It was another step of rapprochement, just one step before the official apology. Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida first visited the Seoul National Cemetery after landing in South Korea on Sunday. Korean resistance fighters who were killed during Japan's colonial rule between 1910 and 1945 are also buried there. Kishida lit incense and commemorated the dead. No Japanese head of government has visited South Korea in twelve years.

Jochen Stahnke

Political correspondent for China, Taiwan and North Korea, based in Beijing.

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Historically strained relations between Seoul and Tokyo are improving at a pace that some hardly thought possible. "It took twelve years to restore shuttle diplomacy, but it took us less than two months to visit each other," South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said as he received Kishida. "This confirms that relations between South Korea and Japan, which have started anew, are developing rapidly."

This is also due to the insistence of America, the expansion of China and the nuclear threat from North Korea. Washington wants to consolidate the Western alliance in the Indo-Pacific against China. This requires good cooperation between South Korea and Japan, which depends on whether both countries can get a grip on coming to terms with the past. It is about systematic rape and forced labor by the former Japanese occupiers.

South Korea's President Yoon made the start. In March, he announced his own fund to compensate Korean victims, without insisting on contributions from Japanese companies. In his own country, Yoon's coming to terms with the past brought massive criticism and declining poll ratings. America's President Joe Biden hailed the move as a "groundbreaking new chapter."

American submarines to call at South Korean ports

Then Yoon traveled to Japan to meet with Kishida. Both countries reactivated a long-dormant intelligence agreement, eased export restrictions and resumed security dialogue. A little later, Yoon was warmly received by Biden at the end of April. In the so-called Washington Declaration, the US expressed its readiness for "cooperative decision-making in the field of nuclear deterrence" on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, American submarines equipped with nuclear weapons are now to call at South Korean ports on a regular basis. Yoon, on the other hand, did not repeat his demand for his own nuclear weapons, which he had made at the beginning of the year, in Washington.

On Sunday in Seoul, Yoon said in the presence of Kishida that he did not rule out Japan's participation in the Washington Declaration. Kishida said that "a series of dialogues" had "started dynamically." Kishida has invited Yoon as one of eight guests to the upcoming G-7 summit in Japan.

However, the South Koreans would like to see even more dynamism in coming to terms with colonial crimes. After his meeting with Yoon, Kishida said, "Personally, my heart hurts when I think of the many people who had to endure terrible suffering and grief under the difficult circumstances of that time."