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With the airplane arriving at the Sungnam military airport in Seoul on Monday, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun returned from his four-day state visit in Tokyo with mixed results
Roh's Japan trip, after his US visit in mid-May, bore both good fruit in bilateral economic and culture cooperation and some acid results in the political field.
In the joint statement released after Roh's summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the two leaders vowed to promote and deepen bilateral cooperation based on the momentum of the co-hosting of the 2002 World Soccer Cup finals.
Last year's football pageantry was the first case that hosted by two countries. And when the South Korean team historically pierced into semifinals, Japanese football fans also cheered for it.
But the Seoul-Tokyo relation cooled down after that for some Japanese politicians made fallacy distorting Japan's aggressive history and the colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
The two leaders also agreed to startup the negotiations on signing of free trade agreement (FTA) as early as possible, which is aiming to make the Northeast Asian economic hub.
If the FTA between the two neighboring countries is set up, it will definitely boost the trade of South Korea and Japan largely, thus make Seoul and Tokyo the important economic powers in Asia, even in the world. It is definitely that Seoul can benefit more than Tokyo from the FTA.
Now, Japan is South Korea's second largest trading partner, while South Korea is Japan's third biggest trading bargainer. Their bilateral trade volume was 45 billion US dollars last year.
Moreover, according to the statement, South Korean will loose its strict rules on Japanese popular culture to enhance bilateral exchange. That is to say, South Korean youth can enjoy Japanese popular singers' songs more freely.
And the people of the two countries are expected to travel to the other side freely without visa in the near future. They also outlined some program celebrating the 40 anniversary of normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2005.
However, contrast to the economic achievement, the two countries made not much further progress in the political field.
The Japanese House of Councilors, or the upper house of Japanese Diet, endorsed the three controversial contingency bills which were approved by the lower house last month, when Roh was on the way to Tokyo. The bills empower Japanese military to take some counter measures in event of foreign attack.
This move of Japanese government was widely criticized as a departure from its peace constitution enacted after World War II, which prohibits "the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes," and rejects "the right of belligerency of the state."
However, either in the meeting between Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Emperor Akihito or the joint statement of Roh and Koizumi,the Japanese side did not mention the "history issue" which always is the knot in South Korean people's heart.
The South Korean president only delivered his concerns over the passage of the contingency bills in the meeting with Koizumi, and reaffirmed with the Japanese premier that the two countries should "go forward to develop future-oriented bilateral ties for the 21st century" while acknowledging the past.
Roh's stance on the history issue is clear. "I am determined not to talks about the past in Japan," he said in a news conference in Tokyo.
Roh paid more attention to the future development of the Seoul-Tokyo bilateral ties than on the past. Just on the day of his departure from Seoul, the South Korean leader said, "We should not be bound by the shackles of the past forever."
But it seemed Roh's action angered South Korean people. Both South Korean ruling Millennium Democratic Party and opposition Grand National Party denounced the approval of the Japanese bills.A top leader of the opposition party even condemned Roh Moo-hyun for undertaking "idiot diplomacy" in Japan.
On the nuclear standoff of DPRK, although the two leaders reiterated the necessity to solve the nuclear issue through peacefully manner, the difference between the two countries was not narrowed by the trip.
The joint statement only mentions the persistent stance of the two sides over the nuclear issue, such as the DPRK's possession of nuclear weapons can not be tolerated, Seoul and Tokyo are willing to attend multilateral talks on the solution of DPRK nuclear issue.
But in a news conference after Roh-Koizumi's summit, Roh Moo-hyun said both dialogue and pressure could be used against Pyongyang to persuade it to abandon nuclear program, "But I want to make the point that South Korea puts more emphasis on the dialogue manner."
The remarks made by Roh were referring to Koizumi's tougher words that dialogue and pressure are all means to induce a peaceful solution to the DPRK nuclear issue.
Moreover, Roh said to Japanese reporters there that "it is too early to talk about sanctions or military action against the DPRK," which is different from Japan's stand that follows US one.
The Bush's administration reiterated that concerning the settlement of the DPRK nuclear dispute "everything is on the table," including sanctions.
But Roh is confident that through close consultation of Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, the DPRK nuclear standoff can be defused peacefully.
(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2003)
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