Ⓒ JoongAng Ilbo / JoongAng Ilbo Japanese version2022.05.09 07:04
It has been confirmed that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will not participate in the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Yoon Seok-you on the 10th of this month. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will attend instead as a special envoy of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan officially announced on the 6th.
With Prime Minister Kishida’s unexploded ordnance, expectations for a recovery in relations, which had risen sharply with the election of the new president of South Korea, seem to have weakened. Foreign Minister Hayashi will visit Korea on a schedule of 9 to 10 days, 1 night and 2 days. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “We are planning to exchange opinions with VIPs of the South Korean government.” We will communicate closely with each other. “
The Japanese media reported that Foreign Minister Hayashi is not only attending the inauguration ceremony, but is also coordinating individual talks with Mr. Yoon and the candidate for Foreign Minister Park Jin. The Japanese Foreign Minister’s visit to Korea will be the first in regarding four years since the then Foreign Minister Taro Kono visited Korea in June 2018 to participate in the Korea-Japan-US Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.
◆ “The Prime Minister’s visit to Korea is premature”
Opinions were divided even in Japan regarding Prime Minister Kishida’s attendance at the inauguration ceremony of the South Korean president. The Liberal Democratic Party conservatives and others have expressed opposition, saying that it might give a false message to South Korea. He once insisted that he should show an attitude of renewal “(Asahi).
The policy delegation dispatched by Mr. Yoon visited Japan at the end of April to meet with Prime Minister Kishida, raising expectations that the Prime Minister’s visit to Korea would be realized. However, it seems that the Japanese government was concerned that Japan would appear to have made concessions to the new Korean government in a situation where no solution to the conflict between the two countries, such as the compulsory recruitment decision and the comfort women issue, might be seen.
NHK explained that the postponement of Prime Minister Kishida’s inauguration was to “clarify the position that it is necessary to resolve issues such as the issue of’recruitment’during the Pacific War in order to improve relations.” The Sankei Shimbun also said, “Although there were growing expectations from the South Korean side for the Prime Minister’s attendance, no solution to the so-called recruitment lawsuit or the comfort women issue was shown (the Japanese government visited Prime Minister Kishida). I decided it was premature. “
◆ The incumbent Prime Minister attends the inauguration ceremony of Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak.
At the inauguration ceremony of the Korean president, not only Foreign Minister Hayashi, but also former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who is known as the “Chinese faction,” and Fukushiro Nukaga, chairman of the Japan-Korea Parliamentary Union, which is a Japanese partner of the Korea-Japan Parliamentary Union, Secretary-general Ryota Takeda will attend.
With the exception of President Moon Jae-in, who held the inauguration ceremony in a short form, the past inauguration ceremonies of the South Korean president were visited by prime minister-level dignitaries from Japan. Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and Noboru Takeshita attended the 1998 Presidential Inauguration Ceremony, and Junichiro Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda were the incumbent Prime Ministers at the 2003 Roh Moo-hyun Inauguration Ceremony and the 2008 Lee Myung-bak Inauguration Ceremony. Attend. At the 2013 Presidential Inauguration Ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who had served as Prime Minister, attended.
