ROK-Japan Relations: GSOMIA

Sorry, this won't be a post about social movements (but I'll put up a good post from the field next on protests, policing, and contentious performances).

A few weeks ago, the breakdown of the ROK-Japan General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) generated a political firestorm in Seoul. Coincidentally, I was in Seoul interviewing officials about China, Japan, Korea trilateral cooperation. I sheepishly admit that I was unaware about the diplomatic fallout until meeting a Chosun Ilbo journalist who kept mentioning “GSOMIA” (as I sat there nodding my head pretending that I knew what he was talking about).

Since I was in Seoul meeting Korean and Japanese diplomats I decided to find out more on this topic. I thought about posting my thoughts at the time since I had a little bit of inside information. The blog posting fell to the wayside, but I’ve been provoked to finally write in reaction to Jenny Lind’s article about GSOMIA in the Atlantic.

You can read about the GSOMIA fiasco here and here, but basically, the Japanese and South Korean government secretly negotiated an information and intelligence sharing agreement. GSOMIA was devised primarily as an intelligence sharing agreement on North Korea. But perhaps more significantly, it was meant to further strengthen ROK-Japan military ties (and by extension trilateral relations with the United States) which had already been moving forward through observations and joint training exercises the past year.

So why did GSOMIA cause such a domestic uproar in Korea? After all, as one Japanese diplomat mentioned to me, “It’s in South Korea’s own interest to have an agreement.” More broadly, why do two liberal democracies closely allied to the U.S., sharing common threats, and geographically proximate to one another fail to form an alliance? On GSOMIA specifically, several explanations are possible:

1.Domestic politics: The ROK government bungled the deal by making it secret and not revealing it to the public until days before the official signing, thus turning the issue into political fodder.

2.Historical animosity: Koreans remain sensitive about strengthening military ties with Japan given Japan’s unwillingness to own up to its past role during the colonial period.

3.China/Balance of Power: Paranoid about getting caught between great power rivalries, ROK does not want to provoke China, or at least give China the impression that U.S.-Japan-ROK relations are tightening at the expense of China.

Based on her own sources, Lind believes the answer boils down to #3. After reading her article, I was left wondering if we had met an entirely different set of ROK experts. In conversations with (mostly) people associated with the Foreign Ministry, and from mainstream Korean media reports, it sounded like #1 and #2 were the most likely candidates. My own personal view is that GSOMIA fell victim to domestic politics, which by default is linked to the history issue.

I think the China factor had some role to play here. But none of the people I talked to seemed to think the China card was a serious factor. There are other mechanisms that ROK uses to signal its willingness to cooperate with China even as it seeks to strengthen the US-Japan-ROK security ties. This includes the relatively new China-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation secretariat (TCS) which was proposed by the current ROK administration.

Although Lind states that ROK officials shied away from GSOMIA because many South Koreans fear that GSOMIA would be perceived as part of the U.S.-led security architecture positioned against China, I disagree that this was the major reason for the political fall-out at the eleventh hour. First, the fact that the ROK government was ready to sign GSOMIA until the uproar created initially by the opposition party, and subsequently lawmakers from even the ruling party, suggests that most ROK policy officials did not see the China factor as a major problem. One possible exception to this point is if the deal was so secret that the decision was implemented without the approval and knowledge of key NSC or defense officials – but I find that hard to believe. Second, implied here is the idea that the U.S. was somehow pushing ROK and Japan to make this deal (this was how far left parties interpreted GSOMIA). It’s true that Washington would like to see trilateral relations strengthened. But as one insider mentioned, the U.S. remains a constant, not a variable in promoting US-ROK-Japan relations. The U.S. position is to always encourage trilateral relations but it tends not to over push ROK-Japan, partially because it relates to historical issues.  The U.S. tries not to stick its nose in tricky historical problems (despite Hillary Clinton recently commenting on the comfort women issue). Third in the grand scheme of things, why would information sharing between Japan and Korea about North Korea overly threaten China. South Korea even signed a GSOMIA with Russia. Fourth and finally, if South Koreans were really paranoid about irking China, they wouldn't offer to strengthen trilateral relations with the U.S. two weeks later as they did at the last ASEAN Regional Forum. See Clinton's remarks here.

ROK-Japan relations presents one of the more interesting puzzles in IR. The inability to form a true alliance defies the logic of the liberal peace and realism. Victor Cha was one of the first scholars to examine ROK-Japan relations in-depth. Cha pinpoints the inability of ROK-Japan relations to develop beyond the “quasi-alliance,” somewhat paradoxically, to the U.S.: when U.S. commitment to both countries is strong, the incentive for Tokyo and Seoul to strength their own remains low.

In my view, domestic politics, should be given more credit than is often given. From a realist standpoint, ROK and Japan should want stronger ties in today’s security environment. But domestic politics makes this tricky. ROK must sell the security utility of such a pact, but they can’t do this without domestic support. ROK must have some concession from Japan which creates political space for ROK government to promote security cooperation with Japan. Thus, if Japan truly wants greater security cooperation and strengthen ROK-Japan ties, it would/should make concessions either on comfort women issue (i.e. compensation) or history textbook/Dokdo.

But the dilemma for Japan is that its own domestic constituents would be upset if government “caved” in on these demands from ROK. Capitulation would be perceived as a sign of weakness, especially when the population believes Koreans are “emotional,” making outrageous demands for issues which occurred decades ago. Japanese civilians were also victims (twice over: by the Japanese military government and U.S. air power). Japan and Korea both have their hands tied to domestic politics.

Will we see a second push for GSOMIA anytime soon? Certainly not until after the Korean presidential elections at the of the year.