The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder Ria Chae The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 218pp. In-between the Christmas chimes and sounds of wooden mallets pounding rice for New Year festivities to usher in 2016, citizens of Japan and South Korea seemed to have been given a Christmas-New Year present by their governments—a surprise announcement that the two countries had reached an agreement with regard to the “comfort women” issue. The agreement was designed as a step toward improving a bilateral relationship that has been consistently undermined by historical and territorial disputes. Yet far from being pleased with the gift, many Japanese and Korean political leaders and intellectuals expressed their strong opposition to the deal. Now, several months after the announcement, though there are no visible signs of further souring in South Korean-Japanese relations—which in itself is progress—the two countries are still a galaxy away from developing amicable ties, to say nothing of becoming allies. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash is an attempt to resolve the longstanding puzzle of what prevents Japan and South Korea from building an alliance relationship. The approach selected—looking at the issue through the prism of differing, or “clashing,” identities—may raise some eyebrows, for no two countries, even those having a friendly or alliance relationship, can be said to have “highly compatible” identities. Take a look at France and England or Germany, for example. But on second thought, it is difficult to find another pair of countries that have such mutual animosity as South Korea and Japan, despite their being in the same camp, joined by so many links, sharing geographic and geopolitical positioning, and having so many commonalities in their worldview, including their perceptions of threats and interests. On the other hand, the intention to build a trilateral alliance by having South [End Page 232] Korea and Japan come closer to each other is an American desire, conceived by and benefitting most apparently the US, even though the book’s authors go to great lengths to pinpoint the advantages of the arrangement to South Korea, Japan, and other regional players. In this light, the second major contribution of the book is bringing the American dimension to the discussion of the issue. The result is a comprehensive study that masterfully weaves in a wide range of related topics. Chapter 1 delineates the puzzle from the positions of policy-makers and theorists of international relations. Chapters 2 and 3 reconstruct the current identities of Japan and South Korea, respectively, based on interviews with elites and data from public opinion surveys over the last two decades. Given the objective of the study, it is natural that the chapters do not examine cultural or ethnic identities, but focus on political and outward-oriented identities, such as elite and public visions of their country’s standing in the world, attitudes to neighboring countries, and perceptions of foreign policy choices. It is here that the reader can most benefit from the expertise of the two authors—both of whom are leading analysts of Japanese and Korean politics in prominent Washington think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Brad Glosserman) and the Council on Foreign Relations (Scott Snyder)—although scholars of Korea may find the discussion of Korean identity less comprehensive and historically grounded as that of Japanese identity. Chapter 4 provides an overview of existing studies on the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral coordination and puts forth the main argument, that “the threat-based and alliance-based evaluations of conditions for Japan-ROK cooperation cannot overcome the psychological and emotional gaps in perspective on Japan-ROK relations” (p. 95). The argument is supported by an analysis of the development of South Korean-Japanese relations since the early 1990s and the concurrent evolution of public opinion in the two countries. Chapter 5 starts with an overview of the development of bilateral alliances between the US and Japan and South Korea in the post-Cold War period...