By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Nov 22 (NNN-YONHAP) — The termination of a major arrangement between South Korea and Japan on exchanging military information was imminent Friday amid no news of a breakthrough, with concerns about its consequences growing.
Last-minute diplomatic consultations were apparently under way to avert the doom of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) ahead of its expiry slated for 12 a.m. Saturday.
Realistically, however, chances seem low that Seoul and Tokyo will strike a deal before the deadline, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The Moon Jae-in government is adamant that Japan should first retract its retaliatory export curbs against South Korea. The Shinzo Abe administration has urged Seoul to address the compensation problem associated with forced labor during World War II on its own.
Moon’s office reportedly held a National Security Council (NSC) session for final discussions on the fate of GSOMIA. Cheong Wa Dae neither confirmed nor denied whether it has convened another NSC meeting, a day after having a weekly session of the NSC standing committee. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, an NSC member, has returned to Seoul earlier than scheduled from a trip to Saudi Arabia.
Cheong Wa Dae is expected to hold a press briefing on its conclusive position on GSOMIA or issue a written statement within Friday.
Critics here argue the termination of GSOMIA would open a Pandora’s box. Moon and his aides have dismissed worries about possible security loopholes as overblown.
If the hard-won pact comes to an end as scheduled, it would cast a darker cloud over Seoul-Tokyo ties long dogged by disputes over shared history.
Also at issue is Washington’s reaction.
Even in the absence of GSOMIA, there would be no fatal impact to Seoul-Tokyo security cooperation and it’s unrelated to the Seoul-Washington alliance, according to Cheong Wa Dae officials. South Korea plans to make use of the existing Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement (TISA), which uses the U.S. as an intermediary, as it did before GSOMIA was signed in November 2016.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration may take Seoul’s move as a test of its commitment to regional security cooperation, while Moon stated that relevant teamwork with Japan will remain unscathed.
For Moon, the Aug. 22 decision not to extend GSOMIA was one of the strongest cards to play partly aimed at adding pressure on Tokyo and Washington alike.
Moon was frustrated by Japan’s snubbing of his Aug. 15 Liberation Day overture. In a televised speech, he said South Korea will “gladly join hands” with Japan for East Asian prosperity if it chooses dialogue and cooperation to settle the trade fight.
The United States has stressed the significance of GSOMIA in trilateral security partnerships in the region against North Korea, China and Russia.
Until recently, however, Washington had largely stayed away from the deepened conflicts between two of its top Asian allies. U.S. officials have been belatedly vocal about worries about the aftermath of a formal end to GSOMIA.
The defense agreement was controversial from its birth in 2016. The Park Geun-hye administration hurriedly inked the accord with Japan, “clandestinely” in the eyes of many people. In 2012, the Lee Myung-bak administration sought to introduce GSOMIA, but it gave up just ahead of a signing ceremony in the face of fierce public backlash.
It reflects South Koreans’ belief that Japan has not yet fully atoned for its wartime atrocities, especially committed when Korea was under its colonization from 1910-45.
A mid-November opinion poll by Realmeter showed that 55.4 percent of people here are in favor of terminating GSOMIA and 33.2 percent against it.
Japan has claimed that all reparation-related matters were settled in a 1965 bilateral treaty on normalizing diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
Last year, however, South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled that Korean victims of wartime forced labor still hold their individual rights to compensation and ordered two Japanese firms to pay money.
The Moon administration said it respects the court ruling and proposed the creation of a joint fund by South Korean and Japanese companies to deal with the matter.
Japan rejected the offer and launched the export restrictions in early July in apparent reprisal.
Ostensibly, it cited concerns about some strategic materials being shipped to North Korea or other third countries.
During a town hall meeting Tuesday, Moon asked, “Isn’t it contradictory (for Japan) to seek the sharing of military information while saying (South Korea) is not trustworthy in terms of security?”
Meanwhile, Moon visited a new silicon wafer plant, built by a Taiwanese firm’s local unit, on Friday morning. He attended a ceremony to mark the completion of the second silicon wafer plant of MEMC Korea Co., a subsidiary of GlobalWafers Co., in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul.
The government has intensified efforts to diversify the supply channel of core strategic materials in order to rely less on imports from Japan.
–NNN-YONHAP
