Will President Moon Cancel Comfort Women Agreement with Japan?
If President Moon scraps the comfort women agreement with Japan it will be very interesting to see what the Japanese reaction will be. It seems to me the Japanese government would be furious if it was to happen considering the political capital Shinzo Abe used to get the deal completed:
South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday hinted at possibly scrapping an agreement with Tokyo over Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, insisting that most South Koreans could not accept the deal reached by the former Seoul government.
“President Moon noted the reality was that most of his people could not accept the agreement over the sexual slavery issue,” Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan said of the president’s telephone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The conversation came as Abe sought to congratulate the new South Korean leader on his election this week. Moon came into office Wednesday, only one day after winning the presidential by-election caused by the March 10 ouster of his predecessor Park Geun-hye over a massive corruption scandal.
The thorny issue of sexual slavery apparently took center stage of the conversation after the Japanese premier urged the new liberal Seoul government to honor the agreement signed by its conservative predecessor. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link.
So … if Moon scraps this agreement with Japan, does he weaken his position with President Trump when the President calls and says it’s time to discuss renegotiating the KORUS FTA?
In other words, does Moon put himself in a position where he can’t say, “But we already came to an agreement on this matter…?”
I would not be surprised if Moon keeps this deal in place for now and only cancels it when it is politically expedient for him. For example if some scandal happens during his Presidency he can divert attention by cancelling this deal. It is basically just like the ROK politicians who play the Dokdo card to divert attention during a controversy.
The Japanese have probably already paid money to Koreans. It would be even worse to break the deal now and keep the money.