In this way, permanent treaties are a bit like constitutional provisions that declare themselves unamendable. They are rare and solemn. But they aren’t truly permanent — because in practice, they can be breached or broken.
That’s close to what is happening with the Japan-South Korea deal. Its text does indeed say it is final. But technically it wasn’t a treaty, just an agreement. So South Korea isn’t exactly breaching. It’s revisiting — in a way that clearly violates the spirit of the accord.
You can imagine Japan’s frustration. Abe, who was prime minister when the deal was struck, specifically expressed “his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.”
In Asian cultures, including Japan and South Korea, apologies still mean something in a way they don’t always in the United States. Although it was morally imperative for Abe to apologize, he necessarily paid a domestic political price for doing so.
What Abe got in exchange for his apology (plus a ¥1 billion payment) was supposed to be closure. The South Koreans were expressly promising not to embarrass Abe or another Japanese prime minister.
The South Korean guarantee of future silence may have been morally doubtful. It isn’t at all clear that a nation should agree to forgo future invocation of a terrible wrong done to its citizens — no matter the political gain.
Nevertheless, a promise is a promise. And no one doubted at the time that South Korea was promising not to do exactly what it is now doing: raising the issue again in order to embarrass Abe and make domestic political hay out of nationalist resistance to Japan.
By deviating from its guarantee, the left-of-center South Korean government is signaling that it can’t and won’t see itself as fully bound by its right-of-center predecessor. In that sense, South Korea’s government is taking a page right out of the Trump playbook.
And there’s not much Japan can do about it. Abe is refusing to take further action. South Korea is insisting that it isn’t really breaking the deal because it isn’t seeking renegotiation. That’s disingenuous, of course. Asking for a new apology is precisely an attempt to reopen what was described as irreversible.
Despite these postures on both sides, there’s no simple recourse when a country breaks a deal. Japan wouldn’t and can’t go to war or impose sanctions over this. All it can do is fume — and be careful not to rely too much on future deals with South Korea.
最終的不可逆、と言ったって、破られることがあるのが国際条約。トランプだって、約束は破る。
韓国のやりかたは不誠実であるが、日本としては、地団駄を踏むしか、ないんだ、将来韓国との交渉で気をつけるしかないんだ、と。
ーーー自国が犠牲にした慰安婦がいてその問題に直面しないのに、他国に謝罪と補償ばかり求める韓国と合意する馬鹿はどこにいるか？
いくらアメリカに言われたからってさあ。
安倍ポチちゃまの、中途半端なやり方の阿呆ぶりは、日本の国益のためになっていない。
それで、訪韓して、また、約束取り付けに行くって？ーーーはあああ？
