Published on August 9, 2019. This article introduces an essay by Miyake Kunihiko published in the Sankei Shimbun. It discusses Japan–South Korea tensions, Japan’s removal of South Korea from its whitelist, U.S.–South Korea relations, the weakening of Japan–U.S.–South Korea cooperation, the benefits to China, North Korea, and Russia, and the question of who will “lose South Korea.”

2019-08-09
We had believed that Japan and South Korea shared universal values such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, but in recent years we have merely been realizing that South Korea, “in fact, did not.”
The following is from an essay by Miyake Kunihiko, published in yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun under the title “Who Will ‘Lose South Korea’?”
Seventy years ago, around the time the People’s Republic of China was founded, the debate over “who lost China” was rampant in Washington.
It was the so-called McCarthy whirlwind, the Red Scare.
Across the United States, hundreds of officials and scholars were accused and lost their jobs.
Thirty years later, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran, and the question “Who lost Iran?” was asked.
The Republican Party concluded that then-President Carter was responsible, while the Democratic Party countered that the Iran policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations had caused the revolution.
Now, another forty years later, a similar debate is beginning to arise in Northeast Asia.
On the 2nd, Japan formally removed South Korea from its “white country” list for trade control, and South Korea, regarding this as political retaliation, declared all-out confrontation.
There is little room for compromise on either side, and the dispute will likely continue for some time, but the author’s concern is South Korea’s future.
At this rate, I fear that before long the debate over “who lost South Korea in the 2020s” will begin.
My personal view of this apocalyptic question is as follows.
Will Japan lose South Korea?
No.
In the first place, Japan has never even gained South Korea.
We had believed that Japan and South Korea shared universal values such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, but in recent years we have merely been realizing that South Korea, “in fact, did not.”
Will South Korea lose Japan?
Again, no.
They probably do not think so.
The Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea knows that the geopolitical environment of the Korean Peninsula is changing, that the Cold War has ended and China is rising, and above all, that the United States today cannot be relied upon.
Therefore, they probably have no consciousness of losing Japan.
Will the United States lose South Korea?
Probably.
At least now, the United States is in the process of losing South Korea.
However, if anyone criticizes Japan as being responsible for that, it would be a grave mistake.
The recent Japan–South Korea discord is not the cause of the “loss of South Korea,” but merely its result.
The responsibility of the Trump administration in the United States is probably not small.
Since March 2018, when it hinted at a meeting with North Korean Workers’ Party Chairman Kim Jong-un, the various diplomatic events, including three U.S.–North Korea summits, were novel but lacked strategy.
Mr. Trump probably only emboldened the South Korean president and created the cause for South Korea to prioritize a tilt toward China and inter-Korean dialogue over Japan–U.S.–South Korea cooperation.
Will South Korea lose the United States?
The signs have already begun.
The greatest tragedy is that South Korea’s current administration seriously believes that while improving relations with China and North Korea, it is also possible to maintain the Japan–U.S.–South Korea alliance and cooperation at the same time.
If this continues, the South Korean people are most likely to lose their own interests.
Condemning Japan may contribute to improving approval ratings and stabilizing the administration, but it will have the opposite effect on maintaining the balance among various forces that President Moon desires.
South Korea has gone too far.
Who is laughing loudly?
Those laughing loudly in this situation are, of course, China, North Korea, and Russia.
For these three countries, the weakening of the Japan–U.S.–South Korea alliance and security cooperation is an unexpected windfall.
In 1949, was it not the corrupt and degraded Chinese Nationalist Party, rather than the communist spies inside the United States whom McCarthy criticized, that lost China?
In 1979, was it not neither President Carter nor the Nixon administration, but the equally corrupt and authoritarian Shah Pahlavi, who lost Iran?
If so, can the same not be said about South Korea?
Over the next ten years, South Korean domestic politics will change further.
If a truly free and democratic South Korea is lost, it will be nothing but the tragedy of ordinary citizens who ended up with a presidential office unable to present a clear strategy and realistic policies.
The ones who will lose South Korea are the South Korean people.