Joshua Ismael S.

Puto AB-Political Science

AMERICA'S ACHILLES HEEL IN THE ASIA PACIFIC? A

CONSTRUCTIVIST ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE & SOUTH KOREAN
RELATIONS

In an article written for The Diplomat (Panda, 2018), it described how on the sunny day of
the 20th of December, 2018...vessels of the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) and Coast Guard
were attempting the rescue of a North Korean fishing crew near the area that borders the waters
between the Exclusive Economic Zone of Japan and the Republic of Korean (South Korea). During
these efforts, a patrol aircraft of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) had spotted
the vessels and attempted to gather information on the ships involved. Flying low and circling
several times...the crew of the Japanese aircraft had entered a state of great concern when they
determined that the fire control system of the ROKS Gwanggaeto the Great had locked onto their
aircraft. With the aircraft’s sensors warning them of the radar lock from the South Korean warship,
they had immediately attempted to contact the South Korean vessel. Switching from one frequency
to the next, the Japanese crew kept on waiting for a reply from the ROKS Gwanggaeto the Great
to explain the purpose of such an act...only to be replied with silence every time. Even though this
incident did not result in any weapons actually being fired, it had once again sparked massive
diplomatic tensions between Japan and South Korea.

The event puts into perspective the stringent diplomatic ties between the Republic of Korea
and the State of Japan. An international “partnership” that seems to be only held by their common
similarity of being allied with the United States (Mehta. 2019). The incident between the JMSDF
and the ROKN is only one of the many indicators of the deteriorating relationship between the two
nation-states . In an article written by Murakami (2019), that from historical feuds to loathing each
other through commerce with a trade war, there is no doubt among those who are observant that
the relations between the two East Asian states are heading towards a downward spiral with the
limited efforts of reconciliation between them ineffective so far.

This paper will attempt to analyze this international phenomenon using the International
Relations Theory of Constructivism. In a journal article titled “Anarchy Is What States Make of
It” by Alexander Wendt (1992), constructivism is characterized by its description of how the most
notable aspects in the international system are constructed by the historical, cultural and interactive
experiences of state and non-state actors. The diplomatic spat between South Korea and Japan can
be more effectively explained when using this model as it tries to elaborate on how the centuries-
old relationship between the two states had formed their identities and interests in the international
arena.

The Republic of Korea is a democratic presidential republic found in Northeast Asia, it

neighbors by land the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and by sea is near
Joshua Ismael S. Puto AB-Political Science

multiple other states like Japan, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and the People’s Republic of
China . The country is highly industrialized and is currently the 11th largest economy in the world
according to the International Monetary Fund (2019). It is a powerhouse in the manufacture of
industrial and consumer goods ranging from smartphones to the parts needed in aerospace
fabrication. South Korea has been an ally of the United States since 1953 when the two had signed
a mutual defense treaty which at the time was spearheaded in the common goal of deterring
communist aggression from the Soviet Union, North Korea and China.

The State of Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a government resembling a

parliamentary style of administration. Similar to South Korea, it is an industrial juggernaut in
mass production and manufacturing, Being the third largest economy in the planet, the country has
a powerful push in terms of both soft and hard power resources, moreso compared to its South
Korean neighbor. It is also a traditional US ally with the current alliance signed off during 1960.

While the most significant historical interaction between the two had occurred within the
last century, their first aggressive interaction happened during the last decade of the 1500’s. The
Japanese attempts of invading of Korea between 1592 and 1598 was a period that gave birth to the
negative impressions between the two nations, while these events are irrelevant to the explanation
of current geopolitics, it is a catalyst for Japanese Imperialist interests on Korea which arose during
the early 20th century (Seth & Michael, 2010) . The Empire of Korea had been under heavy
Japanese influence since the late 19th century and following the defeat of the Russian Empire after
the Russo-Japanese War , Korea had only fallen deeper into Japanese control. With the loss of
Russian influence on the peninsula, Japan had a pure monopoly on the region’s sphere of influence.
Korea had become a protectorate of Japan during 1905 and completely lost their sovereignty when
they were annexed by Imperial Japan in 1910 (Pratt & Keith, 1999). What followed was a colonial
period wherein the Koreans found their way of life, culture and traditions completely steamrolled
by the Japanese as Imperial Japan had changed almost every aspect of everyday life from
education, language, etiquette and government to conform to Japanese standards. Japan had
implemented strict changes in Korean society and most of these adjustments were seen by the
Korean people as a declaration of war by the Japanese against their own culture and lifestyle, any
attempt to go against these changes was met with severe consequences (Blakemore, 2018). During
World War II, Blakemore further describes how the Japanese forced nearly 725,000 Korean
laborers to work in Japan under extremely miserable conditions. Beyond the use of involuntary
labor and relocation of Korean laborers, the Japanese had conscripted nearly 200,000 Korean
males into its army, these conscripts were often not trusted by the Japanese and were heavily
monitored, punished and even killed by their superiors in combat environments (Daws, 1994).
Going further into these atrocities, the Japanese often also forced women in occupied territories
like Korea to serve as comfort women for troops in the Imperial Japanese military. These women
were often abused physically and sexually, with some even forced to give blood to wounded
Japanese soldiers during the war. According to Watanabe (1999), while the approximate number
Joshua Ismael S. Puto AB-Political Science

of comfort women during the war is highly debated, it is generally agreed that nearly 80% of these
were Koreans with the remaining 20% from other occupied territories like China and the
Philippines. These events during the first half of the 20th century are heavily taught in Korean
schools with the abuses of the period always being mentioned in every diplomatic spat Japan has
with the two Koreas.

The birth of the two Koreas came from the last waning weeks of the Second World War.
As the Japanese military was destroyed piecemeal by the Allied Forces and were forced to
prioritize the defense of its home islands, the Japanese had to relocate resources from Manchuria
to the mainland. Meanwhile, hours before the Americans would drop the second atomic bomb on
Nagasaki, the Soviet Union violated a non-aggression treaty with the Japanese and launched a
surprise offensive into Manchuria. Poorly equipped, supplied and by this time composed mostly
of conscripts, the Japanese army units stationed in Manchuria were barely able to fend off the
Soviet invasion and surrendered within less than two weeks (Glantz, 1983). This event was
significant in that the Soviet invasion caused the partition of Korea into two by the 38th Parallel.
The North was to be administered by the Soviet Union and the South was to be managed by the
United States. The great contrast of the superpowers had caused the ideological rift between the
two Koreas to widen as democratic elections to unite the two were rejected by the North. The
aftermath of this separation was the formation of two states, each claiming to be legitimate
government of the entire Korean peninsula. The communist North Korea supported by the Soviets
and the democratic South Korea supported by the United States. As the Soviets and Americans
withdrew their forces from Korea, the two Koreas had engaged in bitter tensions as both sides tried
to sabotage the other. The most dramatic event happening on the 25th of June, 1950 as North
Korean troops easily overwhelmed their South Korean counterparts during the opening phases of
the Korean War. Japan had contributed to the South Korean cause by allowing American forces to
fly from Japanese territory and using Japan as a supply point for UN efforts against the communists
(Edwards & Paul, 2006).

Even with the Japanese allowing their support for the continued existence of South Korea,
formal diplomatic ties were not established until 1965 with the signing of the “Treaty on Basic
Relations Between Japan and South Korea”. The agreement was made to normalize the diplomatic
standing between the two nations and for Korea to finally receive “reparations” from the Japanese
government in the form of economic aid, loans and grants...which the South Koreans had used for
the development of their own infrastructure (Oda, 1967). However, the agreement never included
the compensation for individuals who suffered and were abused during the Japanese occupation.
The Japanese claim that all issues had been settled by the 1965 agreement but the South Koreans
had explicitly stated that the agreement had never covered the settlement of individual cases of
Japanese abuse and violation of international law (Ishikida, 2009). While recently uncovered and
released documents have shown that the individual compensation of victims were truly supposed
to be covered by the 1965 treaty with the South Korean government agreeing that the grants
Joshua Ismael S. Puto AB-Political Science

provided by the Japanese would serve as compensation both in the state and individual level for
the damages done by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea. Records show that most of
these “compensation funds” were used primarily on economic development with some of the funds
used for compensating victims who died between 1975 and 1977. (Park, 2005).

Nonetheless, the damage has been done and with the South Korean government
withholding the information for decades, generations of South Koreans now demand that the
Japanese once again provide compensation for the individuals especially the comfort women who
had suffered back during the Second World War. One popular form of protests are called the
Wednesday demonstrations where South Koreans rallyists would form in front of the Japanese
embassy in Seoul every week and demand compensation for sexual abuse victims (Limon, 2014).
These demands are further strengthened with what many Koreans see as the Japanese revising the
past using its education system via textbooks and downplaying the numbers of individuals who
had been abused during the war by Japanese ultranationalists. These allegations are usually met
by some Japanese with the reply that such numbers were bloated by wartime propaganda (Nazaki
& Selden, 2009).

The comfort women issue is one of the most recurrent diplomatic matters that continue to
plague Japanese and South Korea relations. For example in a landmark deal by Japan and South
Korea back in 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had apologized for the abuses done by
the Japanese including those who were forced to be comfort women and concluded a
compensation of one billion yen as reparations for the victims (Press, 2015). Even then, South
Korean President Moon Jae-in during a 2018 speech has again pulled the comfort women card
against Japan and stated how such matters should never be forgotten and that Japan as the
perpetrator had no right to call the issue settled, this among other things had again caused friction
between the two states especially since renewed disputes about Liancourt Rocks were raised in
both countries (Smity, 2018).

With most of the historical tensions and diplomatic issues between the two states explained,
it is now proper to explain the role of the United States and how it influenced the dynamics between
these two Asian powerhouses. For most of the latter half of the 20th century, the United States had
pursued the global strategy of “containment” wherein they surround potentially hostile states or
rivals with their democratic allies in the hope of containing or caging its influence and ability to
project power beyond their own borders. This can be seen in many institutions, agreements and
decisions made by the United States as its foreign policy. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
had been originally formed during the cold war to prevent the spread of communism into Western
Europe and contain the Eastern Bloc as well as the Soviet Union (Hickman, 2019) . The United
States had allied with multiple Middle Eastern factions and states to prevent Russian and Iranian
influence into spreading in the region (Benaim & Hanna, 2019). Now, the United States is re-
assessing its containment policy in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific with rogue states such as
Joshua Ismael S. Puto AB-Political Science

North Korea threatening peace in the region and China challenging the containment measures the
United States is pushing for with its allies (Mehta, 2019).

While the United States had denied a containment policy against China (Daozu, 2010),
their actions speak otherwise. The United States continues to nurture its traditional alliances with
many states in the Asia-Pacific like the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and even
though not an official ally...has been providing excess defense materiel to Taiwan. For the United
States, maintaining the cohesion of its Asian allies is vital for any effort in containing the inevitable
rise of China as a challenger to their current global position (Mehta, 2019). This has proven
difficult in multiple cases especially when most of these allies have active territorial and diplomatic
disputes with each other and shown clearly by the Philippines and Taiwan during the 2013
Fisherman Shooting Incident (Muller, 2013). The souring relations between Seoul and Tokyo is
another headache which the United States had been trying to reconcile for years.

During 2011, one of the highlights of the Obama administration was its pivotal role in the
signing of the “General Security of Military Information Agreement” which allowed the South
Korean and Japanese government to be able to share military intelligence for their own mutual
benefit. For the South Koreans, it meant that they would receive information of North Korean
activities beyond the waters and airspace they can usually monitor. For the Japanese, it meant that
they had an advanced warning system in place for any North Korean missiles that may be heading
towards them. For the United States, it meant that their allies were one step closer to being aligned
in terms of military compatibility and improved security for the nearly 80,000 US military
personnel stationed in both South Korea and Japan (Shao, 2018). It was then a clearly
disappointing development when Seoul pulled out of the agreement due to significant domestic
opposition to the agreement in 2018 (Johnson & Murakami, 2019).

The continued downward spiral of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan
has moved from the realms of socio-cultural like the comfort women issue to economics as a “trade
war” has developed as Japan had imposed sanctions against South Korea by withholding important
resources necessary for South Korea’s industrial production while massive movements in South
Korea for the boycott of Japanese products has gained significant momentum in recent months.
With both nations blacklisting each other as economic partners, it is now clear that no amount of
US mediation will resolve the long standing diplomatic rivalry between its two most vital allies in
the Asia-Pacific (Kawashima, 2019).

In conclusion, it can be seen that long historical, cultural and identity politics has
influenced the relations between Tokyo and Seoul. The renewed tensions fueled by nationalistic
pride in Japan and historical grievances in South Korea has shown what state interactions can do
to severely mitigate powerful institutional influences like the United States. The diplomatic
situation between the two nations is a testament to how even with similar democratic ideologies,
Joshua Ismael S. Puto AB-Political Science

similar allies, similar defense and economic interests...both states are prepared to sacrifice it all if
it means saving or gaining face in front of the international community. Even so, there are no clear
indications that such deteriorating ties would lead to open war.

There is no power struggle between Japan and South Korea in terms of economics and an
armed conflict is highly unlikely thus a neorealist approach could never explain this phenomena.
Even the “trade war” between the two is not meant to gain an upper hand against the other but
instead to economically harm the other state as much as possible with no clear objective as to what
it is supposed to achieve. Meanwhile, the short periods of Japanese and South Korean cooperation
and institutional support systems meant to improve diplomatic relations have failed with the
cancellation of different compensation agreements and intelligence treaties to the ineffective
“mediator” role of the United States thus assuring that Neoliberalism cannot explain these series
of events either. Constructivism has shown that the feud between the two states is centuries old
and the perception of each nation towards the other has been shaped by their long history of
aggressive interactions. Most of the issues between the two are international tensions caused by
growing internal reactions to their current standing with foreign neighbors and their unwillingness
to yield due to long time conflicts and hesitation to let go of past concerns.

While at present it may seem negative to the entire US strategy in the Asia Pacific, most
agree that these diplomatic issues are temporary obstacles and that both nations will still fully
cooperate with each other in the face of a North Korean threat. Even South Korean President Moon
Jae-in has given hope when he announced that it was still possible for the two nations to mend
their differences even in the face of terrible trade disputes (Sang-hun, 2019). Whether or not Japan
and South Korea will be able to fully reconcile with each other on issues that the two had re-visited
too many times than preferred, then there is no sight so far of a mutual agreement in the key issues
both are clashing against and such issues should be expected to resurface again in the near future.
It should be noted however that while US influence had not been too effective in restoring cordial
relations between the two, it is still expected to be strong enough to pull both countries together
when the need arises.

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