By Jun Ji-hye
President Moon Jae-in will debut on the summit diplomacy stage with his bilateral talks with U.S. President Donald Trump taking place this week.
Moon will meet with Trump amid a pile of diplomatic challenges and pending thorny issues facing the two nations including the controversial deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on South Korean soil as well as the bilateral free trade agreement.
Resolving those issues with his unpredictable U.S. counterpart is a daunting task itself, but the next few weeks will give Moon no rest as he needs to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe right away at the G20 Summit.
The G20 is scheduled to take place on July 7 and 8 in Germany, only a week after the South Korea-the United States summit. Moon is expected to hold talks with Xi and Abe as well as Trump there.
Leaders of China and Japan, which also need to resolve various tough issues with South Korea, might be paying keen attention to the outcome of the summit between Moon and Trump, according to political experts.
Xi and Abe will be highly likely to make a final decision on how to handle thorny diplomatic issues with the new South Korean President, who was sworn in only last month, after they learn the outcome of the Moon-Trump summit.
This means Moon's diplomacy with neighboring countries will depend on his summit with Trump.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, said the upcoming summit will be meaningful enough if Moon and Trump, who will meet for the first time since their inaugurations, increase their mutual understanding regarding pending issues including THAAD deployment.
"The most important thing in the Seoul-Washington summit will be to encourage increased mutual understanding rather than producing certain results," Kim said. "If Moon and Trump show the public they are holding hands and delivering a message such as ‘Let's go together,' that will be assessed as a successful summit."
If Moon gleans some positive results from this summit, he will be able to play more various options when dealing with Xi and Abe.
With Beijing, Moon first needs to resolve diplomatic friction that has continued following the former Park Geun-hye government's agreement last July with Washington to deploy the U.S. missile defense system on South Korean soil. The two nations agreed to deploy the system by the end of the year.
But China has been strongly opposed to the THAAD installation, claiming it seriously harms the country's national interests. Beijing has taken various economic and cultural retaliatory actions in protest including cutting off mutual exchanges.
President Moon's recent order to conduct a full-scale environmental impact study of the THAAD site, which will most likely delay the deployment until next year, seems to have helped prevent Seoul-Beijing relations from going from bad to worse.
But Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, said, "It would not be easy for Moon to resolve the THAAD issue as China's position has been very clear ― it wants the cancellation of the THAAD deployment."
He noted that Moon will need to ask Trump to persuade China to stop its retaliatory actions against South Korea. But this seems not so easy either as the delay of the THAAD deployment has been apparently angering the U.S. government.
Kim Yeoul-soo, an international politics professor at Sungshin Women's University, noted China may want the deployment issue to be put on the backburner until October when the Communist Party Congress is scheduled, as the issue is one of the factors testing Xi's leadership.
With Tokyo, the Moon government needs to resolve the comfort women matter, which has remained controversial since the Park government made the verbal agreement with the Japanese government in 2015.
Under the deal, the two nations agreed to "finally and irreversibly" resolve a decades-old dispute over Japan's use of sex slaves including Koreans during World War II. The Japanese government agreed to contribute 1 billion yen ($9.97 million) to a Korean foundation dedicated to supporting the victims.
But since the signing of the deal, controversy has been abounding as some surviving victims accused the government of failing to obtain Japan's acknowledgment of its legal responsibility and rashly reaching the deal without consulting them. They said they do not want to receive the money from Japan unless the country acknowledges its legal responsibility and offers a sincere apology.
President Moon has signaled his willingness to renegotiate the issue with his Japanese counterpart.
During a telephone conversation following his inauguration last month, Moon told Abe many South Koreans cannot accept the deal "emotionally."
Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea have claimed the deal can be nullified as it was a verbal agreement between the two countries' foreign ministers, not a treaty.
This is expected to cause another diplomatic row as Abe is highly likely to reject Moon's possible request for renegotiation. Abe has claimed Japan has fulfilled its obligations and has already paid the 1 billion yen.
Eyes are also on how new Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will solve the issue as she has been raising the need for the renegotiation as well.
During her National Assembly confirmation hearings, Kang, a former U.N. human rights expert and the nation's first female foreign minister, criticized the 2015 deal, saying doubts linger over whether the agreement was based on "a victims-oriented approach."
On June 21, Kang spoke to Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida over the phone, during which the former said the majority of Koreans and the victims cannot accept the agreement.
Prof. Kim said Moon should adopt a proactive approach in his diplomacy and say his piece to his counterparts to secure the nation's interests. He noted the nation needs to shake its previous tendency of taking a submissive attitude.
"The nation's goal is to take national interests in its diplomatic activities especially involving our four major neighbors (the United States, China, Japan and Russia)," he said.
President Moon Jae-in will debut on the summit diplomacy stage with his bilateral talks with U.S. President Donald Trump taking place this week.
.jpg/dims/resize/740/optimize) |
| President Moon Jae-in will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump this week in Washington before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the G20 Summit, which will take place in Germany on July 7-8. How successful Moon's summit with Trump will be would be a major factor in deciding whether or not Moon will be able to lead the conversation with Xi and Abe. / Graphic by Cho Sang-won |
Resolving those issues with his unpredictable U.S. counterpart is a daunting task itself, but the next few weeks will give Moon no rest as he needs to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe right away at the G20 Summit.
The G20 is scheduled to take place on July 7 and 8 in Germany, only a week after the South Korea-the United States summit. Moon is expected to hold talks with Xi and Abe as well as Trump there.
Leaders of China and Japan, which also need to resolve various tough issues with South Korea, might be paying keen attention to the outcome of the summit between Moon and Trump, according to political experts.
Xi and Abe will be highly likely to make a final decision on how to handle thorny diplomatic issues with the new South Korean President, who was sworn in only last month, after they learn the outcome of the Moon-Trump summit.
This means Moon's diplomacy with neighboring countries will depend on his summit with Trump.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, said the upcoming summit will be meaningful enough if Moon and Trump, who will meet for the first time since their inaugurations, increase their mutual understanding regarding pending issues including THAAD deployment.
"The most important thing in the Seoul-Washington summit will be to encourage increased mutual understanding rather than producing certain results," Kim said. "If Moon and Trump show the public they are holding hands and delivering a message such as ‘Let's go together,' that will be assessed as a successful summit."
If Moon gleans some positive results from this summit, he will be able to play more various options when dealing with Xi and Abe.
With Beijing, Moon first needs to resolve diplomatic friction that has continued following the former Park Geun-hye government's agreement last July with Washington to deploy the U.S. missile defense system on South Korean soil. The two nations agreed to deploy the system by the end of the year.
But China has been strongly opposed to the THAAD installation, claiming it seriously harms the country's national interests. Beijing has taken various economic and cultural retaliatory actions in protest including cutting off mutual exchanges.
President Moon's recent order to conduct a full-scale environmental impact study of the THAAD site, which will most likely delay the deployment until next year, seems to have helped prevent Seoul-Beijing relations from going from bad to worse.
But Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, said, "It would not be easy for Moon to resolve the THAAD issue as China's position has been very clear ― it wants the cancellation of the THAAD deployment."
He noted that Moon will need to ask Trump to persuade China to stop its retaliatory actions against South Korea. But this seems not so easy either as the delay of the THAAD deployment has been apparently angering the U.S. government.
Kim Yeoul-soo, an international politics professor at Sungshin Women's University, noted China may want the deployment issue to be put on the backburner until October when the Communist Party Congress is scheduled, as the issue is one of the factors testing Xi's leadership.
With Tokyo, the Moon government needs to resolve the comfort women matter, which has remained controversial since the Park government made the verbal agreement with the Japanese government in 2015.
Under the deal, the two nations agreed to "finally and irreversibly" resolve a decades-old dispute over Japan's use of sex slaves including Koreans during World War II. The Japanese government agreed to contribute 1 billion yen ($9.97 million) to a Korean foundation dedicated to supporting the victims.
But since the signing of the deal, controversy has been abounding as some surviving victims accused the government of failing to obtain Japan's acknowledgment of its legal responsibility and rashly reaching the deal without consulting them. They said they do not want to receive the money from Japan unless the country acknowledges its legal responsibility and offers a sincere apology.
President Moon has signaled his willingness to renegotiate the issue with his Japanese counterpart.
During a telephone conversation following his inauguration last month, Moon told Abe many South Koreans cannot accept the deal "emotionally."
Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea have claimed the deal can be nullified as it was a verbal agreement between the two countries' foreign ministers, not a treaty.
This is expected to cause another diplomatic row as Abe is highly likely to reject Moon's possible request for renegotiation. Abe has claimed Japan has fulfilled its obligations and has already paid the 1 billion yen.
Eyes are also on how new Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will solve the issue as she has been raising the need for the renegotiation as well.
 |
| Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha |
On June 21, Kang spoke to Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida over the phone, during which the former said the majority of Koreans and the victims cannot accept the agreement.
Prof. Kim said Moon should adopt a proactive approach in his diplomacy and say his piece to his counterparts to secure the nation's interests. He noted the nation needs to shake its previous tendency of taking a submissive attitude.
"The nation's goal is to take national interests in its diplomatic activities especially involving our four major neighbors (the United States, China, Japan and Russia)," he said.
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