A lot of this stuff is cut-pasted, mix-and-matched, or snatched from the ether that is Twitter: it's great for getting bite-sized insights, but really hard to find back a comment read one time, so parts of this post will be combinations of things other people have said, but which I can't find back. John Delury, Sino NK, Jonathan Cheng, Robert Kelly and Ask A Korean's twitter feeds have been covering this stuff in detail, so do take a moment and spend time clicking the links they share, and if anything here was in a tweet you saw, please leave a link so I can attribute it properly.
News outlets reported that North and South Korea are working on officially ending the Korean War, a war fought from 1950-1953, but which never moved beyond an armistice to an actual peace treaty or normalized diplomatic relations. After announcements of planning a summit, and indications that denuclearization is on the table, Kim Jong-un's visit to China, and Mike Pompeo's visit to North Korea, it is starting to look like the ducks are getting in a row for some actual, substantive progress in the area, something I have not suspected to be possible pretty much since I came to South Korea.
While we try to keep our hopes guarded at Roboseyo whenever it could just be that Kim Jong-un opened a new box of girl scout cookies and "All The Single Ladies" came on the radio at the same time, there are indeed indications that this is not your run-of-the-mill repeat of North Korea's patented "Global Media Attention Maximizing Friendly/Unfriendly Yo-yo Diplomacy" actTM. Let's go through some of them, and let's read/write quick, before everything goes squirrelly again.
North Korea's Strongest Position Ever
First of all, let's start off with the notion that getting together for the Pyeongchang Olympics laid some groundwork for this.
The Pyeongchang Olympics are here! Some of my friends are really excited about this, so of course I take it as my Roboseyoly duty to throw some cold water on the proceedings. We have a lot of cold water around the house right now, because our laundry room's pipes have been frozen for literally three weeks! Before running out to the coin laundry to ensure I have underpants for the next week (rueing that cancelled trip to Hawaii more and more), I'd like to say a few things about the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Part One: Tempering Expectations
I had intended to write this about two or three years ago, but never really got around to it, which means I am now Johnny-come-lately instead of being stylishly ahead of the curve, but I've been telling whichever friends would listen that the Pyeongchang Olympics are going to be a letdown pretty much since they were awarded.
You've read, no doubt, about The Interview, and the Sony hack. The Sony hack that was blamed on North Korea, which people are now doubting was actually done by North Korea.
At Ask A Korean!, The Korean! suggests this piece from The Atlantic as the best thing to read about the fiasco: basically, if this tempest distracts from the human rights violations going on in North Korea right now, that's really bad, and benefits the North Korean regime. And also... some rich Canadians making fun of North Korea isn't brave, when people are having their entire families sent to prison camps in North Korea for doing the same.
Here is a panel Q&A including a Korean-American filmmaker, members of a few North Korea-focused groups, and a North Korean defector who now works for "Justice for North Korea"
I watched every minute of it. If the movie's interesting to you, or the idea of the movie, watch it.
I've watched the film now. In fact, it's playing right now, while I type this. This won't quite be a "live blog" of the film, because it's not actually much of a film, but as things come up, I'll type about them. Hopefully this will lend a sense of immediacy to the proceedings, but apologies if the post is scattered.
You know what? I'm not going to tag spoilers... it's a Seth Rogen comedy. You're not watching it for surprises, are you? Given that the media frenzy has been about the film's climactic moment, where Kim Jong-un's head is blown up, we already know how this thing ends, don't we?
If you really don't want to have plot points spoiled for you, well, you're watching Seth Rogen comedies for the wrong reason, for one thing, but if it's really important to you, watch the film before reading this, or skip to the next Kim Jong-Jackson, after which I will not have any more spoilers.
1. The people making this movie were definitely, clearly making the film specifically about North Korea, not pinning North Korea onto a basically undefined dictatorship. Somebody who knows a lot about North Korea has given the script a few passes. Details like the fake grocery store and the film opener, with the little girl's song about the death of America, while fictionalized, ring true to what we know about North Korea, and Barbara Demick notes several other spots where the filmmakers were at least factually correct or accurate to what's known about North Korea in her article linked above. You know, when they weren't making butthole jokes. The fake grocery store (as discussed in the panel above) is a fiction, but it puts the entire idea of much of Pyongyang being a giant potemkin village into one, quick and accessible video image.
2. Yes. They make fun of Asian accents. And despite the fact possibly the two smartest characters in the film are both female -- North Korea's propaganda head, and the CIA agent -- they are also the only two, and they are both treated as objects of desire first and foremost.
3. It's a bro comedy. Along with the "are they or aren't they" homoerotic undertones between James Franco and various cast members, (which are underlined by the Eminem interview at the beginning talking about "homosexual breadcrumbs"), there are numerous (yes, numerous) rectum jokes. Penis jokes, anal penetration jokes, and topless women. Part of the Kim family cult is even turned into a butt joke, as Seth Rogen and James Franco (the characters have names, but I don't care) are told that Kim Jong-eun has no butthole, because he works so hard for the country that he burns off the waste before he can excrete it.
4. The movie also actually approaches some important questions about the existence of the Kim dynasty and it's figurehead position in North Korea. Only barely -- when they're first asked to assassinate Kim Jong-un, Seth Rogen asks, "If we kill him, won't they just get another chubby dude with a weird hairdo to replace him?" The CIA plan of cutting off the head is supposed to empower a faction who wants change in North Korea, to take over.
5. They drop some facts about North Korea in -- money it spends on weapons vs. money given in aid, the number of people in political prison camps. I have no doubt they're accurate, and those lines are delivered during the crucial scene. It's hard to decide whether this is tone deaf because it does such a disservice to the real tragedy of what's happening in North Korea, or because such massive human tragedy is going to be cold water on frat boys' laughing high. I guess it depends on which you care about more: massive-scale human tragedy or a shart joke's ability to extract maximum chuckles from men in their 20s.
6. I am a few years past being the target demographic for this movie. But I could totally see my university-age self, who winced and chuckled through American Pie and There's Something About Mary snorting and chortling through this as well.
7. The film cuts to the quick on US foreign policy as well. "Kim must die. That's the American Way." "How many times can the US make the same mistake?" "As many times as it takes." "Killing Kim won't change anything. He will be replaced."
This conversation could be held regarding any number of regions where boogeyman dictators' removal royally failed to unfuck their regions, and it turned out more was needed than just removing the guy at the top.
That said, this exchange was probably also on point "People need to be shown that he is not a god, that he is a man. Then they will be ready for change," which is what Sook, one of the James Franco and Seth Rogens' handlers explains, in order to change their main strategy from straight up assassination, to, more or less, get Kim to cry on air, and people will know he's not a god. This is actually very interesting, and I'll get to it later.
8. The "Kim Jong-un is a fan of our show" inciting bit seems to echo Kim Jong-il's love for Western film and whiskey, while visiting and getting the "seven star treatment" seems to echo Dennis Rodman's visits.
9. I am much more interested in the idea of this film, than in the actual film itself. It is more or less what you expect from a movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, and if you're a fan of that, it delivers exactly what you expect, except this time the bad guy is a sitting world leader instead of a drug dealer or a dick boss or (were it the 80s) the preppy frat who wear argyle sweater vests. It's not much of a film, really, and if your daily dose of semen jokes is what you came for, "This Is The End" was a better film. But the fact this film was made, the reaction to it, the idea of delivering information about North Korea in this package, of all packages, is interesting to me. I am quite conflicted about it.
10. Yes, they make a dog eating joke.
11. Randall Park's Kim Jong-un is probably the best thing in this movie. He's likeable and convincing as a manipulator with daddy issues, going from star-struck to preening to a little frightening, he makes us believe the character is a mad dictator, but also that James Franco might hesitate to drop the hammer on him because he just likes him so much.
Spoiler warnings from here on.
The big stuff:
The thing that bothered me the most about the film is how little attention was paid to the really horrific things happening in North Korea. The more you read and learn about North Korea's concentration camps for political prisoners (which are in operation as we speak -- so much for "Never again"), or starvation or mass corruption in the provinces, the more this movie rings hollow -- as if it's a hollywood scenario instead of an actual place where actual people are actually dying right now. Of course, dick jokes fall flat in the face of this stuff.
It's a pun on the word rectum. You know, rectum... wrecked'em? Get it?
Oh never mind. Photo source.
The bit with the grocery store was a simple and visual stand-in for that bit of storytelling, but it's interesting that an image is used instead of actual humans, that the film resolutely sets its gaze away from the human cost of the Kim dynasty.
They couldn't put that into a comedy. At least, not this comedy. But it still bothers me that they didn't, because I want to have it both ways I guess. It suggests to me that North Korea was still mostly just a backdrop for James Franco to do James Franco stuff, and Seth Rogen to do Seth Rogen stuff, rather than something either of them actually cared about. It would be annoying for Rogen and Franco to be going around playing "White Jesus" to North Korean concentration camp victims, but it's also disappointing that the closest they ever get to addressing what's actually going in in North Korea are a few statistics mentioned in passing in prep for the big interview and comments like these: (rolling stone) "Are we gonna just make movies about guys trying to get laid over and over again? Or, now that we have people's attention, maybe we can focus it on something slightly more relevant – while still doing shit we think is funny." I'd feel better if I at least heard that the filmmakers were supporting NGOs devoted to North Korea or something.
Two spots of self-reflexivity I noticed as well: in the same way a celebrity gossip journalist wants to be taken more seriously, and takes on an interview with Kim Jong-eun, this film can be read as a group of frat boy filmmakers who want to be taken more seriously, and take on a film about an interview with Kim Jong-eun.
Secondly, and this is the biggie: after meeting someone in North Korea who doesn't like Kim Jong-un, the boys change their goal from killing Kim (which would just lead to another figurehead being installed) to embarrassing him, humanizing him, and thus puncturing the personality cult that holds Kim up as a god. {SPOILER} they achieve this in the film by revealing that Kim Jong-un likes Katy Perry, has daddy issues, and then by making him cry and poop his pants on television while the entire world, including every North Korean, watches. This proves he does indeed have a butthole, like a normal human, and that he is subject to human emotions.
Funny thing... releasing the movie achieves almost the same thing, depending on who sees it. It reveals that Kim Jong-un is a joke to the world, rather than a dire threat the whole world fears, which is how he's been packaged in the domestic propaganda. And this is important, when it comes to North Korean people's consent to be governed.
In the long term, it is impossible to indefinitely govern a population who does not wish to be governed. Military or police oppression and surveillance are expensive, and build up a sense of grievance that eventually becomes explosive. Governments can also co-opt a segment of the population, and put them above others, so they have something to gain from keeping the status quo, and those at the bottom focus on class injustice instead of leadership (for example Colonial Japan and the "collaborators"). Promising economic benefits for cooperation with the regime (South Korea 1970s, China now) can work. So can setting up the leader as the best possible leader, perhaps ordained from heaven (this is why dictatorships often include personality cults), or developing fear of an external or internal threat to the people, or the values, or the culture, and fashioning the government as the best protectors from these real or imagined fears (Cold War rhetoric in South Korea today, the War on Terror). Promising enhanced national status vis a vis other countries is probably the one most often used in South Korea. Building up institutions and promoting "national" values and/or a sense of justice and rule of law, so that people believe the going system treats them more fairly than other systems would, and running elections which give leaders a nearly unassailable veneer of legitimacy, is the tack democracies use. These are all ways to convince populations to consent to being governed.
If the government cannot deliver on the promises they make, their legitimacy is in danger, and when people reject their leader, revolutions happen. This is the corner Kim Jong-un is painted into. The only two institutions North Korea has really developed, now that socialism has collapsed, are the Kim Dynasty, and the military. Because they can't deliver their promise of economic prosperity, the Kim regime has been forced to position themselves as the best leaders to protect North Korean people from the dangers of a hostile world outside the borders. Launching missiles, militarizing the culture, and releasing bellicose rhetoric isn't really for the world audience, though the world media's kneejerk response helps their propagandists. Those actions are a performance for North Korea's people, demonstrating why and how Kim Jong-un is the best leader to protect North Korea from hostile threats. The idea that the world fears North Korea's nuclear weapons and leaders, is the key to Kim Jong-un's legitimacy. If it is revealed that Kim Jong-un is not in fact the source of terror for Western nations and the USA, but an object of ridicule, Kim Jong-un's last strong source of legitimacy is gone. That is why North Korea has responded so overwhelmingly in defense of Kim's dignity. Because his rep is all he's got left, except perhaps his birthright, which people might quickly forget if it looks like he doesn't measure up to his father and grandfather.
The film is not a very good film. But if it manages to convince North Koreans that the world looks on North Korea and Kim Jong-un with pity and scorn, not fear and trembling, that is very very bad for North Korea's national stability, because it means the dictatorship has delivered on none of the promises they used to gain consent of the populace for their method of government. Without the Kim family as figurehead, the rest of the government is just a corrupt and oppressive kleptocracy that has failed to deliver either safety or prosperity to the people they serve, and people who feel their leaders have utterly failed to deliver any benefit for being governed, sometimes decide to dispense with those leaders.
This movie punctures the personality cult of the Kim family, and that is why it is dangerous to North Korea, and why, in their eyes, their response to the film was justified.
Was it a good movie? Not really. The movie was much less interesting than the bare fact it got made, and provoked the response it did. The Interview has gotten way way more attention than it deserves as a film, and I dread to think which other shitty filmmakers are watching this and thinking "Look at all the free publicity that film got!" and what godawful films might come out of that.
But if this film means people start talking about a 90 minute string of anus jokes instead of talking about the UN's Inquiry into the Human Rights situation in North Korea, that is a tragedy. If the film means people are eventually led into talking about that kind of stuff, where they otherwise wouldn't care at all, I suppose that's a net good, but the noise to signal ratio is pretty damn high, and a better filmmaker and writer wouldn't have needed to flinch from the most important thing about the North Korea situation: the real-life suffering of actual North Korean people.
So on Facebook tonight, from a handful of friends, the word was that KBS only aired 20 minutes of news during the 9pm broadcast, and then finished the hour off with marine wildlife.
Photo from a Facebook friend: turtles gettin' busy
The Korea Times reported that KBS reporters have walked off the job as a way of demanding the resignation of the CEO, who is accused of trying to influence programming to be more friendly to the president, and to appoint people friendly to the president to important positions in the organization. More here.
The Sewol Tragedy once again plays into this series of events: the public accounting for poor media coverage of the disaster and rescue started days ago, with apologies and self-reflection. One aspect of that has been, again, suppressing or massaging stories in order to make sure the President appears in a positive light.
Related, on May 1st, Reporters Without Borders released its 2014 World Press Freedom Index, which reports on the media environment of the previous year. Visit it here. Read The Press Freedom Index's methodology here. (PDF) South Korea ranked 57th in the world, seven places down from last year.
Korea's press freedom index rankings have been on a steady decline for a while. Here are the results since 2002: The first column is the year. The second column is South Korea's ranking in the world, and the third is Korea's score. A 0.00 score means a perfectly free press, and a 100 score means a total lack of press freedom. The scoring system was re-calibrated in 2013, when Reporters Without Borders started tracking incidents of censorship, and other countable items, themselves, instead of through the word of their contacts (hence the big jump from '12 to '13).
Year Rank Score
2002 39 10.50
2003 49 9.17
2004 48 11.13
2005 34 7.5
2006 31 7.75
2007 39 12.13
2008 47 9
2009 69 15.67 (low point due to the 2008 beef protests and government response)
2010 42 13.33
'11-12 44 12.67
2013 50 24.48
2014 57 25.66
The high point for Korea's press freedom was 2006, meaning that in 2005, South Korean media faced less censorship and manipulation than any other year. Since then, with a blip in 2010 (after a low point in 2009), the slide has been fairly steady, dropping between 2 and 8 places per year. These drops were not large enough in any one year to attract special mention in any of Reporters Without Borders' global summary reports, but dropping 26 places from 2006 to 2014... bothers me.
The National Security Act - read Amnesty International's report -- was written in 1948, and has a kind of a cold war "Blank Check" feel to it, with some vague wording about "anti-state activity" that can cover just about anything, in case the KCIA ever needs to trump up some charges. Read up.
Now, I get it, that as recently as the 1980s, South Korea had extremely limited press freedom, and robust and vigorous institutions don't just install themselves overnight-especially institutions with as many moving parts as a free press, and especially installed right on top of a non-free, censored and manipulated press. And being really healthy for a while doesn't mean a long-free press can't suddenly take a nosedive (even the USA, our self-proclaimed model democracy, has had some embarrassing drops). On the other hand, the fact that South Korea's not only backsliding, but steadily backsliding over an extended period, bugs me a lot, and I find it cynical and spurious that the fangless North Korean threat is still being invoked in order to block that website, delete that tweet, and hound that reporter. The antidote for speech you don't like is more speech, not censorship, and a robust democracy is confident enough in itself that it can bear the existence of a fringe movement without flipping the f-stop out.
I and a few friends have been working on a podcast lately called the Cafe Seoul Podcast, and our latest episode was inspired by Korea's slide in press freedom rankings, but the KBS walkout seems like a good time to share it.
Here is the podcast episode. In it, I interview John Power, who has worked as a reporter for a few of Korea's English language outlets. In case you aren't interested in the other stuff (awesome as it is), the interview starts at 33:40.
The interview was edited a bit for length, so here is the raw cut of the full interview... because especially when the topic is free speech, I feel like listeners deserve to hear all the questions and answers.
And here are the questions I asked John Power, and the times you can skip to, to find them:
2:00 - "Tell us about yourself"
2:30 - "Why is press freedom vital for a healthy democracy?"
3:18 - "Freedom house reports press freedom worldwide is on the decline, and other countries in Asia are dropping or ranked lowly on press freedom indexes; what's going on, and do you think the conditions in other countries affect what happens in Korea?"
6:00 - "Who are some of the players that are affecting press freedom in Korea for the better or for the worse?"
9:20 - [Bearing in mind cases like Na Gom-su-da and the blogger Minerva cases] "Can you explain for our readers what a chilling effect?"
10:30 - "In your opinion, what are steps that cold be taken to get Korea climbing instead of dropping in these press freedom indexes?"
14:50 - "In response to what some see as the corporatization of Korean (and world) media, some have pointed to social media and citizen journalism as the antidote… what are your thoughts on this?
17:35 - "Who do you trust more to handle Korea’s media responsibly: the chaebol, the government, “citizen journalists” or who?"
18:45 - Other Cafe Seoul cast members join.
20:40 - The National Security Act is still invoked because "There are North Korean spies out there" - is that a big enough threat to be concerned about, and censor, media?
24:00 - Differences between the way Korea is reported on in English, and in Korean.
26:15 - Have you ever had a story you worked on censored? Have you ever self-censored?
At long last, North Korea headlines contain neither the words "Nuclear" nor "Dennis Rodman.” The UN has released a report. Along with this video.
Powerful stuff.
You can read summaries of the UN’s new report… going so far as to compare North Korea to the Nazis. (Summary. Summary. Original sourceA call to action with no specifics [reminds me of the video below].) Some of the best-known talking heads haven’t weighed in yet -- please put links to them in the comments when they come out, because I'm very interested.
The contents of the report are grim. Even the summaries are, but if you follow North Korea sources like LINK, you knew about this. Three minutes of googling will do it. "Born and Raised in a North Korean Concentration Camp"
The following bullet points, then, are some things I’ve learned, or thought about, that seem relevant in light of the latest report. I may be wrong about any or all of them, because nobody knows dick-all about North Korea, compared to any other country in the world, but feel free to let me know how wrong I am in the comments!
1. The UN doesn't have the power, resources, or consensus to actually do something about these findings, and with Russia and China on the security council, won’t until North Korea openly attacks someone, or slips into actual chaos. An intervention would risk the UN having a failed state on its hands, and that’s messy. A failed state on someone else's hands? Messy… but buck-passing and finger-pointing are how politicians get their exercise. The “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine sounds nice, but it’s toothless right now.
2. Kim Jong-eun has seen that video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging. This report reminds him he probably faces a crimes against humanity charge if his country opens up to the international community. Big disincentive, that. With this, the chance he’ll do desperate things to hold power increases. Counterbalancing that… he’s also doubtless seen that video of Muammar Gadaffi being found by his angry former subjects, and not even surviving to face the ICJ. So...
3. Beyond that endgame, this will change nothing in North Korea. Pundits have been heralding the regime’s fall since Kim Il Sung presided, always incorrectly. Maybe the execution of Jang Song-taek really was the Kim regime's last card to play… but we’ve been guessing wrong about which card is the Kim dynasty’s last for a generation now. The analysts look like Mr. Bean in church.
4. Sunshine didn’t work. Sanctions don’t either. For everybody who thinks it’s time to finally get tough with North Korea… pull your heads out of your asses. To begin with, North Korea has alienated itself from the world so severely already that it now has nothing to lose from continuing with the histrionics. To boot, its leaders use the world’s hostility to ensure internal stability, and you know what? The “tough love” posture from abroad works great for consolidating domestic power. The Nork propaganda machine gets to keep proclaiming a state of perpetual existential threat, which continues to justify the military first policy and all manner of deprivations. To everyone arguing that unconditional aid propped up an evil regime: maybe. But there is more than one way to prop up an evil regime and unremitting hostility and alienation creates conditions which lend North Korea’s leadership more legitimacy and a stronger mandate than they would otherwise have in the eyes of its citizens. And revolution will begin and end with those citizens, and effective policy needs to be geared toward that fact, not towards the emotional satisfaction of getting payback for all those bad things they did.
5. Outside of North Korea, this report is a good thing, because of positioning: the UN won’t do anything directly, and not much will change in North Korea, but it will make it much much harder for those South Korean politicians who want to talk past North Korean human rights issues. It will put China further in the wrong when it supports North Korea rather than pushing for change there. This report tightens the screws on anybody who still wants to ignore or trivialise the human rights crisis going on, and shines a harsh spotlight back where the attention should be, even though Dennis Rodman and nuclear testing sell more papers.
What’s next?
I agree with analysts who hold that any fundamental change to the North Korean state must come from the North Korean people. Without them, it will have no legitimacy, and any intervention without the consent of the citizenry would be fought against with the intensity of three generations of Kim Il Sung-scented brainwashing. The question is not “What can the world do to help North Korea” but “How can the world empower North Koreans to demand a different kind of country for themselves.” Thinking of the issue in those terms creates a very different set of policy and aid priorities than reacting to the histrionics of the the Grand Mucky-muck On Top.
And a final thought: the one that haunts me.
I liked Paul Whitefield’s reflection (LA Times) on how hollow the words “Never again” - referencing the holocaust - ring now. With the Nazi concentration camps, almost nobody actually knew about them. Almost everybody could defend themselves with “We didn’t know.”
With North Korea, we knew. We knew and we knew, and we ignored it. And this is what haunts me about North Korea’s condition: that one day, the surviving North Koreans will confront the world, and ask, “Why didn’t you do anything?” The media used their country’s condition to sell newspapers and ad space, but ignored mass starvation and concentration camps. South Korean politicians cynically used North Koreans' lives as a political wedge issue. No apology will be enough. With Auschwitz not even gone from living memory, we have let this happen again, to our shame as a species.
I wrote a term paper on this topic last semester, focused on the Korea Japan situation and I'd like to share some of the things I learned, or concluded, from that.
The basics: from 1910 to 1945, Japan made Korea into a colony, as part of an imperial plan to become in Asia what modern European colonial powers had become in other parts of the world. It went badly for Korea. Along the way, and especially during the Sino-Japanese war and World War II, some horrific things, like torture, human medical experimentation and forcible recruitment of Korean women to be sex-slaves to Japanese soldiers, came to pass.
This series is not discussing those historical facts: those have been documented and debated elsewhere. This series IS discussing the political realities of apologies between these two nations. So if you want to dispute facts. This isn't the blog you're looking for.
During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that history.
Many subsequent apologies have basically repeated the language in this apology.
Here is a series of posts from Ask A Korean! explaining why those apologies have been rejected.
The Murayama apology was made by a progressive government with a weak minority in the Diet, and was controversial in Japanese civil society at the time: after the apology, a string of Japanese government ministers visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honors convicted war criminals along with Japan's war dead, and symbolizes Japan's reluctance to confront and particularly, disown, its colonial past. (NYT: Japanese Apology For War is Welcomed and Criticized) (Apology "Not enough"). It's the same shrine Prime Minister Abe visited in this latest news cycle.
On and off since then, other Japanese leaders have continued to visit Yasukuni shrine, publishing houses have continued to publish textbooks white-washing Japan's war aggressions, public figures have continued to say stupid things about comfort women, and Japan's presiding president considered revoking the 1995 apology, to appease his far-right nationalist supporters. At the grass-roots level, denialist netizens say whatever shit they want pretty much with impunity. So yes, it was an apology, but since there was no break from past behavior, from leadership OR the public, it hasn't come across as very sincere to Koreans.
The question of what WOULD be a "sincere" enough apology is an important one, and we need to have an answer that has broad support among Koreans - enough that asking for more could be seen as unreasonable... to most Koreans. Otherwise that complaint about moving goalposts won't go away, but incentive for another apology will (if it hasn't already). We also don't want the impression to develop that the aggrieved have more invested in being victims, than in moving on. Some argue that is already the case, and that would be a shame, because Korea and Japan have a lot to gain from a better relationship in areas like economy, diplomacy, and security.
Political Economy
The key to the clickbait title lies in the political economy of international apologies. Political economy is a simple enough idea: in the same way financiers look at incomplete information and make educated guesses about how to profit, politicians choose actions to maximize political gain. A sane politician won't make an action or comment or support a policy that will clearly cause them to lose approval points, votes, and reputation, (their political capital) compared to their rivals. Given that politicians decide to issue these kinds of apologies, let's ask, what do politicians risk, and what do they gain from apologizing to another country?
For an apology to be successful, it need to be issued by a country's leaders. It needs to be supported by the population, it needs to be accepted by the other country's leaders, and that acceptance needs to be supported by that population. Those are actually a lot of moving parts already. Things complicate further if both countries have democratic systems, more or less healthy free speech, civil societies, and political oppositions. Things complicate further still if both countries have citizens who can read the other country's language, and even more again if both countries have strong currents of nationalism.
Scenarios: [Update: this used to be a big long thing about two imaginary countries. I'm gonna take a moment to simplify it, because it's about two actual countries.]
Let's imagine three scenarios. Japan's leaders and their people, and Korea's leaders and their people are trying to negotiate an apology that will allow both countries to move forward into better relations.
Scenario A: Strong Apology
This is how you apologize to Comfort Women.
More info here and here. Photo from here.
Or... the way Koreans seem to want it to go:
Swap out Willy Brandt and the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto, and put in Prime Minister Abe at the feet of the surviving Comfort Woman: this apology is everything Koreans have ever wanted. But Japan's political climate is pretty closely balanced: any move by one side is hotly contested by the opposition party.
It's direct and contrite: it expresses responsibility as well as remorse in clear, unambiguous language. It is backed up by substantive action in various arenas: politicians are banned from going to Yasukuni Shrine until the War Crimes display is erected, at which the text has been composed by a joint team of Korean, Japanese and Chinese scholars and historians. War criminals' names are expelled from the shrine, or moved to the new "hall of ignominy." Those same historians and scholars have a free hand to suggest amendments to museum displays, history textbooks, and general school curricula pertaining to the entire colonial period and Pacific War. Japanese lawmakers contact Germany to discuss the ins and outs of Germany's ban on Holocaust denial, with an eye toward a similar law for Japan's internet. The apology and reparations to the surviving comfort women are negotiated with full input from the surviving comfort women and they are compensated out of Japanese government coffers, documented in a way that expresses clear culpability, paired with an apology they helped write.
Japan's ruling party immediately faces a domestic backlash (even Willy Brandt was criticized for kneeling), and the prime minister is crucified in the media and civil society by the usual suspects. "They are humiliating their country in the international arena!" Out come the black vans, a few Korean-owned shops in Osaka get trashed by a few drunk Japanese denialists whose nationalist rage-on is in full swing.
Korean media (of course) covers this backlash (extensively). During the next hotly contested Korean election cycle, one of the parties makes a play for those easy nationalist votes by claiming the apology wasn't enough and promising to overturn Korea's acceptance of the apology.
This, in turn, causes a backlash in Japan: "They were never going to accept any apology" which hurts Japanese politicians supporting the apology in the next election... leading to other politicians seeing an advantage to be gained by promising to walk back that apology. If they win, they walk back that stuff about changing national museums and textbooks, and defang any Holocaust denial-ish laws that were passed. Now there is a backlash in Korea too, agains politicians who accepted that apology. "They're not really sorry, and you're suckers for accepting it."
The deepest bow on google image search. Source
Japan: "We can never bow low enough."
Korea: "Your bow has no meaning anyway"
Japanese leaders who made the apology lose even more political capital, and frustration grows nationally that even a strong, good-faith attempt to fix things, failed. There is less incentive than ever before for any future apologies, and an increasing political disincentive, given how apologizing led to a backlash against the last folks who did it.
Nothing's settled and nobody's happy. Ill will between the countries has probably increased, as long as civil society in Japan has too strong a faction opposing apology.
TL:DR: The apology that would satisfy Korea's people would lead to a backlash in Japan. That backlash would lead to Koreans no longer being satisfied by the apology anyway.
Scenario B: Weak/Qualified (Non-)Apology - the Nopology
Let's say Japan makes the apology its domestic political climate, with that slim majority, can bear. It issues a cautious apology carefully worded, in order to avoid sacrificing too much face. Japanese leaders are protected from domestic criticism.
But over in Korea:
The apology is quickly derided as insincere and unsatisfying. We've seen this happen. Opportunist Korean politicians line up to criticize it and demand a "REAL" apology (and if South Korean politicians don't, North Korea will be quick to say the South is rolling over like a lapdog or somesuch). Protestors line up outside the Japanese embassy. On the other side, Japanese politicians and civilians accuse Koreans of moving the goalposts, or being implacable: "They don't really care about apologies: they just like to play victim."
Result: The apology is rejected. Ill will between the countries increases. Those attempting the apology lose a lot of political capital, and likely even decline to follow through with it. Those stoking anti-sentiment in both countries gain political capital. Nobody is happy except the rabble-rousers, whose positions are more entrenched than before.
Scenario C: Semi-Weak Apology
Same as Scenario B, except the apology is a little more strongly worded: takes more responsibility, or is backed up with the promise of more concrete action. Not as much as Scenario A, but more. Now, in Korea, there is some support for accepting it. But don't forget that Korea is a democracy with protected free speech, so opposition politicians and commentators, whose job it is to oppose things, still argue that the apology isn't enough.
Because of them, fallout is the same except: Some people deride the apology instead of everybody; opposition Korean politicians criticize the apology, instead of ALL Korean politicians (some try to take the high ground, and talk about the long view... which might work, but might get buried under emotional arguments when everyone's nationalist juices are flowing, if the opposition's demagogues are at it.)
Once the Japanese public sees the mixed reaction, their reaction is pretty much the same as in Scenario B, and the end result is more or less the same.
The results in these three scenarios are actually worse for relations between Korea and Japan than the status quo: low grade resentment with the occasional flare-up when a dumbass politician or textbook publisher gets punchy.
TL:DR
For now:
The kind of apology that would be supported by Japan's public won't wash in Korea.
The apology that Korea wants wouldn't wash in Japan.
Half-assed or qualified apologies make things worse.
A full apology shouldn't be attempted until those who would reject even that in Korea, or those who would oppose issuing one in Japan, are small enough minorities that they are politically radioactive, or at least irrelevant.
There is no point in adding another Japan apology, that Korea will also reject, to the list of apologies that have already been rejected, and politicians have strong disincentives to do so, as it generates public ill will and burns political capital for no benefit.
In the political economy of international apologies, politicians are calculating the above three scenarios, and in none of them does the cost/benefit end in the positive, because pleasing nationals of some other country (who don't vote in your election) isn't worth it unless you can please your OWN country's voters at the same time.
And that is Why Japan Shouldn't Apologize To Korea (right now)
Do I think Japan should apologize? Yes. But only one more time, for the last time, in such a way that everyone is satisfied that it will be the last time.
Part 2 coming eventually.
Some useful readings from the paper I wrote, that informed my logic on this topic:
Cooney, Kevin J., and Scarbrough, Alex. 2008. “Japan and South Korea: Can These Two Nations Work Together?” Asian Affairs: An American Review. 35.3: 173-192.
On the troubled relationship between Korea and Japan: a history of attempts to patch things up, and a clear demonstration that domestic opinion can strongly affect international policy and diplomacy.
Glaeser, Charles L., Berger, Thomas U., Mochizuki, Mike M., and Lind, Jennifer. 2009. “Roundtable Discussion of Jennifer Lind’s Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics.” Journal of East Asian Studies. 9: 337-368.
A great panel discussion in which Jennifer Lind raises the point that a badly done apology, or one that isn't seen as sincere enough, can actually worsen the situation between two countries. Charles Glaeser highlights Jennifer Lind's discussion of the lack of other apologies we'd expect to have happened (see upcoming)
Lawson, Stephanei and Tannaka, Seiko. 2011. “War memories and Japan’s ‘Normalization’ as an International Actor: A Critical Analysis.” European Journal of International Relations. 17.3: 405-428.
Contains a very good history of Japanese apologies, and why they were seen as inadequate.
Here is part 2 of this series.
Here is the table of contents.
