Closer coordination between Washington, Seoul needed

Today the Wall Street Journal published a letter I wrote concerning the U.S.-South Korea alliance and relations with North Korea.

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The Oct. 6 editorial-page commentary "Toward an America-Free Korea" by Nicholas Eberstadt, Aaron L. Friedberg and Christopher Griffin actually provides compelling reasons why South Koreans want their alliance with the U.S. to remain strong through the long process of peace-building and integration with North Korea. The authors' premise, that the alliance would end with Korean unification, is false to most South Koreans.

Whether the U.S.-South Korea alliance will persist is not really the question. Better to focus on the alliance's successful transformation and America's future relations with North Korea. Both require closer policy coordination between Washington and Seoul on North Korean denuclearization, conventional arms control and economic development.

Such coordination may be forthcoming after South Korea's December presidential election. While outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun fixated on a symbolic summit with North Korea, the opposition party's presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak (who maintains a 40% lead in the polls) was working to schedule a meeting with President Bush.

Squaring Normalization and Reconciliation

Today the Japan Times published a letter I wrote concerning nationalism and security.

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In his Jan. 18th article, Gregory Clark argues there are more important issues in Japan-China relations than Yasukuni Shrine. This is true, but the article does not address the more important issues of trade, regional integration, and building trust for security cooperation.

Instead, Mr. Clark pokes fun at Prime Minister Abe's emphasis on shared democratic values with India and Australia. The article assumes that since China has temporarily put away the Yasukuni card, Beijing will not confront Tokyo on other issues -- a poor assumption, especially when it comes to Taiwan. Finally, Mr. Clark says that Japanese leaders use North Korea "to justify a significant upgrading in Japan's military spending" when Japan's defense budget is actually shrinking by a third of a percent.

It seems Mr. Clark is less concerned with Japan-China relations than he is with Japanese nationalism. Rather than hastily labeling Japan's diplomatic and military normalization as dangerous, we should be asking how a greater international role for Tokyo can go hand in hand with better relations in Northeast Asia. The keys are historical reconciliation and greater military and political transparency. These need to be priorities not only for Tokyo, but also for Beijing.