{"id":51138,"date":"2019-10-10T11:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T00:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=51138"},"modified":"2019-10-10T10:54:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T23:54:28","slug":"its-in-australias-interests-to-resolve-the-south-korea-japan-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/its-in-australias-interests-to-resolve-the-south-korea-japan-spat\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s in Australia\u2019s interests to resolve the South Korea \u2013 Japan spat"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Seoul and Tokyo aren\u2019t getting on well. What started as quarrels over whether Japan has shown appropriate contrition for its wartime occupation of Korea has mushroomed into a fierce trade dispute<\/a> and a suspension of intelligence sharing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The resolution of this dispute between East Asia\u2019s two most powerful democracies is in Australia\u2019s interests. At a speech<\/a> delivered last week to the Lowy Institute, Prime Minister Scott Morrison recognised this, noting that the \u2018Indo-Pacific would be even stronger if Japan and [South Korea] can overcome their recent tensions\u2019. Behind Morrison\u2019s comments is an issue that cuts to the heart of Australian strategic policy in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Maintaining strong ties with both Japan and South Korea is crucial to Australia\u2019s geoeconomic strategy. Japan is our second largest<\/a> two-way trading partner and South Korea the fourth largest. Together, they made up just over 16% of our total international trade in 2017\u201318. We have free trade agreements with both<\/a> countries<\/a>, and they\u2019re considered reliable markets for Australian exporters. Ensuring that this remains the case will be vital to building resilience in our economy, which relies to a large degree on trade with China.<\/p>\n

The importance of Japan and South Korea to Australia is also geopolitical, as the government\u2019s 2017 foreign policy white paper<\/a> noted: \u2018The Indo-Pacific democracies of Japan, Indonesia, India and the Republic of Korea are of first order importance to Australia, both as major bilateral partners in their own right and as countries that will influence the shape of the regional order.\u2019<\/p>\n

Strengthening our ties with liberal democracies such as South Korea and Japan may also be a way of balancing China\u2019s increasingly aggressive behaviour in East Asia.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s objective in the Indo-Pacific, as set out in the white paper, is to support the United States in fostering a region that\u2019s free from authoritarian coercion and open to international trade. That could be done by integrating the Indian and Pacific oceans in a way that allows India to support Japan\u2019s effort to balance China. If these regional powers balanced China effectively, the Indo-Pacific\u2019s maritime commons would be safe for Australian trade and Beijing\u2019s ability to coerce Canberra would be curtailed.<\/p>\n

Tokyo\u2019s vision for the Indo-Pacific seems to be in near perfect alignment with Canberra\u2019s. Japan views<\/a> freedom of navigation and overflight as \u2018international public goods\u2019 that it can help provide. Just as Canberra hopes for an Indo-Pacific free from authoritarian coercion, Tokyo regards<\/a> the \u2018peaceful settlement of disputes\u2019 as essential to regional stability.<\/p>\n

South Korea could play a vital role in securing the free and open Indo-Pacific that both Canberra and Tokyo desire. Like Japan and Australia, South Korea relies on<\/a> freedom of navigation for its maritime trade. South Korea is also a liberal democracy that has good reason to worry<\/a> about being pulled into China\u2019s orbit. Mutual interests ought to be pulling Canberra and Seoul together.<\/p>\n

However, Seoul\u2019s behaviour hasn\u2019t been in close alignment with Canberra\u2019s views on balancing China\u2019s power in the Indo-Pacific. Since taking office in 2017, President Moon Jae-in has put two policies at the forefront of South Korea\u2019s regional strategy. First is the \u2018new northern policy<\/a>\u2019, which is designed to reintegrate the Korean peninsula into Eurasia by improving infrastructure networks. Second is the \u2018new southern policy<\/a>\u2019, which is focused on increasing South Korea\u2019s influence by building infrastructure across Southeast Asia. The goal of Moon\u2019s policies is to make South Korea a significant middle power among the coastal countries that ring Eurasia.<\/p>\n

Building relationships with the Russian and Chinese states is crucial to Moon\u2019s regional strategy. Last year he met with<\/a> Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an attempt to improve economic ties with Russia, attract Russian gas exports to Korea and extend trans-Siberian rail links to the city of Busan. Moon has described<\/a> Xi Jinping\u2019s signature Belt and Road Initiative as being complementary to South Korea\u2019s bid to strengthen regional trade in Southeast Asia. South Korea has hedged at precisely the time Australia needs it to double down on relationships with other democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Seoul\u2019s hedging is geared towards becoming less reliant on Japan<\/a>. Building off a more amicable relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Moon has proposed<\/a> the development of an \u2018inter-Korean peace economy\u2019 that he believes could allow the Korean peninsula \u2018to catch up to Japan\u2019s dominance\u2019. While integrating North and South Korea would undoubtably entail costs, modelling from Goldman Sachs suggests that a unified Korean economy could be larger<\/a> than Japan\u2019s and those of all other G7 nations bar the United States 30 or 40 years after unification. Should Moon\u2019s strategy succeed in the long term, the likeliest result<\/a> would be a Japan with less influence in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Moon\u2019s regional strategy differs from those articulated in Tokyo and Canberra. While both powers say they want to maintain strong trade links with China, Japan<\/a> and Australia<\/a> imagine an Indo-Pacific order in which liberal democracies collaborate to balance an increasingly assertive China. Without reconciliation with Tokyo, South Korea could be tempted to imagine a region in which non-aligned powers of the Eurasian rimlands work to balance a historically revisionist<\/a> Japan.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s vision for the Indo-Pacific is predicated to some degree on Japan and South Korea maintaining a close diplomatic relationship. If Japan were seen as a friendly power in Seoul, Tokyo could bring South Korea\u2019s regional strategy into closer alignment with its own vision for the Indo-Pacific. Doing so would advance Australia\u2019s vision, though Japan currently lacks the goodwill needed to bring South Korea into the Indo-Pacific orbit. Therefore, Australia needs to think creatively about how to achieve that objective while Seoul\u2019s regional strategy is still in its early stages.<\/p>\n

China could create a regional balance that serves its interests by feigning a desire to promote reconciliation between Seoul and Tokyo while working behind the scenes to play Korea off against Japan. To avoid such a scenario, Australia must do more than hope that China doesn\u2019t capitalise on these tensions.<\/p>\n

Morrison should work to position Australia as a genuine, neutral friend that can mediate<\/a> between Seoul and Tokyo. This would require a degree of diplomatic creativity and ambition that Canberra might find uncomfortable. However, the costs of inaction are likely to outweigh the risks of failure. Australia\u2019s diplomacy must live up to the demands of its Indo-Pacific strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seoul and Tokyo aren\u2019t getting on well. 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