As a diplomat, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi could well learn to speak more delicately when in binational conference but the minor furor erupting from a short, concise May 11th remark of Yachi's to South Korean legislators curled around, without grasping, the possibility that what Mr. Yachi said is probably true. The minister made known to Seoul his belief that Washington, D.C. under the Bush administration was frugal with intelligence on North Korea's nuclear armament — and not for lack of spies. Seoul seemed to take the revelation as a twin insult; first, that America left the country chopped in two by communist aggression out of the most important conversations and second, that it invited Japan to that executive table and in doing so favored Tokyo.
South Korea's government under Roh Moo-hyun, however justified its anger over public humiliation, has only itself to blame for daylight between it and the White House. Broadly, yes, the three democratic nations share common values and objectives. Activities pursuant to one definition of peace and stability as opposed to another are how Seoul has become divergent in being consistent. In January, Tokyo contemplated economic sanctions against Pyongyang to Seoul's blubbering. In February, the Koizumi government advised legislation for more timely missile defense against weapons the Moo-hyun government insisted weren't necessarily real; Seoul to be corrected by Pyongyang at about the same time as Yachi's statement. Junichiro Koizumi has invested a great deal of political capital to move his country towards a realization of its geopolitical maturity — a culture liberated from its authoritarian tradition, an increasingly powerful military, aspiration to world eminence — and an acceptance of the consequent responsibilities like the revision of Japan's postwar constitution, now supported by a slight popular and elected majority. Washington not only approves but has encouraged the transformation, most observers now very aware that Japan is being modeled as a self-reliant, Pacific deputy.
South Korea's appreciation of all this? Amnesiac. Six decades of docility and redemption weren't enough for President Roh Moo-hyun, a man who promised those who elected him he'd consider neutrality if his allies tried to liberate those trapped behind barbed wire in the starving, blood-soaked horror consuming the northern half of the Korean peninsula. Several weeks ago, when Japan dared not wear its hairshirt for the crimes of mostly dead men, Moo-hyun wanted — well, he wanted something more from Japan than its multiplying amends to nations indigent and wounded. The sound of knives sharpening to the north and east be damned, Tokyo would be made sorrier and sorrier for a self-satisfaction inching into obsessive vanity.
So do we ask how Washington could discover good reasons to keep South Korea as a junior partner in democratic collective security, or just consider what Yachi might have said if he'd completely thrown tact? Writing in the Australian, Greg Sheridan upbraided Canberra for its deference to old and tyrannical China over young and democratic Taiwan. Maybe "pusillanimous" is too strong a word to describe a government that, under John Howard, has stood fast as an ally in the war on terror; but Sheridan argues through quotation that Junichiro Koizumi's Japan is disliked by parties chafed by a man who "won't back down to bullies." Sadly, South Korea would be one of those detractors. Seoul should thank goodness no one takes it too seriously, for while that may mean a lighter D.C. dossier it also means very patient guardians; and that it suffered the honesty of Yachi, not Sheridan.