Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea, delivered a drastically different view of the Korean peninsula’s unified government in his Liberation Day statement on August 15, an annual holiday that commemorates the end of Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
In his , talk, President Yoon framed integration as completing the unfinished work of independence and the glory of “freedom” over the North Korean program.
The freezing kingdom of the North, where people are denied freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation, needs to be given more space, Yoon said. Just when a united, free, and democratic country that is proudly owned by the people of Korea is established across the whole island will we eventually experience complete freedom.
His perspective blatantly rejects the idea of integration through a continuous process of inclusion and broad cross-border assistance as well as the legitimacy of the” Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” ( as the state is actually known ).
It’s a strategy that was reportedly embodied in the liberal Sunshine Policy of the later President Kim Dae-jung but also largely embraced by traditional heirs, such as Park Geun-hye in her essence 2014 , speech , on unity.
However, Yoon’s conversation occurred amid heightened inter-Korean tensions, growing domestic politics and Chinese actions that risk diplomatic doubt.
Shifting views of unity
Yoon made a number of suggestions to accomplish this objective, including the creation of a fresh inter-Korean working group to discuss issues ranging from economical participation to disaster relief.
However, his speech’s main points were efforts to actively promote human rights in the North, advance the flow of information within the sealed community, and help those who have emigrated to the South.
The goal is to gain help in the North for what amounts to, though it is not explicitly stated, de facto government change. ” They may become strong, friendly makes for a freedom-based unification if more North Koreans realize that unity through independence is the only way to improve their lives and are convinced that a consolidated Republic of Korea may embrace them,” he said.
Yoon’s unity policy is a response to, and possibly unfortunately a mirror of, the similarly remarkable change in the North Vietnamese regime’s strategy.
In a , speech , to the decision Workers ‘ Party of Korea in late December, Kim Jong Un declared a “new walk on north-south connections and the unification plan”. South Korea was now to be regarded as a “hostile” and “belligerent” position under the control of the United States.
All recommendations to quiet unification were removed, and Kim commanded the North Korean military to “prepare to subdue the entire territory of the south.”
There has been an upsurge in strong language and military buildup directed at the South since Kim’s policy change. The North Koreans have conducted a series of short-range nuclear weapon checks and before this month , announced , the distribution of 250 nuclear-capable projectile missiles to frontline products along the border with the South.
partisanship in the days leading up to Liberation Day
Yoon’s address had a decidedly partisan tone as well. He assailed “pseudo-intellectuals” and others who circulate “fake news” to “undermine free societies”, labeling them as “anti-freedom, anti-unification forces”.
The unprecedented decision of the opposition parties and organizations representing the descendants of anti-Japanese “freedom fighters” such as the Heritage of Korean Independence to hold separate ceremonies was evidence of the increasingly polarized atmosphere in South Korea.
In keeping with the spirit of the Korean independence movement’s struggle against Japanese colonial rule, Liberation Day has traditionally been a national unity moment. The opposition parties’ and their allies ‘ boycotts of Yoon’s speech were intended to counteract Japanese claims that the government had attempted to defy the course of resistance and support Japanese colonial revisionism.
The , controversy , over the Korean government’s support of the Japanese application for World Heritage Site status for the Sado gold mines, where Korean forced labor was employed during the war, has fed this mood.
The government’s appointment of figures associated with the” New Right,” an intellectual movement that has provided an alternative view of Korea-Japan history, also led to the government’s decision to boycott the official ceremony. Kim Hyoung-suk has been appointed president of the Independence Hall of Korea, a significant museum dedicated to this resistance.
According to Heritage of Korean Independence leader Lee Jong-chan, who explained the group’s decision to hold their own separate ceremony, “our society has recently been thrown into confusion by widespread vulgar historical attitudes that are tainted by a pro-Japanese view of history and distortions of the truth.” ” We could n’t just stand by and watch this historical regression and disparagement”.
Simmering Korea-Japan tensions
Other than mentioning that the day marked the end of Imperial Japan’s rule and drawing comparisons between Korea’s economic accomplishments and those of Japan, Yoon’s Liberation Day speech was also notable for its almost complete absence of any references to Japan.
Yoon addressed the improvement of relations with Japan in his speech last year, including the strengthening of trilateral security cooperation with the United States and Japan.
Why did Japan leave this year’s Liberation Day speech, perhaps as a nod to the opposition’s use of anti-Japanese issues or as an indirect acknowledgement of the two countries ‘ ongoing tensions over wartime and colonial history, is unclear.
For Japan, August 15 is also an important historical moment, one that marks its surrender and the end of the war. In his , speech , to commemorate the anniversary of defeat, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged to maintain Japan’s pacifist resolve to “never again repeat the devastation of war”.
He made note of the three million Japanese casualties in the conflict, including those who died at the Battle of Okinawa, during bombings in Japan, and most recently during the atomic bombings. He consciously avoided mentioning Japanese aggression in all of Asia, though.
At the same time, three members of Kishida’s cabinet, including Defense Minister Minoru Kihara,  , visited , the controversial Yasukuni Shrine to honor Japan’s war dead. The contrast between how Korea and Japan represent this historical moment serves as a reminder of how the past continues to influence the present.
Never underestimate the potential risks of a new conflict on the Korean Peninsula. President Yoon and North Korean leader Kim’s conflicting ideas of unification are likely to cause even worse inter-Korean tensions.
The escalating partisan conflict in South Korea further complicates any efforts to reshape relations on the Korean Peninsula in the face of global uncertainty.
Daniel Sneider is a non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America and a lecturer on East Asian and international policy at Stanford University. The views expressed here are the author’s alone.
This article was originally published , by KEI’s The Peninsula. It is republished with permission.