Mike Mochizuki:
Well, I think, the major credit has to go to President Yoon.
Japan and South Korea had been locked in tensions regarding the wartime forced labor issue. Japan insisted that the forced labor issue had been resolved in the 1965 normalization process. In the end, President Yoon made the bold decision to basically make a dramatic concession to Japan, and have the South Koreans pay for the compensation for victims of forced labor.
Now, unfortunately, this has not been a popular decision in South Korea. Sixty percent of the South Korean public oppose the decision by President Yoon. So I think what President Yoon has been trying to do is to move very rapidly to improve security relations with Japan, as well as the United States, to lock in these gains, so that they will survive even after his presidential term ends in 2027.
And President Biden has seized this opportunity, this historic opportunity, to move the ball forward by inviting both Prime Minister Kishida and President Yoon to Camp David.
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