Jeff Kingston

Inserted 6 months ago

“Yoon is coming to seal the recently concluded deal on wartime forced labour with Kishida, an accord driven by security concerns and Washington's desire to have its allies collaborate on current threats rather than dwelling on shared history. But in both countries there is little support for the deal so it is unlikely to paper over differences for long, thus increasing chances yet again of disappointing and sowing seeds of mutual recriminations. Like the 2015 comfort women deal, the forced labour accord is not getting traction because it is trying to diplomatically sidestep the lingering trauma of serious human rights abuses and fails to offer a grand gesture of contrition or reconciliation.”

Aljazeera

Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan