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A meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday achieved no breakthrough on any of the major issues that have recently bedeviled the relationship between the two neighbors.
The two leaders talked for more than four hours, but there was no rapprochement over the key issues: Japanese territorial claims to Korea¡¯s Dokdo islets, distortions of history in Japanese history textbooks, and persistent visits by Japanese leaders to Tokyo¡¯s Yasukuni Shrine, which house memorials to convicted war criminals.
The Dokdo dispute was kept off the agenda from the start as Seoul believes it cannot raise unnecessary debate over its own territory. Agreement on the textbook issue went no further than a commitment to letting academics from both sides jointly research the subject. And Seoul was unable to extract a promise from Koizumi either to suspend his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine or build an alternative structure that excludes the Class A war criminals. All he would say is that he will look into an alternative memorial site, repeating a promise made in 2003 that has so far not borne fruit.
The Japanese did show good faith with a commitment to return the remains of Korean forced laborers from the colonial period, support for Korean victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and dragged off to Sakhalin Island, and the return of the Bukgwan Victory Monument, but all these had already been decided in advance.
Beyond some largely cosmetic measures, the summit failed to heal the rifts in the bilateral relationship. ¡°Ultimately, as always, there is no other remedy except ¡®Chinese herbal medicine¡¯ that completely changes your constitution over a long period, through private exchanges,¡± a Foreign Ministry official said.
The historical distortions in textbooks are left to the conscience of the Japanese people, as they were in 2001. When the schools adopt new textbooks in August, the dispute could be more or less off the table if the problematic Fusosha textbook is adopted by as few schools as last time (0.03 percent).
In the case of the Yasukuni Shrine, recent opinion polls suggest that over 50 percent of Japanese oppose visits to the controversial shrine. If the matter becomes a drag for Japanese politicians at the ballot box, their reasons for going will disappear. With the Dokdo islet issue, there is no solution but to uncover clear historical and international legal grounds for Korea¡¯s ownership of the islets and present them to the international community.
Working level officials in both countries say private exchanges and mutual understanding are the only way forward. That solution takes time. Perhaps, then, an agreement reached during this summit for more exchanges of young leaders and academic exchanges is the most constructive result.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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