Outgoing Japan PM heads to Seoul hoping warmer ties outlast him

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (left) shakes hands with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol during a news conference in Seoul in May, 2024. The two leaders will hold their 12th summit in Seoul on Friday – Copyright POOL/AFP Tatan Syuflana

Hieun SHIN

Japan’s outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to arrive in South Korea on Friday for a final round of talks, hoping to cement improving ties between the two countries before he leaves office.

The two nations, both key security allies of the United States, have long been at odds over historical issues linked to Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, including sexual slavery and forced labour.

But South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has moved to bury the hatchet in recent years, restarting regular talks with Kishida and ramping up military cooperation in the face of rising threats from the nuclear-armed North.

“Given the current strategic environment surrounding our country, the Japan-South Korea cooperation is becoming more and more important,” Kishida told reporters ahead of his departure. 

“The Japan-South Korea relationships have vastly improved under my and President Yoon’s leadership, and we would like to discuss how to strengthen our cooperation and communication in a sustainable manner.”

Kishida’s trip — his 12th summit with Yoon — will allow the two leaders to “exchange our opinions frankly and affirm the direction of our future bilateral relationships,” he added.

Kishida has said he will not seek re-election as leader of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) when his tenure expires this month.

The conservative LDP is expected to decide on a new leader on September 27.

– ‘Important opportunity’ –

Seoul said the two leaders plan to “discuss the future direction of Korea-Japan cooperation, regional cooperation, and global cooperation”. 

Improved ties between Tokyo and Seoul have also “have also significantly bolstered trilateral security cooperation with the United States in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Friday.

Last year, Yoon and Kishida met with US President Joe Biden at Camp David for a summit aimed at improving their joint response to North Korea.

Japanese media reported that Kishida may also make a final visit to Washington before stepping down.

Kishida’s visit, which comes three weeks before his term ends, shows his “willingness and action to continue the momentum of improving relations between the two countries”, Choi Eun-mi, a research fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies told AFP.

The visit “will be a message to the next prime minister to continue these efforts”, he said.

But some South Korean lawmakers were critical of the visit, saying it is a waste of time and money.

Yoon is “throwing a resignation party (for Kishida) in the middle of Seoul at this juncture, with taxpayer’s money”, lawmaker and former spy chief Park Jie-won wrote on Facebook.

Yoon’s administration was also criticised heavily in July after a network of mines on a Japanese island infamous for using conscripted wartime labour was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage register after South Korea dropped earlier objections to its listing.

Critics claimed the South Korean president was “endorsing Japan’s distortion of war crimes”.