“Cursed” GSOMIA Dec 5 at 15:44
6 hours left!
The Korea-Japan Military Information Comprehensive Protection Agreement = GSOMIA was barely maintained on November 22 at the last minute in the wake of its revocation and overturned the decision to revocation.
Actually, this agreement has been said to be “buzzing” from the beginning, and has been destined to be cursed. Did this curse go away with this revocation avoidance?
We consider Japan-Korea relations, which are said to be the worst after the war, based on the testimony of diplomatic officials from both countries who know the history of the previous negotiation.
(Political Department: Hiroshi Takashima, Shin Watanabe)
The beginning of the “curse”
"The open mouth is not blocked" "Protested so much no more"
This is a memo when I interviewed Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs Executive A.
Not the current story.
It was June 29, 2012, seven years ago.
On this day, the morning Secretary-General's interview.
It was announced that the signing of Japan-Korea GSOMIA will take place in the afternoon.
However, immediately after that, the telephone of the Northeast Asia Division of the Asia-Pacific Bureau on the 7th floor of the North Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rang.
"I can't sign today"
It was a sudden notification from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"What are you saying?"
The Japanese side said that the situation was not swallowed immediately.
The day when it was finally signed after more than a year of negotiations.
The application was postponed just one hour before the signing, and it was just a “do-can”.
A telephone conference between the foreign ministers of Japan and Korea that night.
The Korean side only explained that the signing had to be postponed due to domestic circumstances.
From the beginning “Wakutsuki”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs executive B who was in charge of Korea at the time testifies:
“In my view, there is almost no background in the history of Japan and Korea, but rather the idea of Korea ’s very national vs. parliamentary approach, the story has stopped. It was a sacrifice of the logic of the island = where the Parliament is.
South Korea is the end of the Lee Myung-bak administration.
The Korean president was not allowed to be re-elected for a period of 5 years, so his centripetal power dropped and “lame duck” was remarkable.
Under such circumstances, the Korean government made a cabinet decision on the agreement privately, and this procedure was criticized by public opinion as “closed room processing”.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs executive B looks back.
“The Korean National Assembly was rivaled by the ruling and opposition parties, and was also making various points such as the election of the chairman. GSOMIA did not require approval of the National Assembly, but the Korean government had to report to the National Assembly. In the confusion, the opinion that “It is strange that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cheong Wa Dae were not rooted in the Diet,” said the South Korean government immediately decided to postpone the signature. It seems to have become "
On top of that, I added:
“In Japan, it would be a bad idea to postpone the talks of foreign partners and turn the bill, but Korea is different. GSOMIA was originally a“ speaking story ”.
From the Korean side
So what did the Korean side see?
In Korea ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, executive C, who is deeply involved in diplomacy with Japan, said that “at that time, he was not directly involved in negotiating the agreement,” but that there was a sensitive national sentiment regarding the past history of Japan and Korea. Revealed.
“Korean people always have a sense of past history that the Korean peninsula has been damaged as a Japanese colony. There is an opinion that it is not good to proceed with the security cooperation, and as a result, the government's procedure has been fought as “closed room processing”.
Prof. Yoshihide Soeya of Keio University, who is studying Japan-Korea relations, pointed out that the Korean government had a way to do it.
“As an image of Korean public opinion, if security cooperation with Japan is promoted, it will be directly connected to the memory of history that Japan will do something wrong. Underlying,“ Japan is not trusted. ”And there is a place where it reacts reflexively at the emotional level, rather than in theory. If the procedure was made public, the agreement might have been broken earlier.”
The criticized Lee Myung-bak government, who tried to tie GSOMIA in secret with Japan, will behave to appeal to anti-Japanese feelings as if it were to accept public opinion.
On August 10th, the first Korean president landed on Takeshima in Shimane Prefecture where Korea is illegally occupied.
Japan-Korea relations deteriorate rapidly.
GSOMIA was left with an anti-Japan sentiment that persisted in South Korea and the situation of the Korean Diet, leaving a very rare diplomatic situation in the history of Japan and Korea.
Finally conclusion
Subsequently, negotiations on the agreement continued between diplomatic authorities.
In 2013, the conservative government president Park Kun-hee took office.
Subsequently, at the end of 2015, 70 years after the war and 50 years of normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea, the two governments agreed to finalize the comfort women issue. Japan-Korea relations were improving.
Meanwhile, North Korea announced in May 2015 that it had successfully launched a ballistic missile from a submarine.
In January 2016, the fourth nuclear test was conducted. Thereafter, ballistic missiles are fired one after another, and provocations are repeated.
A turning point will come to GSOMIA.
At the end of March 2016, a summit meeting between the three countries of Japan, the US, and Korea was held in Washington.
During the meeting, discussions were held on how to deal with North Korea.
On this occasion, the three countries agreed on the early conclusion of GSOMIA between Japan and Korea in order to promote specific cooperation in the field of security and defense.
President Park Kune, who emphasizes relations with the United States, ordered the conclusion of GSOMIA.
And November 23.
GSOMIA's signature was made private in Seoul and went into effect on the same day.
It was four years after the signature doc can.
And “crisis”
However, GSOMIA was three years later and was shaken again.
In October last year, the Korean Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed a Japanese company to claim a reward for the issue of “recruitment” during the Pacific War.
Japan requested the Korean side to correct the violation of international law from the standpoint that the problem has been solved in the 1965 Japan-Korea Claims Agreement.
However, the Moon Jae-in administration continued to take a harsh attitude toward Japan against the background of public opinion.
Under such circumstances, Japan strengthened export control to Korea as a security measure in July.
South Korea announced the destruction of GSOMIA in August.
Korean public opinion has made the anti-Japan color clearer.
Foreign Ministry executive B says:
“It was an agreement that I could finally sign with so much effort, but the destruction was a shock.”
On the other hand, executive C of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea.
“If the Japanese side says that it is unreliable for security reasons, Korean public opinion cannot be tolerated. Korea will not forget to strengthen Japan's export controls for several decades.”
In a public opinion poll released by the Korean public opinion survey organization “Korean Gallup” on November 22 when GSOMIA expired, 51% of respondents answered that it was “correct” about the destruction of GSOMIA. People were 29%.
Initially, in the Japanese government, there were a lot of views that “GSOMIA's revocation is unavoidable” based on the anti-Japanese public opinion in Korea and President Mun ’s attitude against such public opinion.
At the last minute
Under these circumstances, the United States moved.
The United States, which places importance on the security cooperation between the three countries, Japan, the United States, and South Korea, dispatches Esper Defense Secretaries to South Korea one after another and put pressure on the destruction of GSOMIA. Continued.
The Japanese government repeatedly asked the Korean side to review the destruction, saying, “I want to seek a wise response by completely mistaking the local security environment.”
The situation suddenly changed at 6 pm on November 22 when it was nearly 6 hours until expiration.
The Korean government announced that it would stop the notification of ending GSOMIA, and decided to maintain GSOMIA.
It was a policy change at the last minute.
Last secret meeting
Behind this last-minute change, it is clear from interviews that Japan and South Korea's diplomatic authorities continued discussions under the water until just before.
Mid-November, less than a week before expiration.
Mr. Akiba, Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
After passing through the eyes of the reporters, he was in a secret meeting with the first secretary of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cho Se-yeon.
Both phone calls and other discussions were held repeatedly to find clues to approach.
At the final stage of the negotiations, the Japanese side talked about the “export management issues” that the Korean side emphasized, although the principle position is that the “continuation of GSOMIA” and the “export control issues” are separate issues. Showed posture. Instead, the Korean side pulled out “continuation of GSOMIA” and “withdrawal of WTO complaints” related to export control.
It is said that it was the afternoon of the 21st that one landing point had settled between the diplomatic authorities of both countries.
However, President Mun's “decision” was not yet.
"Never leak information"
The Japanese government officials were laid out.
On the morning of the following day, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, staff in charge of South Korea frequently went into the room of Vice-Minister Akiba.
The appearance of the staff who went in and out while running showed that the coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea continued to the last minute.
Is Korean opinion in favor of maintenance?
There are amazing facts.
After South Korea decided to maintain GSOMIA, the opinion of supporting GSOMIA exceeded 70% in a Korean opinion poll. Strangely, the Korean public opinion, which should have been against the agreement, soon turned into favor.
Prof. Soeya mentioned above showed an interesting number.
This is the result of an opinion poll conducted in Korea in 2013, one year after the 2012 GSOMIA-signed dota-can.
In response to the question of whether Japan-Korea GSOMIA is necessary, ▼ necessary was around 60% and ▼ unnecessary was over 30%.
Professor Soeya analyzes as follows.
“It may be because the content of the agreement took time and gained an understanding of public opinion. However, once the atmosphere of anti-Japan is created, Korean society cannot easily resist it. Because it is not as anti-Japan as it seems in Japan, “reason” is regained if a small air hole is made in an atmosphere that is stiff and anti-Japanese. ”
It is said that Koreans share a deeper understanding of history that “Japanese colonial rule was a severe repression” through education than Japanese could imagine.
"Do not stay this way" first step
Professor Soetani said, “It is a rudimentary progress that both Japan and Korea finally began to think that they should not stay as they were, and made a step forward from a certain kind of“ diplomatic absence. ” "Is required."
The Japanese government is undermining the issue of “recruitment” that underpins Japan-South Korea relations, and continues to call on the Korean side to come up with solutions that Japan can convince.
Currently, Japan-Korea diplomatic authorities are likely to be active in underwater exchanges for a Japan-Korea summit that is being coordinated in late December.
An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was in the middle, told our interview, “I'm looking for a relationship improvement, but the solution within the year still doesn't have that feeling personally.” .
US Secretary of Defense Esper said:
“Only North Korea and China benefit from the friction between Japan and Korea.”
Of course, it is not necessary to be told by the United States.
As the DPRK is steadily improving its ballistic missile capability, China is increasing its influence in Asia against the backdrop of its economic power, and the world is fighting hegemony with the United States, the Korean peninsula for Japan based on the Japan-US alliance Having a partner who can cooperate in this is a great geopolitical benefit to maintain peace and stability in the region.
That is the unified view of many diplomatic and security officials.
When considering Japan-Korea issues, I think it is necessary to have a realistic and calm discussion based on Japan's current severe security environment.