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Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon will reportedly visit Japan on Thursday and tell his hosts that there will be no more shuttle summits if Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi continues to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan honors its war criminals.
The chairman of the U.S. House Committee on International Relations Henry Hyde, recently wrote to Japan¡¯s ambassador calling the Yasukuni Shrine "a symbol of the militarism that drove Asia into horrors of war," and expressed ¡°regret¡± that Koizumi keeps paying his respects there. There can be no doubt, then, that Koizumi's insistence on visiting the shrine in the face of such a verdict by a relatively objective third country is tantamount to turning his back on cooperation with Asian countries. And it is also proper for our government to suspend the biannual shuttle summits with Japan.
But it is one thing to decide not to hold the summits depending on the diplomatic climate, and another to go around shouting about it for all the world to hear. Because of the Yasukuni issue, China has not had a summit with Japan for four years, and there is speculation that Seoul is trying to emulate Beijing.
Now, China is emerging as the only power capable of potentially countering the U.S. hegemony with its international clout. But South Korea has no choice but to cooperate with Japan, which is much stronger than us economically, in most diplomatic matters including the North Korean nuclear dispute. China has its diplomatic strategy, and we need our own based on our national interest.
In July last year, President Roh Moo-hyun said he would not bring up past history between Korea and Japan during his tenure. Eight months later, at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement, he demanded that Japan "clarify the truth of the past and apologize." And just as there may come a time when we have to discuss things we said we would not discuss, so there may come a time when we have to hold a summit we said we would not hold. Such is our position.
For a country like ours, which lacks the wherewithal to assert its position on its own in ever-changing international relations, it is dangerously reductive to declare so absolutely that we will or will not do something.
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