Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part VI: Taking Stock

[soryang]

T.K. Park's brilliantly provocative and insightful conclusion to his historical series on the End of the 1965 System in Northeast Asia.


http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2019/09/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-part_24.html

...Once again: the ’65 System is dead. We can be certain of the death of the ’65 System, because Abe’s trade war pierced through the core of the System. The ’65 System deliberately left the history issue unanswered, so that South Korea and Japan could first build a close economic and security cooperation and gradually work toward bridging the gap in their respective stances. Abe’s trade war directly challenged this logic: unless South Korea capitulated to Japan’s version of history, no economic or security cooperation was possible. No matter what kind of bilateral relationship may emerge between Japan and South Korea, it will not be a system that depends on indefinitely tabling the history issue, because South Korea and Japan have come to a point where the issues of history can no longer be deferred.


It didn’t have to be this way. The United States could have demanded from Imperial Japan the same level of historical self-reflection it demanded from Nazi Germany. The US could have excluded the leaders of the Japanese Empire from the positions of power, rather than elevating them back to the top levels of the government. It could have compelled Japan to engage in a more honest accounting of the damages caused by its imperialism and war, and pay due reparations to its neighbors with unqualified apologies. With the true resolution of the historical issues, there was no reason why northeastern Asia could not have developed like western Europe. Just as much as Germany became the centerpiece of the European Union that today forms a healthy block of liberal democracy and free trade, Japan could have been the centerpiece of eastern Asia that could have linked Korea, Taiwan, southeast Asia and beyond.

The United States never did that. We can have a long debate on the many possible reasons, such as the exigencies of the Cold War and the different extent of Soviet advances in western Europe versus northeast Asia. But the ultimate reason is straightforward: the United States never took Korea seriously. The suffering of the European countries deserved healing; the suffering of Asian countries did not. European injury was real, such that they needed to be healed before western Europe can move forward as a community. Asian injury was not, so Asian people can shut up and march onto the direction to which the United States pointed...

Much more:

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html

The South Koreans are trying to chart a path here, while the Americans, with the exception perhaps of Stephen Biegun, listen with stony indifference and the Abe government is obdurately hostile.