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Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (L) and his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se (R) shake hands after the two countries agreed to bring a "final and irreversible solution" to the issue of women who were forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels. Photo: Kyodo

Why Japan’s ‘comfort women’ apology is a coup for Washington and a blow for Beijing

As Japan and South Korea concluded a deal to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the wartime “comfort women” dispute, analysts said the intensifying geostrategic competition in the region has been given an unexpected stir: a gain for Washington but an irritant for Beijing.

As Japan and South Korea concluded a highly symbolic year with a historical deal to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the wartime “comfort women” dispute, analysts said the intensifying geostrategic competition in the region has been given an unexpected stir: a gain for Washington but an irritant for Beijing.

While hopes have been high that the agreement, announced on Monday in Seoul, would improve relations between the two countries, challenges remain for the estranged neighbours to get over the highly emotional issue.

Relations between the two countries have been toxic since Japan’s Shinzo Abe and South Korea’s Park Geun-hye took power three years ago largely due to the two leaders’ hard-line stance on the “comfort women” dispute. Park had until last month refused to meet with Abe due to his revisionist view on the issue.

Watch: South Korea, Japan reach landmark agreement to resolve ‘comfort women’ issue

Monday’s accord could not only help remove a heavy logjam in bilateral ties, but also boost the United States’ presence in the region, analysts said.

“The US government has repeated expressed its concerns about this antagonism between its two allies, and urged – and at times facilitated – high level diplomacy to find common ground,” Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations in the United States, wrote in an email.

“Worry about the rapidly changing Northeast Asian security environment has, of course, also been a factor as China’s growing power and North Korea’s nuclear and missile proliferation have called for greater cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.”

But for Beijing, the news would not go down well. “Beijing would not say this publicly, but it would not be too happy about this,” said a Chinese researcher who refused to be identified.

South Korean police stand guard near a statue of a teenage girl called the 'peace monument'. Photo: AFP

Disputes over the history issues have allowed China to put a wedge between the US allies and foster closer relations with South Korea over the past three years. Chinese President Xi Jinping has even reversed a long-held tradition and visited South Korea before he sets foot in the North.

The agreement would also mean that China would lose a partner to contain Japan in international platforms such as Unesco, said Liang Yunxiang, a professor of international relations with Peking University.

China and Japan have also fought bitterly over the history issues, and analysts said it remained unlikely that the two rivals would forge a similar deal in the future.

“It [the history issue between South Korea and Japan] hasn’t been manipulated to the same degree as in the Chinese-Japanese case,” said Stephen Nagy, a professor with the International Christian University in Tokyo.

“And there is a real competition between Japan and China going on right now in terms of regional influence.”

The governments in Japan and South Korea have spent at least six months – in 12 rounds of talks – negotiating for such an agreement to be signed this year, which marked 50 years of normalised bilateral relations and 70 years since the end of the second world war, according to diplomatic sources and analysts.

While the goalpost has been clear, the scale of the result has surprised some.

“Tokyo apologised in the name of [Japanese Prime Minister Shizno] Abe and they admitted [the] Japanese government’s responsibility for the issue, that means the agreement is way better than we expected and can be called as a diplomatic victory,” a South Korean diplomat said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se. Photo: Kyodo

Widely seen as a conservative nationalist, Abe has made significant shift from refusing the recognise the issue of “comfort women” -- a euphemism referring to the tens of thousands of women coerced to sexually serve Japanese soldiers during the first world war – in his first term as the prime minister in 2006 and 2007 to offering an apology this week. And unlike previous attempts to address the issue, a long running bone of contention in bilateral ties, Tokyo is providing US$8.3 million of government budget to offer repatriations to the 46 remaining women in South Korea. This is a departure from the use of a private foundation created after an official apology in 1993, which was deemed insufficient and was never fully accepted in South Korea.

Aside from pressure from Washington, pragmatic drivers also pulled the two leaders to meet half way on the issue.

“Improving relations with Korea is essential [for Japan] to increasing security with respect to China’s economic and military growth, securing Korea’s entry and cooperation in the TPP [trans pacific partnership, a multi-national trade pact], and improving alliance with the United States,” Katherine Moon, a senior fellow at Brookings Centre for East Asia Policy Studies, wrote in an email.

There are, however, political risks.

“Abe’s ultra-conservative supporters feel betrayed by him. Korean activists will continue to pressure the Blue House and Mofa [the ministry of Foreign Affairs] to ‘do more’,” Moon said.

The diplomat also admitted convincing the comfort women and activists to accept the deal would be a challenge.

The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a leading advocacy group on the issue, has issued a statement criticising its government’s promise to not mention the issue again in the future “shameful and disappointing”. It also questioned the sincerity the Japanese government’s apology.

In Japan, a sense of general fatigue over apologising about the history issues still lingers.

While public opinion in both countries appear to increasingly support better bilateral ties, “it is unclear what kind of agreement on this issue the Japanese and Korean public will support,” Smith said.

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