, driven by common concerns over rising Chinese and North Korean security threats, Seoul and Tokyo have taken preliminary steps to advance relations by exchanging observers during military exercises and allowing trilateral participation in what had been bilateral training events with the United States. However, South Korea’s last-minute refusal to sign a military cooperation accord with Tokyo in June 2012 and rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s August trip to islets claimed by both countries show the constraints on greater military coordination.
The failure by Seoul and Tokyo to implement the military agreement hinders both countries’ national security objectives and impedes U.S. security objectives in Asia. Despite these difficulties, Washington should continue urging both allies to strengthen military cooperation to improve deterrence and defense against common threats. However, Washington needs to walk a fine line, neither appearing to take sides in territorial disputes nor becoming embroiled in highly emotional historic issues.
The United States can assist best by maintaining a strong alliance with both allies as a means of allaying each country’s security concerns about the other. This approach requires Washington to maintain a strong forward-deployed military presence in the Western Pacific and to devote sufficient military resources to be a credible deterrent to potential aggressors in Asia.
The Scrapped Military Agreement
In June 2012, Seoul and Tokyo were scheduled to sign a bilateral military agreement to improve joint security capabilities and continue nascent efforts to improve relations. Then, less than an hour before the ceremony, Seoul canceled due to flaring domestic criticism and legislative backlash over the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a pending agreement with South Korea’s former colonizer.
The GSOMIA would have been the first military pact between Seoul and Tokyo since the end of Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula in 1945. It would have provided a legal framework for the exchange and protection of classified information about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, potential military incursions and terrorist or cyber attacks, and China’s increasing military power. The agreement would also have provided South Korea with access to information collected by Japan’s high-tech intelligence satellites, AEGIS ships, and early-warning and anti-submarine aircraft.
President Lee Myung-bak had vowed to continue pushing for approval of the accord during the remainder of his term, which ends in February 2013. However, approval is unlikely given rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations over historic and sovereignty issues.
Pyongyang: A Catalyst for Seoul–Tokyo Cooperation
Since the mid-1990s, growing South Korean and Japanese concerns over the North Korean military threat have triggered tentative moves to improve bilateral relations and military cooperation. (See text box, “Growing South Korean–Japanese Military Cooperation.”) This effort assumed greater urgency after Pyongyang’s dangerous provocations during 2009–2012. A South Korean official explained that “as North Korea raises its threat of provocation, a consensus has formed that there needs to be closer military cooperation among [South Korea, Japan, and the United States].”[1]
A senior South Korean official commented that the need for South Korea and Japan to share military intelligence “became clear each time North Korea tested a nuclear weapon or launched a long-range missile, but the lack of an accord made that impossible. We decided to rush things [after the April 2012 missile launch].”[2] Tokyo saw benefits to exchanging information with South Korea after it failed to detect the North Korean missile launch, which would have flown over Okinawa if the missile had not blown up shortly after liftoff.
In January 2011, the South Korean and Japanese defense ministers agreed to pursue agreements on military intelligence sharing and logistics cooperation. In April 2012, South Korean Deputy Director of Defense Shin Kyung-soo and the Japanese Director of the Northeast Asia Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs preliminarily initialed the GSOMIA. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin was scheduled to sign the GSOMIA in May, but he cancelled his trip after resistance by opposition legislators. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reportedly urged Defense Minister Kim to expedite the agreement with Tokyo during their June 2012 “2+2” meeting of foreign and defense ministers.[3]
In May, Seoul had also put on hold the proposed bilateral Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (also known as the Mutual Logistic Support Agreement), which would have allowed the two nations to exchange basic military logistical supplies, such as food and fuel, during U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping operations overseas. It would also enable Japan to provide logistical support during a Korean crisis.
Enabling Intelligence Exchange
Although the GSOMIA triggered an uproar in South Korea, the accord is actually a simple document that delineates technical procedures for protecting classified military information shared between Seoul and Tokyo. The accord describes methods for using, storing, protecting, transporting, and disseminating classified information.[8]
Contrary to claims made by some critics, the agreement does not provide carte blanche access by each country to all of the other country’s classified information. It contains no requirement to divulge information, allowing each government to decide which data to share. South Korea already has similar agreements with 24 countries, including Russia.
The Korea–Japan GSOMIA, while seemingly minor in scope, is far-reaching in its impact because it would enable greater bilateral intelligence sharing, thus enhancing allied military capabilities. Furthermore, by increasing transparency and building trust between Seoul and Tokyo, the GSOMIA could become a stepping stone and confidence-building measure leading to even more meaningful bilateral military cooperation. The integral military relationship that Washington has with both allies would serve as a security guarantor to enable South Korea and Japan to overcome historic suspicions and animosities.
Hostages to History
Regrettably, the inability of these two countries to implement even a minor military accord reveals the depth of lingering South Korean resentment toward Japan. Despite vibrant and far-reaching economic and trade ties, similar democratic political systems, and shared strategic views of the international order, South Korea and Japan continue to have a very strained and tense relationship.
Japan feels that it has apologized repeatedly for its occupation and wartime actions. Moreover, Tokyo has pursued a postwar pacifist security policy, has focused its military on self-defense, and does not pose a threat of invasion to its neighbors. However, Japanese attempts at atonement and reconciliation have been undermined by the overly cautious wording of the government’s apologies, Tokyo’s territorial claims, and occasional provocative and insensitive comments by government officials. For example, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto claimed in August, “There is no evidence that people called comfort women were taken away by violence or threat by the (Japanese) military” during World War II.[9]
Historical issues would not continue to be issues if Japan had atoned more forthrightly and repeatedly for its past actions. Tokyo’s continued reliance on periodic and reluctant affirmation of decades-old legalistic statements concerning responsibility is clearly an obstacle to reconciliation with other Asian nations.
When the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) assumed power in 2009, some predicted that Japan’s relations with its neighbors would improve because the party would not be wedded to the overly cautious atonement statements of previous administrations. But the DPJ has made no more progress than its predecessors.
Politics Trumps Strategic Interests
The Lee administration fumbled the handling of the GSOMIA. The cabinet approved the pact, but only after bypassing normal lower-level ministerial review procedures. Nor did the foreign and defense ministries report the agreement to the National Assembly. Whether it was an attempt to keep the agreement secret (as critics charge) or bureaucratic bungling, the administration’s inept handling of this contentious issue triggered protests against President Lee and rekindled public anti-Japanese sentiment.
The presidential Blue House and the foreign ministry pointed fingers at each other for the diplomatic and political fiasco. Kim Tae-hyo, the senior presidential secretary for national security strategy, eventually resigned to take responsibility for mishandling the controversy.
The opposition parties, reeling from scandals and accusations of “pro–North Korea” policies, seized the opportunity to attack the conservative president and ruling party with the even worse epithet of “pro-Japan” leanings. Lee Hae-chan, chairman of the main opposition Democratic United Party, criticized the Lee administration for attempting to pass the agreement secretly and declared that the accord is “like offering military secrets to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.”[11] Lee Hae-chan accused the administration of seeking “to give access without restriction to military facilities and intelligence in seeking to forge a military intelligence treaty with a country that invaded our nation in the past.”[12] He called for the resignations of the prime minister, foreign minister, and defense minister.
The ruling Saenuri Party, worried over its chances in the upcoming presidential election, sought to minimize the fallout by quickly distancing itself from the increasingly unpopular President Lee. Ruling party legislators jumped on the nationalist bandwagon. Lee Hahn Koo, the Saenuri Party’s floor leader, stated that the ruling party believes the pact “runs contrary to public sentiment and it is not acceptable to try to sign the pact hurriedly.”[13]
The South Korean media across the ideological spectrum exacerbated the situation by warning of resurgent Japanese militarism, including Tokyo’s supposed intent to develop nuclear weapons. These South Korean fears run counter to the reality of Japan’s aversion to assuming a large security role or removing restrictions on its military forces. The conservative Chosun Ilbo warned that “there are suspicions that Japan is trying to expand the operating area of its Aegis destroyers to the West Sea using North Korea’s missile threat as an excuse.”[14]
The far-left Hankroyeh warned that “Japan’s proactive approach [indicates] intentions to intervene in the event of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula,” including sending military forces to rescue Japanese residents in South Korea.[15] The paper accused the Lee administration of “getting uncomfortably cozy with former colonial occupier” and favorably quoted the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which claimed that the GSOMIA would “open the sluice gate of Japan’s militaristic ambitions.”[16]
The Seoul-based Asan Institute concluded that the media played a large role in creating opposition to the GSOMIA. Specifically:
[The media focused] almost solely on the domestic politics of the agreement, the historical issues effecting relations between Korea and Japan, and the U.S. role in the signing of the agreement. According to a report filed by the Korea Broadcasting System analyzing the coverage of the GSOMIA, only 5% of all media reports covered the actual contents of the agreement.[17]
The Asan Institute concluded that, “while historical issues do come into play [resistance to the agreement] was driven more by opposition to President Lee himself.”[18]
Abstract: Greater military and political cooperation between South Korea and Japan would protect South Korean, Japanese, and U.S. national interests in Asia. The growing North Korean and Chinese security threats to the region have motivated South Korea and Japan to cooperate more, but historical animosities and recent diplomatic missteps have constrained bilateral cooperation. The U.S. can best facilitate increased South Korean–Japanese cooperation by creating opportunities for more robust trilateral cooperation and by continuing to maintain the stabilizing force of a robust forward-deployed U.S. military presence in the region.
The Obama Administration has initiated what it calls an “Asia pivot” to demonstrate America’s commitment to peace and security in the Asia–Pacific, particularly in the face of a rising China and belligerent North Korea. The American initiative, a multifaceted strategy affirming U.S. resolve to protect national interests in Asia, has been strong in rhetoric but weak in implementation.
The Obama Administration’s bold rhetoric that its defense cuts will not degrade U.S. security capabilities in Asia drowned out the sections identifying the need for greater allied contributions. Asian and European allies have long underfunded security requirements, making it more critical that they now devote greater resources to their security needs.
Greater multinational cooperation would enhance allied military capabilities. Both South Korea and Japan have extensive, highly capable militaries. Washington has strong relationships with both countries, but the third leg of the military triad—between Seoul and Tokyo—remains virtually nonexistent due to bitter historic animosities arising from Japan’s brutal 35-year occupation of the Korean Peninsula (1910–1945) and bilateral territorial disputes.
In recent years, driven by common concerns over rising Chinese and North Korean security threats, Seoul and Tokyo have taken preliminary steps to advance relations by exchanging observers during military exercises and allowing trilateral participation in what had been bilateral training events with the United States. However, South Korea’s last-minute refusal to sign a military cooperation accord with Tokyo in June 2012 and rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s August trip to islets claimed by both countries show the constraints on greater military coordination.
The failure by Seoul and Tokyo to implement the military agreement hinders both countries’ national security objectives and impedes U.S. security objectives in Asia. Despite these difficulties, Washington should continue urging both allies to strengthen military cooperation to improve deterrence and defense against common threats. However, Washington needs to walk a fine line, neither appearing to take sides in territorial disputes nor becoming embroiled in highly emotional historic issues.
The United States can assist best by maintaining a strong alliance with both allies as a means of allaying each country’s security concerns about the other. This approach requires Washington to maintain a strong forward-deployed military presence in the Western Pacific and to devote sufficient military resources to be a credible deterrent to potential aggressors in Asia.
The Scrapped Military Agreement
In June 2012, Seoul and Tokyo were scheduled to sign a bilateral military agreement to improve joint security capabilities and continue nascent efforts to improve relations. Then, less than an hour before the ceremony, Seoul canceled due to flaring domestic criticism and legislative backlash over the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a pending agreement with South Korea’s former colonizer.
The GSOMIA would have been the first military pact between Seoul and Tokyo since the end of Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula in 1945. It would have provided a legal framework for the exchange and protection of classified information about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, potential military incursions and terrorist or cyber attacks, and China’s increasing military power. The agreement would also have provided South Korea with access to information collected by Japan’s high-tech intelligence satellites, AEGIS ships, and early-warning and anti-submarine aircraft.
President Lee Myung-bak had vowed to continue pushing for approval of the accord during the remainder of his term, which ends in February 2013. However, approval is unlikely given rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations over historic and sovereignty issues.
Pyongyang: A Catalyst for Seoul–Tokyo Cooperation
Since the mid-1990s, growing South Korean and Japanese concerns over the North Korean military threat have triggered tentative moves to improve bilateral relations and military cooperation. (See text box, “Growing South Korean–Japanese Military Cooperation.”) This effort assumed greater urgency after Pyongyang’s dangerous provocations during 2009–2012. A South Korean official explained that “as North Korea raises its threat of provocation, a consensus has formed that there needs to be closer military cooperation among [South Korea, Japan, and the United States].”[1]
A senior South Korean official commented that the need for South Korea and Japan to share military intelligence “became clear each time North Korea tested a nuclear weapon or launched a long-range missile, but the lack of an accord made that impossible. We decided to rush things [after the April 2012 missile launch].”[2] Tokyo saw benefits to exchanging information with South Korea after it failed to detect the North Korean missile launch, which would have flown over Okinawa if the missile had not blown up shortly after liftoff.
In January 2011, the South Korean and Japanese defense ministers agreed to pursue agreements on military intelligence sharing and logistics cooperation. In April 2012, South Korean Deputy Director of Defense Shin Kyung-soo and the Japanese Director of the Northeast Asia Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs preliminarily initialed the GSOMIA. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin was scheduled to sign the GSOMIA in May, but he cancelled his trip after resistance by opposition legislators. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reportedly urged Defense Minister Kim to expedite the agreement with Tokyo during their June 2012 “2+2” meeting of foreign and defense ministers.[3]
In May, Seoul had also put on hold the proposed bilateral Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (also known as the Mutual Logistic Support Agreement), which would have allowed the two nations to exchange basic military logistical supplies, such as food and fuel, during U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping operations overseas. It would also enable Japan to provide logistical support during a Korean crisis.
Enabling Intelligence Exchange
Although the GSOMIA triggered an uproar in South Korea, the accord is actually a simple document that delineates technical procedures for protecting classified military information shared between Seoul and Tokyo. The accord describes methods for using, storing, protecting, transporting, and disseminating classified information.[8]
Contrary to claims made by some critics, the agreement does not provide carte blanche access by each country to all of the other country’s classified information. It contains no requirement to divulge information, allowing each government to decide which data to share. South Korea already has similar agreements with 24 countries, including Russia.
The Korea–Japan GSOMIA, while seemingly minor in scope, is far-reaching in its impact because it would enable greater bilateral intelligence sharing, thus enhancing allied military capabilities. Furthermore, by increasing transparency and building trust between Seoul and Tokyo, the GSOMIA could become a stepping stone and confidence-building measure leading to even more meaningful bilateral military cooperation. The integral military relationship that Washington has with both allies would serve as a security guarantor to enable South Korea and Japan to overcome historic suspicions and animosities.
Hostages to History
Regrettably, the inability of these two countries to implement even a minor military accord reveals the depth of lingering South Korean resentment toward Japan. Despite vibrant and far-reaching economic and trade ties, similar democratic political systems, and shared strategic views of the international order, South Korea and Japan continue to have a very strained and tense relationship.
Japan feels that it has apologized repeatedly for its occupation and wartime actions. Moreover, Tokyo has pursued a postwar pacifist security policy, has focused its military on self-defense, and does not pose a threat of invasion to its neighbors. However, Japanese attempts at atonement and reconciliation have been undermined by the overly cautious wording of the government’s apologies, Tokyo’s territorial claims, and occasional provocative and insensitive comments by government officials. For example, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto claimed in August, “There is no evidence that people called comfort women were taken away by violence or threat by the (Japanese) military” during World War II.[9]
Historical issues would not continue to be issues if Japan had atoned more forthrightly and repeatedly for its past actions. Tokyo’s continued reliance on periodic and reluctant affirmation of decades-old legalistic statements concerning responsibility is clearly an obstacle to reconciliation with other Asian nations.
When the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) assumed power in 2009, some predicted that Japan’s relations with its neighbors would improve because the party would not be wedded to the overly cautious atonement statements of previous administrations. But the DPJ has made no more progress than its predecessors.
Politics Trumps Strategic Interests
The Lee administration fumbled the handling of the GSOMIA. The cabinet approved the pact, but only after bypassing normal lower-level ministerial review procedures. Nor did the foreign and defense ministries report the agreement to the National Assembly. Whether it was an attempt to keep the agreement secret (as critics charge) or bureaucratic bungling, the administration’s inept handling of this contentious issue triggered protests against President Lee and rekindled public anti-Japanese sentiment.
The presidential Blue House and the foreign ministry pointed fingers at each other for the diplomatic and political fiasco. Kim Tae-hyo, the senior presidential secretary for national security strategy, eventually resigned to take responsibility for mishandling the controversy.
The opposition parties, reeling from scandals and accusations of “pro–North Korea” policies, seized the opportunity to attack the conservative president and ruling party with the even worse epithet of “pro-Japan” leanings. Lee Hae-chan, chairman of the main opposition Democratic United Party, criticized the Lee administration for attempting to pass the agreement secretly and declared that the accord is “like offering military secrets to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.”[11] Lee Hae-chan accused the administration of seeking “to give access without restriction to military facilities and intelligence in seeking to forge a military intelligence treaty with a country that invaded our nation in the past.”[12] He called for the resignations of the prime minister, foreign minister, and defense minister.
The ruling Saenuri Party, worried over its chances in the upcoming presidential election, sought to minimize the fallout by quickly distancing itself from the increasingly unpopular President Lee. Ruling party legislators jumped on the nationalist bandwagon. Lee Hahn Koo, the Saenuri Party’s floor leader, stated that the ruling party believes the pact “runs contrary to public sentiment and it is not acceptable to try to sign the pact hurriedly.”[13]
The South Korean media across the ideological spectrum exacerbated the situation by warning of resurgent Japanese militarism, including Tokyo’s supposed intent to develop nuclear weapons. These South Korean fears run counter to the reality of Japan’s aversion to assuming a large security role or removing restrictions on its military forces. The conservative Chosun Ilbo warned that “there are suspicions that Japan is trying to expand the operating area of its Aegis destroyers to the West Sea using North Korea’s missile threat as an excuse.”[14]
The far-left Hankroyeh warned that “Japan’s proactive approach [indicates] intentions to intervene in the event of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula,” including sending military forces to rescue Japanese residents in South Korea.[15] The paper accused the Lee administration of “getting uncomfortably cozy with former colonial occupier” and favorably quoted the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which claimed that the GSOMIA would “open the sluice gate of Japan’s militaristic ambitions.”[16]
The Seoul-based Asan Institute concluded that the media played a large role in creating opposition to the GSOMIA. Specifically:
[The media focused] almost solely on the domestic politics of the agreement, the historical issues effecting relations between Korea and Japan, and the U.S. role in the signing of the agreement. According to a report filed by the Korea Broadcasting System analyzing the coverage of the GSOMIA, only 5% of all media reports covered the actual contents of the agreement.[17]
The Asan Institute concluded that, “while historical issues do come into play [resistance to the agreement] was driven more by opposition to President Lee himself.”[18]