Abstract
The political realignments and regime changes, which took place in Japan in 2009 and 2012, have been one of the most important variables for its foreign policy, in general, and South Korean policy, in particular. On its inauguration, the leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) embarked on a set of ambitious policies to change Asian diplomacy under the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). By pronouncing the concept of an East Asian Community with South Korea and China as its core partners, the Hatoyama Yukio cabinet, the first DPJ administration, did not conceal its intention to redress the alleged diplomatic imbalance heavily tilting toward the United States. The succeeding Kan Naoto cabinet even made unprecedented efforts to push ahead with historical reconciliation with Seoul that had lost its momentum during Roh Moo-hyun and Koizumi Junichiro era, while the Noda Yoshihiko cabinet came very close to a final signature for the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), supposedly the first military agreement between the two US allies. Domestic and international conditions were not unfavorable for the policy change. The South Korean Lee Myung-bak government was trying to keep an accommodative approach toward Japan in spite of growing domestic pressures.
Financial support from The Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation and the University of Niigata Prefecture is gratefully acknowledged.
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Notes
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© 2015 Takashi Inoguchi
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Suh, Sw. (2015). Japanese Realignments and Impacting Korean-Japanese Relations. In: Inoguchi, T. (eds) Japanese and Korean Politics. Asia Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137488312_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137488312_5
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