More South Korea
I read the editorial “The importance of ties with Japan” (Oct. 22, page 8) with agreement and a sense of dismay. Last month, another editorial “Alliances, security, cooperation” (Sept. 13, page 8) similarly called for more robust Taiwan-Japan relations.
Taiwan is right to deepen its relations with Japan, East Asia’s most populous democracy and a US treaty ally. Yet why does South Korea, the region’s second-largest democracy and another US treaty ally, always seem absent from Taiwan’s strategic discourse?
South Korea sits directly across the Yellow Sea from China. It is geographically the closest US ally to Beijing and hosts the permanently stationed US forces nearest to the Chinese capital.
Of the other East Asian capitals, Seoul is physically closest to Taipei.
Last year, Taiwan’s bilateral trade with South Korea reached US$90.3 billion, surpassing its US$84.9 billion in trade with Japan, making South Korea Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner.
Taipei should also recognize that Japan might not always be uniformly sympathetic to Taiwan’s interests. Former Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama attended a military parade in Beijing in September last year and urged Tokyo to reassess its Taiwan policy.
Japan severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1972, nearly 20 years before South Korea did. More than five decades of official Japan-China relations have produced deep historical and institutional ties, embodied in the widely cited “four political documents.” In 1978, Japan and China signed Japan’s only post-World War II bilateral Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
Despite their current tensions, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi reaffirmed the validity of the documents earlier this month.
These long-standing diplomatic frameworks and historical ties between Tokyo and Beijing could eventually facilitate a rapprochement between Japan and China, potentially leaving Taiwan on the sidelines.
Seoul, by contrast, does not share an equivalent set of foundational political documents carrying comparable weight with Beijing.
Yet deeper South Korea-Japan relations could constrain Tokyo’s room for a rapprochement with Beijing. Seoul and Tokyo share classified military information and regularly participate in joint military exercises involving active-duty personnel, most recently during last month’s Freedom Edge drills.
Last year, two-way travel between South Korea and Japan exceeded 13 million visits, nearly 5 million more than between Taiwan and Japan.
More people traveled to Japan from South Korea than from any other country, followed by China in second place.
SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won, whose conglomerate includes semiconductor giant SK Hynix, has advocated a South Korea-Japan economic community modeled on the EU, including Schengen-style passport-free travel between the two countries.
Imagine if Taiwan could join such a democratic East Asian union. That would require deeper South Korea-Japan ties and, more importantly, serious efforts to bolster Taiwan-South Korea relations, arguably the weakest link in the prospective triangle.
As a South Korean student who deeply values Taiwan, I regret that the potential of this relationship seems to receive little attention within Taiwan.
Taiwan does not need less Japan. It needs more South Korea — and a broader vision for a Taiwan-South Korea-Japan partnership.
Alan Jeong
Northwestern University, Illinois