Dynamics of International Reconciliation in the Postwar Era

International Reconciliation in the Postwar Era, 1945-2005:

A Comparative Study of Japan-ROK and Franco-German Relations[*]

Yangmo Ku

Under what conditions do sets of two former adversary states with deeply rooted historical animosity try to reconcile with each other? When they seek for bilateral reconciliation, why do they show significantly different outcomes in the degree of reconciliation? France and Germany were historical antagonists that fought three catastrophic wars – the France-Prussia war, and World Wars I and II – during the period of 1870-1945. In the postwar era, however, their antagonism and hostility dramatically evolved into the establishment of mutual partnership and cooperation. Unlike the Franco-German case, Japan-ROK relations still remain frigid due to mistrust and enmity, although sixty-three years have passed since Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. This article argues that in both cases, the motives for reconciliation were mainly derived from realpolitik concerns such as security and economy. Structural conditions also affected the initiation of international reconciliation. Nonetheless, it was the dynamics of political leaders and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that played central roles in differentiating the reconciliation processes and outcomes in the two dyadic relationships.

Key words: International reconciliation, Japan-ROK relations, Franco-German relations

Introduction

France and Germany were historical antagonists that fought three catastrophic wars—the France-Prussia war and two World Wars—during the period of 1870-1945. Particularly, France’s sudden defeat during World War II by the Nazi invasion in June of 1940 led to the serious humiliation of France and the persistence of harsh Nazi rule for nearly four years.[1] In the postwar era, however, the antagonism and hostility between France and Germany dramatically evolved into the establishment of mutual partnership and cooperation. Notably important are the formation of a security alliance, the engagement in economic and political integration of the European community, the joint writing of a history textbook, and the improvement of mutual perception among two nations. The Franco-German reconciliation has thus played a key role in promoting peace and prosperity throughout Western Europe.[2]

On the other hand, the Japan-ROK relationship progressed in a different direction during the postwar era. The origin of the historical antipathy between Japan and Korea dates back to 1592 when Japan invaded Korea. Yet the most significant root of historical enmity stems from Japan’s colonial rule over Korea for thirty-six years from 1910 to 1945. During this period, Koreans suffered under Japan’s relentless political repression, economic exploitation, attacks against Korean culture, and violations on the human rights of Koreans.[3] Unlike the Franco-German case, Japan and South Korea followed a fluctuating path ranging from chronic antagonism to limited cooperation during the postwar era. Although sixty-three years have passed since Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, it still appears as if Japan-ROK relations remain frigid due to distrust and hostility.

This article argues that in both cases, the motives for reconciliation were mainly derived from realpolitik concerns such as security and economy. Structural conditions also affected the initiation of international reconciliation. However, it was the dynamics of political leaders and NGOs that played pivotal roles in differentiating the reconciliation processes and outcomes in the two dyadic relationships. The Franco-German case showed not only the strong joint political leadership for reconciliation, but also the vibrant activities of reconciliation-promoting NGOs during the early postwar period. Since then, France and Germany have largely maintained and nurtured their reconciled relationship on both intergovernmental and popular levels, despite some conflicts of interests. In the Japan-ROK case, on the other hand, there was no joint political leadership for reconciliation and activities of reconciliation-promoting NGOs in the early postwar era. In the later periods, the negative dynamics of political leaders and NGOs in both countries often disrupted the upgraded relationships affected by their positive dynamics.

Concept of International Reconciliation

Although there are many definitions in the previous literature of international relations, the concept of reconciliation is originally derived from biblical texts, meaning “the restoration of right relationship,” which can be termed as a state of shalom.[4] Shalom connotes not only the absence of violence and the disappearance of hostility, revenge, and anger motivated by hatred, but also the completion of justice and mutual love. David Crocker juxtaposes reconciliation on the spectrum ranging from “thin”—e.g., former enemy parties continuing to coexist without taking active revenge – to “thick,” which entails “forgiveness, mercy, a shared comprehensive vision, mutual healing, or harmony.”[5]

Modifying these individual or societal levels of reconciliation, Yinan He provides a systematic conceptual framework of international reconciliation embodied by two major components—stable peace and an amicable atmosphere.[6] Stable peace, which largely pertains to the intergovernmental relationship, refers to “a condition in which even the possibility of armed conflict has been virtually eliminated,” not merely the absence of war. An amicable atmosphere, which covers the popular relationship, means that people of two former enemy states share mutual trust and/or a sense of affinity. Based on He’s conceptual framework, this article also looks into both government-to-government and people-to-people relationships in order to understand the degree of reconciliation between the former enemy states.

Existing Explanations

There are some works in international relations that directly deal with reconciliation between former adversary states.[7] Among them, Yinan He’s dissertation seems to be one of the most theoretical and systematic analyses. She seeks to explain the success and failure of deep reconciliation by creating the theory of history mythmaking, which posits that whether historical interpretations are convergent or divergent significantly affects the degree of international reconciliation.[8] This theory offers some explanatory reasoning why Japan and the ROK failed to enter a stage of successful reconciliation, as their historical interpretations were always divergent. However, it cannot explain the changes in the degree of reconciliation between Japan and South Korea, particularly regarding why political leaders in the two countries initiated reconciliation efforts, given unchanged historiographical divergence.

In the pre-existing literature, a variety of variables—e.g., historical perception, U.S. policies, political leaders, NGOs, and international institutions, etc.—were used to explain postwar Japan-ROK and Franco-German relations respectively. For the Japan-ROK case, however, most of the previous literature falls into the category of diplomatic histories, rather than analytical inquires.[9] Although it offers detailed information of key events, this literature does not pay great attention to offering theoretical and systematic explanations of the relationship. Furthermore, the literature primarily focuses on a historical perception gap for explaining the unstable baseline of or the continuity in Japan-ROK relations. The historical perception approach may be useful for analyzing instances of conflict between the two countries; however, its static nature has trouble accounting for the variations—a series of ups-and-downs, particularly the cases of “ups”—in their relations.

Victor Cha’s quasi-alliance model (as a variant of realism) is an exception that goes beyond descriptive historical narratives in the literature of the Japan-ROK relationship. The model emphasizes the U.S. policies as a key causal determinant of changes in Japan-ROK bilateral behavior.[10] The U.S. disengagement from Northeast Asia generates Japan-ROK cooperation due to their multilateral symmetric abandonment fears regarding the U.S. On the other hand, U.S. engagement in the region leads to Japan-ROK friction because of their bilateral asymmetric abandonment/entrapment fears. Despite its theoretical parsimony, his analysis overlooks the intended impact of states’ policy coordination on their bilateral relations. In terms of empirical evidence, it also fails to explain an important event, the signing of the 1965 Basic Relations Treaty between Japan and South Korea, under active U.S. engagement in the region at the time.

In explaining postwar Franco-German relations, the previous literature may be roughly classified into the following four categories: 1) historical narratives[11]; 2) institutional approaches[12]; 3) political leaders-oriented analyses[13]; and 4) approaches focusing on NGOs.[14] One distinct shortcoming of the overall literature is to assume the establishment of Franco-German reconciliation without providing systematic information. And, historical narratives provide plenty of detailed information over key events; yet they often fail to analyze the relationship in a theoretical or systematic way. The NGOs-oriented approaches primarily focus on reconciliation-promoting NGOs, thereby overlooking the impact of nationalistic NGOs that work against the reconciliatory NGOs. Additionally, accounts emphasizing the nature of political leaders are a popular approach in analyzing Franco-German relations, yet they are at best descriptive and insufficient explanations.

It appears, moreover, that too much attention was paid to the role of international institutions in explaining the Franco-German cooperation (or reconciliation). Yet, the rationalist institutional approach alone is not sufficient enough to account for the degrees of reconciliation between the two countries during the postwar era. For instance, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)—the harbinger of Franco-German reconciliation—was established before the existence of an institutional framework. Also, the European Economic Community (EEC) was created regardless of the existing ECSC institutional framework.[15] Additionally, there was a failure in military cooperation in the European Defense Community (EDC), the very model of a European security institution.

Alternative Approach: Political Leadership-NGOs Hypothesis

This article seeks to complement the weaknesses in the pre-existing literature by analyzing simultaneously the roles of domestic agents—i.e., political leaders and NGOs— in the reconciliation processes. Since political leaders actually govern a country on a daily basis by their policy decisions, it may be implausible to exclude their roles in explaining the changes of reconciliation degree.[16] Yet, the initiatives taken by political leaders would not last long without NGOs’ support for their reconciliation efforts. By the same token, although NGOs can serve as catalysts to promote international reconciliation, their roles by themselves would be insufficient to have a significant impact on degrees of reconciliation if there were no political leaders’ decisive actions.[17] Therefore, neither political leaders--nor NGOs--oriented approaches by themselves are adequate to explain the changing degree of Japan-ROK and Franco-German reconciliation in a systematic way.

Given this logic, the article presents a hypothesis: when there is a strong joint leadership for reconciliation plus greater strength of reconciliation-promoting relative to nationalistic NGOs, there will be the greatest progress toward reconciliation between former adversary states. Below is a 2x2 matrix that logically shows four possibilities in the degree of international reconciliation.

Joint Leadership
NGOs’ Activities /
Strong /
Weak
Pro-R > Nationalistic* /
Reconciliation / Latent Reconciliation
Pro-R < Nationalistic /
Partial Reconciliation / Non-Reconciliation

* denotes that pro-reconciliation NGOs are more vibrant than nationalistic NGOs

The first is the combination of a strong joint leadership and greater strength of reconciliation-promoting NGOs than nationalistic ones. In this case, both intergovernmental and popular reconciliation are highly likely. Second, when the two nations have a strong joint leadership but nationalistic NGOs’ activities are more vibrant than pro-reconciliation NGOs’, intergovernmental reconciliation is likely to take place. Yet, active nationalistic NGOs would often prevent the progress toward popular reconciliation. Third, when the two nations have a weak joint leadership but pro-reconciliation NGOs are more active than nationalistic NGOs, they are not likely to reconcile with each other at the intergovernmental level. However, once political leaders are determined to seek for bilateral reconciliation, the possibility of reconciliation will increase significantly in both intergovernmental and popular dimensions. Lastly, when the two nations have a weak joint leadership and nationalistic NGOs are more dynamic than reconciliation-promoting ones, they would not escape from non-reconciliation. In the next section, the validity of this approach will be tested against detailed historical facts in the processes and outcomes of postwar Japan-ROK and Franco-German reconciliation.

Diverging Pathways of Franco-German and Japan-ROK Reconciliation

Postwar Franco-German Reconciliation

Structural Conditions: To analyze different processes and outcomes of postwar Franco-German and Japan-ROK reconciliation, it is first necessary to examine structural conditions for reconciliation in the early postwar period. For the Franco-German case, the two neighbors were under relatively favorable conditions under which they could initiate bilateral reconciliation in the early 1950s. First, the two nations came to have a basic desire for peace, as they were exceedingly tired of long and devastating wars in Europe. Second, they faced overwhelming common threats from the Soviet Union, which steered them to fostering incentives for reconciliation. Third, the de-Nazification of Germany—a precondition necessary for the congruent operation of NATO—enabled France and Germany to view their reconciliation as a means of promoting their own national interests.[18] France thus sought to maintain its international status through the development of Europe built upon Franco-German reconciliation. By the same token, Germany committed to the formation of the Franco-German axis in European integration in order to retain the trust of the international community after the atrocities of the Nazi era.[19]

Despite the importance of the conditional factors, however, it should be too deterministic to regard them as the only reason for the diverging results in the degree of reconciliation between the two dyadic cases. In this regard, introduced is an alternative approach that analyzes the impact of the major domestic agents—i.e., political leaders and NGOs—on the initiation and sustenance of international reconciliation. For analytical and practical purposes, this article first focuses on the early postwar period of the 1950s to the mid 1960s during which France and Germany entered the stage of a successful reconciliation. Also attached is a brief explanation of the dynamics of Franco-German reconciliation during subsequent time periods.

Early Period (1950s-mid 1960s): During the late 1940s, intergovernmental and popular relationships between the two neighbors were largely filled with antagonism and suspicion. Since Germany was under the control of the Allied powers after World War II until 1949, France had important leverage to manage its relations with Germany during that period. In the hope of partitioning Germany, then controlling its economy and precluding its rearmament,[20] France pursued a policy to place at least parts of Germany resolutely under French control, thus laying claims to Germany’s industrial centers, particularly the coal-rich region of the Saar.[21] This French policy was a major obstacle in the early Franco-German reconciliation. There is no denying that popular feelings harbored by both nations were then unfavorable and antagonistic due to memories of traumatic wars.[22] During this period, nonetheless, many pro-reconciliation NGOs began to take actions for initiating bilateral reconciliation between France and Germany.[23]