South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol sees the strategic logic for closer ties with Japan, but his political opposition does not and Tokyo can afford to play hard to get, says international relations professor Robert Kelly of Pusan National University.
by the South Korean opposition as a massive betrayal. Yoon is a conservative and hawkish on North Korea and China. The South Korean right has long sought to move the South Korean strategic conversation away from Japanese historical recrimination.
This has eluded South Korea’s progressive presidents, but South Korean nationalism remains focused on the imperial period. Only 40 per cent of South Koreans - conservative base of Yoon’s coalition - support Yoon’s imperial labour deal. This suggests that whenever progressives retake the presidency, they will undo the current rapprochement.
This is the threat Yoon faces. He must sell his deal not only to his own voters, but to centrists and leftists who want more movement from Japan on historical issues. Yoon needs to make a major effort to convince sceptics through speeches, television appearances and national strategy reevaluations. If not, this labourer deal will fall apart as the 2015 deal did.JAPAN CAN AFFORD TO WAIT
The US relationship with Japan is the anchor of the American alliance network in East Asia. By contrast, Trump,for the 2024 presidential election, wanted to withdraw US troops from South Korea.
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