Meeting for Meeting

Highly reluctantly, the President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, officially accepted an offer from the United States to meet Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. The motivation was apparently to save the face of U.S. President, Barack Obama. Although the meeting may be a significant improvement in deteriorated relationship between Japan and South Korea, there is no expectation of actual progress in the trilateral alliance. The meeting will be resulted as a meeting.

The meeting was set with U.S. initiative. After delivering a statement that U.S. was disappointed with Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine last December, U.S. has been looking for an opportunity to reestablish positive environment in relationship with Japan and South Korea. Considering the needs to deal with potential problems on missile and nuclear development in North Korea and maritime assertion of China, Obama tried to reshape and reinforce the isosceles triangle of the alliance. U.S. deliberately made diplomatic efforts toward Japan and South Korea sending secretaries of Obama cabinet.

Japan sent Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs to South Korea to talk about possibility of summit meeting between Abe and Park. Few days after the negotiation in Seoul, Abe announced that his administration would support and maintain Kono and Murayama Statements to apologize on the comfort women issue and aggression and colonization in the past. In action for action manner, Park welcomed Abe’s remark for her happiness. Words for defrosting the bilateral relationship were exchanged timely manner.

There still are arguments over the trilateral leaders meeting in South Korea. “Park has shunned a summit with Abe as Japan kept angering South Korea with a series of nationalistic steps and remarks denounced as attempts to glorify its militaristic past and whitewash its wartime atrocities, including the country's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II,” reported Yonhap News Agency. Strong resentment against right-leaning Japan will refrain Park from easy compromise.

Diplomatic reconstruction will ease hard criticism against Abe inside Japan. But there comes no change in the situation that Abe administration is on a delicate balance between requirement for maintaining diplomatic stability and domestic expectation from the conservatives. Support for Kono and Murayama Statements must have been a great disappointment for right-wing people around Abe.

The biggest achievement will be a fact that both leaders will actually have met for the first time. U.S. seems to be satisfied with such a result, because the meeting will demonstrate a sense of unification against China, North Korea and even Russia. But those three are well aware of domestic situation in South Korea and Japan described above.