Park's mission in Northeast Asia

By Frank Ching

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Washington last week for a

summit meeting with President Barack Obama, he was asked about Japan’s relations with South Korea, in view of the common threat from North Korea.

The Japanese leader responded by saying, “South Korea is the most important neighbor for us.”

With the Abe-Obama talks now history, the spotlight has shifted to South Korea, where on Monday its first female president, Park Geun-hye, daughter of the late dictator Park Chung-hee, was inaugurated.

Actually February 22, the day of the Abe press conference, was marked in Japan’s Shimane Prefecture as “Takeshima Day” ― set aside to assert Japan’s sovereignty over the islets disputed with South Korea, which calls them Dokdo. For the first time, an official from Tokyo was dispatched to take part, raising the profile of the event.

The South Koreans protested. However, Japanese officials pointed out that the official dispatched was only of vice ministerial rank and that no Cabinet member had attended.

During the election campaign, Abe pledged that, if elected, “I will elevate Takeshima Day to the level of a central government event.” That was meant to win votes but now that he is prime minister, he has to ensure good relations with Seoul.

The decision to send someone of vice ministerial rank no doubt represented an attempt to strike a balance between honoring his campaign pledge and not wishing to offend South Korea and its new leader.

Hopefully, the newly inaugurated South Korean leader will not feel it necessary to respond.

Abe has said that his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, and Park’s father were “best friends” and that he himself had met her a couple of times.

With this personal connection, it may be easier for the two leaders to establish a relationship of trust. Trust is scarce in the Japan-South Korea relationship.

Park is likely to want to improve relations not only with Japan but with the South’s other neighbors as well, including both China and North Korea.

Interestingly, Park was chosen by her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, as his special envoy to China when he was elected in 2008, so she has China credentials. Park also speaks Chinese.

As for North Korea, again Park is better placed to reach out to that country than many other South Korean politicians.

In 2002, she made a private trip to North Korea and had a meeting with then leader Kim Jong-il, father of the current head of state Kim Jong-un.

All in all, the new Korean President has impressive credentials and is in a position to work to improve relations with the country’s neighbors, depending on what policies she chooses to pursue.

Her predecessor, to his credit, established very close relations with the United States but seemed to have provoked his neighbors, perhaps unnecessarily. North Korea, for example, publicly excoriated him as a “traitor” on Sunday, his last full day in office.

He also seriously damaged relations with Tokyo by making an unexpected trip to Dokdo ― something previous presidents had avoided doing, knowing Japan’s sensitivities.

It now falls on Park’s administration to mend ties with South Korea’s neighbors. Those with Japan should come first, since the greatest priority must be to deal with North Korea and its nuclear ambitions. Japan and South Korea cannot afford not to coordinate their policies.

While Park has vowed to ease her predecessor’s hard-line policy on Pyongyang, it is in her country’s interests to contain if not remove the nuclear threat from the North.

Japan, similarly, sees a nuclear North Korea as extremely threatening.

Pyongyang doesn’t need nuclear weapons to attack the South. It is not yet in a position to send nuclear warheads to America, and is most unlikely to threaten China. So Japan feels it is the most logical target.

Moreover, both South Korea and Japan are allied with the United States, and improved Seoul-Tokyo ties would greatly enhance Washington’s ability to deal with critical events in East Asia ― something that should benefit both Seoul and Tokyo.

In the long run, Park is in the envious position of being able to improve her country’s relations with several of its key neighbors at the same time. If she succeeds, she may be able to lower tensions not only between South Korea and its neighbors but improve the political environment in the region as a whole.

That achievement would put South Korea, deservedly, in the front ranks of the world’s nations.

Frank Ching is a journalist and commentator based in Hong Kong. Email the writer atfrank.ching@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter:@FrankChing1.