Japan-ROK 'reconciliation' a political expediency built on porous foundation

In the afternoon on May 2, the President's Office of the Republic of Korea and the Japanese Foreign Ministry both announced that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will pay a two-day visit to the ROK, which, in ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol's words, will formally resume the "shuttle diplomacy" between the two countries' leaders after 12 years.

The same day, a member of the ROK parliament from the country's largest opposition party landed on the disputed Dokdo, or Takeshima as the Japanese call it, to declare ROK sovereignty. In response to the "strong protest" from Tokyo, however, the ROK Foreign Ministry rejected the "wrongful claim". The Dokdo or Takeshima islands are claimed by both Japan and the ROK, but occupied by the ROK.

On Saturday night, representatives of multiple civic groups held a candlelight vigil in the heart of Seoul to protest Kishida's visit, as well as Yoon's foreign policy which they alleged was blindly pro-US and pro-Japan. On the placards and banners on display at the night vigil were slogans demanding apologies from Japan for thrusting Koreans into forced labor before and during World War II, condemning Japan for deciding to release radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, opposing the US-Japan-ROK military alliance, and censuring the Yoon government for its "humiliating diplomacy" with Japan.