Long fallout from ‘Choi-gate’ may set Seoul-Tokyo

 ties back a few years

本文发表在《环球时报》（英文版）2016年12月14日

By Da Zhigang Source:Global Times Published: 2016/12/14

South Korean President Park Geun-hye was ousted Friday by the country's National Assembly with a final vote of 234 to 56 in favor of impeachment. The first female president of South Korea was suspended with immediate effect, waiting for the ratification from the Constitutional Court within 180 days.
Given her offbeat style in handling foreign relations, regional collaboration, competition among Northeast Asian countries and especially the conundrum on the Korean Peninsula, Park's impeachment has aroused wide attention from China, Russia, Japan and the North, as well as the international community at large in addition to escalating South Korea's domestic political wrangling, intensifying its social split and ruining its national image. In particular, Japan, which has gained apparent progress in its relations with the South, is closely following changes in the country's political and diplomatic policies after the saga and mulling over appropriate countermeasures.
Japan is more sensitive and high-strung over the impeachment case than other countries, with its whole society gripped in a melancholic mood. Tokyo is afraid that the unexpected turning point will likely plunge all the efforts it has made into improving ties with Seoul in vain. The Japanese administration's fears can mainly be attributed to the following five areas.
It worries whether the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) will be implemented as scheduled. The long-pending GSOMIA was finally signed on November 23 after a variety of obstacles since 2010, a godsend to a Japan that has been seeking to reinforce its alliance with the US and promote its dominant role in affairs on the Korean Peninsula. But Park's ouster has once again prompted opposition parties and civil groups strongly opposed to the information-sharing agreement to call for its rescission. Therefore, it is likely to be shelved.
Whether the landmark bilateral settlement on the "comfort women" issue will be fulfilled is another concern of Tokyo. Late last year, the Park administration reached an agreement with the Japanese government over the decades-long impasse, with the latter pledging to pay 1 billion yen ($8.6 million) to elderly former sex slaves, triggering wide public grumbling back then. Now discontent has broken out again with Park being impeached. Japan is fearful of any need to renegotiate with South Korea and greatly revise the content.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system may be suspended, which will probably prevent Japan from introducing the same missile system. Japan is a firm supporter of Park's government to bring in THAAD to serve as a run-up for them to make the same deployment in the future. But Park's impeachment may postpone the THAAD deployment while its uncertainty continues to haunt Tokyo.
Since the impeachment of Park, how South Korean leaders will participate in the trilateral summit between the South, China and Japan has become increasingly opaque. Tokyo is making every effort to convene the summit this month but must feel embarrassed at Park's absence. And there is a possibility that the summit will be delayed.
Furthermore, the vicissitudes in the South Korean political circle will exert influence upon the practical interests of both Tokyo and Seoul. Since Park actively steered a change in Japan-South Korea relations with barely any public approval, her inclination to build a friendship with Tokyo will hardly evoke popular favor for Japanese society even if she gains a chance to defend herself and restart her political career. In this way, Japanese-South Korean political and diplomatic ties will probably enter a stage of dormancy.
In a nutshell, Park's impeachment will inevitably deal a heavy blow to Tokyo-Seoul relations and wield a certain impact on the consolidation of the US-Japan-South Korean alliance. Japan would better forget about its military and diplomatic appeals to the South and focus more on ratcheting up economic cooperation and gaining public support. Neither Park nor Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expected the ripple effects of the so-called "Choi-gate" scandal to blast bilateral relations back to the past.
The impact of the corruption scandal is nothing short of a Black Monday for Japan. The best panacea for Tokyo might be to face up to history and respect public opinion to gain trust from South Korean society, something for which neither Japan nor the South is ready.
The author is director of the Institute of Northeast Asian studies at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn