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Getting Past the Past: Korea's Transcendence of the Anti–Japan Policy Frontier

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 7; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14799855.2011.615083

1555-2764

Van Jackson,

Policy Transfer and Learning

Abstract Why are some nations able to move beyond historical hatreds to have productive relationships with former enemies while others seem bound by the past, unable to make policy choices that are in their “objective” interest? This article explores Korea's decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Japan in 1965 and finds, inter alia, that US pressure for normalization was not the key causal variable that it has been described as elsewhere. I propose that the concept of policy frontiers – that is, socially constructed constraints on realistic policy choices – reveals that a fuller explanation of Korea's decision to normalize relations with Japan resulted from a process in which policy entrepreneurs interact with their political systems to exploit opportunities created by critical junctures. Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Andrew Yeo and Kristin Chambers for their many constructive ideas and conversations relating to both international relations theory and Korea. The author also thanks two anonymous reviewers and the editors of Asian Security, all of whom provided invaluable critiques that greatly strengthened this article. The views expressed are the author's and do not represent or imply those of the Department of Defense or US Government. Notes This article not subject to US copyright law. 1. The use of the term “policy frontier” throughout this article borrows from Golob's definition: “… barriers erected by historically held and sacred ideas of sovereignty, security, and national identity that make certain choices unavailable as ‘normal’ policy options.” Stephanie Golob, “Beyond the Policy Frontier: Canada, Mexico, and the Ideological Origins of NAFTA,” World Politics Vol. 55, No. 3 (April 2003), pp. 361–398. 2. The scope of this study focuses on the ability of elite ideas to affect political reality by asserting influence over the range and content of available ideas, not the persuasiveness of the elite ideas asserted per se. For decades after normalization occurred in 1965, for example, Korean public opinion remained largely anti–Japanese, though much attenuated compared with pre-1965 opinion. For a discussion of Korean public opinion regarding Japan and Korea-Japan relations after normalization, see, for example, Hong N. Kim, “Japanese-South Korean Relations in the Post-Vietnam Era,” Asian Survey Vol. 16, No. 10 (October 1976), pp. 981–995. 3. Chong-Sik Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985); Kwan Bong Kim, The Korea–Japan Treaty Crisis and the Instability of the Korean Political System (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971); Kil J. Yi, “In Search of a Panacea: Japan-Korea Rapprochement and America's ‘Far Eastern Problems,’” Pacific Historical Review Vol. 71, No. 4 (November 2002), pp. 633–662; J. Mark Mobius, “The Japan-Korea Normalization Process and Korean Anti–Americanism,” Asian Survey Vol. 6, No. 4 (April 1996), pp. 241–248. 4. For a rare exception to the assertion that international relations theories have not been used to analyze Korea-Japan normalization, see Victor Cha, “1965 nyon Han-Il Sugyo hyopchong chekyole taehan hyonsil juuijok kochal [Realist Analysis of the Conclusion to the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization Negotiations],” Hangook kwa kukje jongchi Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1997), pp. 263–297. 5. See, for example, Donald Stone Macdonald, US–Korea Relations from Liberation to Self-Reliance: The Twenty-Year Record (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), especially pp. 114–136; Ui-hwan Bae, Boritgoneun nomoddjiman [Beyond the Lean Years] (Seoul: Korea Herald, 1992); Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension; Tae-Ryong Yoon, “Learning to Cooperate Not to Cooperate: Bargaining for the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization,” Asian Perspective Vol. 32, No. 2 (2008), pp. 59–91; Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis. 6. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, p. 37. 7. Kim Yong Sik, Kim Yong Sik waegyo samshipsam nyeun: saebyuk ui yaksok [Promise of the Dawn: Kim Yong Sik 33 Years of Diplomacy] (Seoul: Kim Yong Sa, 1993); Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, p. 48. 8. For the seminal work on system-level determinants of state behavior, see Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Baltimore: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Some realists argue that Waltz's theory of structural realism does not predict state behavior but only the war proneness of the international system based on the international distribution of power. See, for example, Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization Vol. 44 (Spring 1990), pp. 137–168. 9. “Second Meeting between President Rhee and Secretary Dulles,” in US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. 1477–1478; series hereinafter noted as FRUS. 10. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 41–42. For Korea's threat perception of Japan in the 1950s, see, for example, “The President of the Republic of Korea (Rhee) to President Eisenhower, February 4, 1954,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1746. Due to the inflammatory nature of President Rhee's letter, Walter Robinson, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs, convinced President Rhee to withdraw the letter before it went to the president. In the letter, Rhee claimed that “America's program for rebuilding Japan economically and militarily makes the Korean people profoundly nervous.” Rhee went even further, stating, “The American people do not heed our friendly warning against trusting the Japanese too much, just as they ignored it until after the Pearl Harbor disaster.” 11. “Memorandum of Conversation, December 18, 1956: Dr. Syngman Rhee's Views on the Armistice Agreement, the US Position vis-à-vis the Communist Orbit, and ROK–Japanese Relations,” in FRUS: 1955–1957, Vol. XXIII, Korea, p. 133. 12. “We Reject Asian Dictation by Japan, August 29, 1954” (speech by Syngman Rhee), in Karl Hongee (comp.), Korea Flaming High: Volume II (Seoul: Office of Public Information, 1956), p. 42. 13. Kong Dan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea through the Looking Glass (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 8. For the argument that North Korea's post–Korean War economic recovery was due mostly to foreign assistance from the Soviet bloc, see Charles Armstrong, “The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950–1960,” The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol. 8, Issue 51, No. 2 (December 20, 2010), Available at http://www.japanfocus.org 14. Victor Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism: The US–Korea–Japan Security Triangle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 3. 15. Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism, pp. 54–56. 16. Victor Cha, “1965 nyon Han-Il Sugyo hyopchong chekyole taehan hyonsil juuijok kochal [Realist Analysis of the Conclusion to the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization Negotiations],” Hangook kwa kukje jongchi Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1997), pp. 263–297. 17. Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism, p. 26. 18. Tae-Ryong Yoon, “Fragile Cooperation: Net Threat Theory and Japan–Korea–US Relations” (Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, New York, 2006). 19. “The Ambassador in Korea to the Department of State, July 6, 1954,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1828. 20. “The Acting Secretary of State to the Embassy in Korea, September 22, 1954,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1887. 21. Second Progress Report by the Operations Coordinating Board to the NSC, “United States Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea, December 29, 1954,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, pp. 1944–1953. 22. “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Korea, August 20, 1960,” in FRUS: 1958–1960, Vol. XVIII, Japan, Korea, p. 688. 23. Notes of the 485th Meeting of the NSC, June 13, 1961, Johnson Library, Vice Presidential Security File, NSC (III). 24. Notes of the 485th Meeting of the NSC, June 13, 1961. 25. Like neorealism, there are of course many variants of neoliberalism. I focus here on two – cooperation through institutions and complex interdependence – because they would seem to have the greatest explanatory potential for preindustrialized, predemocratic Korea and Japan. 26. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1977); Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). 27. Ashley Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2006–07: Trade, Interdependence, and Security (Seattle: The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2006). 28. “The Ambassador in Korea to the Department of State,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1794. 29. Yoon, “Learning to Cooperate Not to Cooperate,” pp. 59–91. 30. Yoon, “Learning to Cooperate Not to Cooperate,” pp. 62–63. 31. “The Ambassador in Korea to the Department of State, October 29, 1954,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1909. 32. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), p. 953. 33. For a discussion of the importance of policy entrepreneurs in international politics, see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 887–917. 34. For a detailed explanation of critical junctures and the concept of path dependence in political science, see Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 35. For a similar argument claiming that exogenous shocks contribute to ideational change, see Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). 36. See, for example, Sung-hwa Cheong, The Politics of Anti–Japanese Sentiment in Korea: Japanese–South Korean Relations under American Occupation, 1945–1952 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991); Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension. 37. For a detailed history of Syngman Rhee's early and developing views of the Japanese, see, Chong-Sik Lee, Syngman Rhee: The Prison Years of a Young Radical (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2001). For Rhee's fully developed first-person expression of intensely anti–Japanese beliefs, see Syngman Rhee, Japan Inside Out: The Challenge of Today (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1941). 38. For the decisive work examining the peculiarities of power in Asian societies, see Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985). 39. J. P. Nettle, Political Mobilization: A Sociological Analysis of Methods and Concepts (New York: Basic Books, 1967). 40. Cheong, The Politics of Anti–Japanese Sentiment in Korea. 41. Because agriculture – the fisheries industry in particular – was the core of Korea's anemic economy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the resolution of the maritime boundary line between Korea and Japan was an issue with real economic consequences. The “MacArthur Line” established by SCAP in 1945 established the outer limits for Japanese fishermen partway between Korea and Japan. This line was favorable to the Korean fishing industry and was effectively replicated when Rhee unilaterally established his controversial “Rhee Line” or “Peace Line” that became a focus of subsequent negotiations. 42. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, p. 36; “Memorandum of Conversation, June 20, 1960: Post Summit Situation; Japanese–Korean Relations; the Future of Japan,” in FRUS: 1958–1960, Vol. XVIII, Japan and Korea, pp. 669–670. In this conversation between President Eisenhower and short-lived Prime Minister Huh Chung, Chung relayed a conversation he had with Japanese Prime Minister Kishi, in which he stated “the problem [of normalization] could not be solved until the Japanese understood the national sentiment of the Korean people and made some effort to ‘soothe’ the Korean people.” 43. Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982), esp. pp. 125–156; Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 20–32. 44. See, for example, “Japan's Actions Key to Amity, February 3, 1955” (speech by Syngman Rhee), in Karl Hongee (comp.), Korea Flaming High: Volume II, pp. 47–51. 45. “Confidential Memorandum from President Rhee to All Diplomatic Representatives Abroad on Korean–Japanese Relations,” quoted in Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 36–37. 46. Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors: The Unique World of a Foreign Service Expert (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964), p. 349. 47. Eun Suk Sa, “Development of Press Freedom in Korea since Japanese Colonial Rule,” Asian Culture and History Vol. 1, No. 2 (July 2009), pp. 6–7; Kyu Ho Youm, Press Law in Korea (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1996). 48. Sa, “Development of Press Freedom in Korea since Japanese Colonial Rule,” p. 8. 49. Sa, “Development of Press Freedom in Korea since Japanese Colonial Rule,” p. 8; Youm, Press Law in Korea, p. 48. 50. Sa, “Development of Press Freedom in Korea since Japanese Colonial Rule,” p. 8; Youm, Press Law in Korea, p. 11. 51. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, p. 41. 52. Sang Cho Shin, “Interest Articulation: Pressure Groups,” in C. I. Eugene Kim, ed., A Pattern of Political Development: Korea (Kalamazoo, MI: Korea Research and Publications, 1964), p. 43. 53. Kwan Bong Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, pp. 265–267. 54. Shin, “Interest Articulation,” pp. 43–45. 55. Kim, The Korea–Japan Treaty Crisis, p. 267. 56. William Douglas, “Korean Students and Politics,” Asian Survey Vol. 3, No. 12 (1963), pp. 584–587. 57. Kim, The Korea–Japan Treaty Crisis, p. 280; Douglas, “Korean Students and Politics,” p. 585. 58. For discussions about the causes of the April Student Revolution, see Douglas, “Korean Students and Politics,” pp. 584–595; Hwa Su Lee, “An Analysis of the April Revolution in Korea,” Koreana Quarterly Vol. VIII, No. 2 (Summer 1966), pp. 96–110; Byong Hon O, “University Students and Politics in Korea,” Koreana Quarterly Vol. IX, No. 4 (Winter 1967), pp. 1–3; Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, pp. 278–288; Seok Ryule Hong, “Reunification Issues and Civil Society in South Korea: The Debates and Social Movement for Reunification During the April Revolution Period, 1960–1961,” Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 61, No. 4 (November 2002), pp. 1237–1257. 59. Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, pp. 278–280. 60. See, for example, “Korea: The Unstable Hwan,” Time, November 15, 1954. 61. Calculated from figures published by the Bank of Korea, Economic Statistics Yearbook, 1973, cited in Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, p. 65. 62. Gregg Brazinsky, Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), pp. 101–162; Richard Stubbs, “War and Economic Development: Export-Oriented Industrialization in East and Southeast Asia,” Comparative Politics Vol. 31, No. 3 (April 1999), pp. 337–355; James Cotton, “Understanding the State in South Korea: Bureaucratic–Authoritarian or State Autonomy Theory?” Comparative Political Studies Vol. 24, No. 1 (January 1992), pp. 512–531. 63. For a better understanding of Rhee's political and economic approach to Japan, see Lee Hanwoo, Kodaehan saengae Rhee Syngman 90 nyun [A Grand Career: 90 Years of Syngman Rhee] (Seoul: Chosun Ilbo Sa, 1996); “The Ambassador in Korea to the Department of State,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1794; Yong-Pyo Hong, State Security and Regime Security: President Syngman Rhee and the Insecurity Dilemma in South Korea, 1953–60 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1999). 64. “Answers to Questions by Gordon Walker, the Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Massachusetts, September 1, 1955,” in Karl Hongee (comp.), Korea Flaming High: Volume II, pp. 208–209. 65. “Answers to Questions by Igor Oganesoff, the Business International and the Nippon Times, October 5, 1955,” in Karl Hongee (comp.), Korea Flaming High: Volume II, p. 240. 66. “The Ambassador in Korea to the Department of State,” in FRUS: 1952–1954, Vol. XV, Korea, p. 1794. 67. Sung Chik Hong, “A Pilot Survey of Korean Students' Values,” Korean Affairs No. 1 (1963), p. 4. 68. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 45–46. 69. Yoon, “Fragile Cooperation.” 70. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 47–48. 71. Chong-Sik Lee, “Korea: Troubles in a Divided State,” Asian Survey Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1965), p. 27. 72. Dong-Won Yi, Taet'ongryong ul krimyo [I Miss President Park] (Seoul: Koryowon, 1992), pp. 199–201; Tae-Ryong Yoon, “Learning to Cooperate Not to Cooperate,” pp. 84–86. 73. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, pp. 47–49. 74. See, for example, Chung Hee Park, “Let Us View the Present Situation in Long-Range Perspective” (national public address delivered on March 24, 1964), reprinted in Bum Shik Shin (comp.), Major Speeches by Korea's Park Chung Hee (Seoul: Hollym, 1970), pp. 80–84. 75. “Memorandum of Conversation between Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Minister of Foreign Affairs Yi Dong-won, March 15, 1965,” in FRUS XXIX 1964–68: Korea, pp. 785–787. For a similar assessment suggesting that Korean popular opinion became less hostile toward Japan under Park than under Rhee, see Byong-Cheon Lee, ed., Developmental Dictatorship and the Park Chung-Hee Era: The Shaping of Modernity in the Republic of Korea (Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2006), esp. Part III. For a view that Korean public opinion toward Japan did not soften until after normalization, see Ui-hwan Bae, Boritgoneun nomoddjiman [Beyond the Lean Years] (Seoul: Korea Herald, 1992). 76. Cited in C. I. Eugene Kim, “Korea in the Year of ULSA,” Asian Survey Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 1966), pp. 34–37. 77. For an analysis of the role of compromises and unilateral accommodations in achieving rapprochement, see Charles Kupchan, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). 78. Midori Yoshii, “Reducing the American Burden? US Mediation between South Korea and Japan, 1961–1965,” The Japanese Journal of American Studies No. 20 (2009), p. 56. 79. “Telegram from the Embassy in Korea to the Department of State, June 15, 1965,” in FRUS XXIX 1964–68: Korea, pp. 793–794. 80. The Dokdo/Takeshima dispute was never resolved and continues to fester. Both sides agreed to disagree on this point in the text of the normalization treaty, avoiding explicit reference to the islets and deferring settlement to further consultations. 81. Lee, Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension, p. 54. 82. A similar proposition has recently been advanced to explain People's Republic of China nuclear and military doctrine as a function of specific leaders and their ideas. See M. Taylor Fravel and Evan Medeiros, “China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure,” International Security Vol. 35, No. 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 48–87.