Published on September 1, 2019.
Based on an essay by Abiru Rui published in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, this chapter discusses the diplomatic isolation of the Moon Jae-in administration, its economic mismanagement, its shifting of blame onto Japan, anti-Japanese movements, and the abnormal attitude toward Japan common to successive South Korean administrations.
It shows the reality that the Japanese government has begun to recognize that giving preferential treatment to South Korea itself was a mistake.

Published on September 1, 2019.
“Even if South Korea takes countermeasures, there will be no impact, because there is nothing that only South Korea can make.”
The Japanese government side has already learned that South Korea’s abnormal attitude toward Japan is not merely a passing phenomenon limited to the Moon administration.
The following is from an essay by Abiru Rui, one of the finest active newspaper reporters, published under the title “How Very Sadaejuui and Yaro Jidai” in the major special feature “The Root of the Disease Lies in Moon Jae-in” in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument, released the day before yesterday.
This month’s issue of Sound Argument, too, is a must-read not only for all Japanese citizens but also for people throughout the world.
South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration is in a difficult position.
As a result of Mr. Moon displaying his “genius for diplomacy” (the South Korean presidential office), he has been taken lightly by President Trump of the United States, an ally; treated negligently by China, on which he relies; mocked by North Korea, to which he continues sending love calls; and, in relations with Japan, he has continued breaking promises, bringing the relationship to its worst and irreparable state since the war.
Japan’s implementation of stricter export controls toward South Korea for security reasons is a minor measure that comes even before any countermeasure or retaliation for South Korea’s violation of the Japan–South Korea Claims Agreement, but it is having an enormous impact on South Korea.
Because of the failure of the Moon administration’s economic policies, the South Korean economy, whose prospects were already dark, has fallen still further.
The Moon administration probably intends to push all of its original economic mismanagement onto Japan, but that will not lift South Korea’s economy in any way.
One does feel a little sorry for the Korean people, but those same Korean people chose Mr. Moon as their leader, gave him high approval ratings, and, carried along by Mr. Moon’s agitation, have held anti-Japanese demonstrations and rushed into boycotts of Japanese products, so nothing can be done.
The repeatedly recurring anti-Japanese spectacle only leaves Japanese people astonished.
This present dead end in both diplomacy and the economy is self-inflicted, brought about by the Moon administration and South Korea itself, and all responsibility lies with Mr. Moon.
In the background, was there not South Korea’s way of being until now, especially its peculiar attitude when facing Japan?
It believed that as long as it brought up historical issues, it could stand above Japan and make Japan do whatever it said, and it leaned on Japan while claiming both things that existed and things that did not.
However, the Japanese government and many Japanese citizens are already fed up with South Korea’s spoiled words and actions directed only at Japan, which could be called discrimination against Japan, its persistent harassment, and its use of Japan to vent its frustrations, and they have lost the will to deal with it.
A senior government official with long experience in diplomacy dismisses it coldly.
“Even if President Moon is replaced, Japan–South Korea relations will probably not improve.
We take responsibility for the present and the future, but more than seventy years have already passed since the war, and we can no longer go along with that matter of 1910—the Japan–Korea Annexation.”
A senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also says, “Even if the cooling of Japan–South Korea relations continues for the next ten or twenty years, Japan will not be troubled,” but in early August, a person connected with the Prime Minister’s Office said it even more clearly to reporters.
“Even if South Korea sinks, nothing in the world will change.”
“There is no country in the world that would be troubled if South Korea disappeared.”
“Even if South Korea takes countermeasures, there will be no impact, because there is nothing that only South Korea can make.”
The Japanese government side has already learned that South Korea’s abnormal attitude toward Japan is not merely a passing phenomenon limited to the Moon administration.
It is once again reflecting on the mistake of having given preferential treatment to South Korea until now, recognizing that, although there are differences in degree, successive administrations have always been this way.
In a sense, it may be said that Japan has given up on South Korea itself as a country.
This essay continues.