On Friday, January 27th, the 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (21JPSI*) co-sponsored a public lecture by Prof. Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha Womans University (South Korea) as part of its in-person “Japan Politics & Society” multidisciplinary public speaker series. Prof. Easley is an Associate Professor of International Studies whose research interests include contested national identities and changing levels of trust in the bilateral security relationships of Northeast Asia.
In addition to various meals and exchanges with IU faculty, Prof. Easley’s campus engagement activities featured a public seminar entitled “Stabilizing Japan-Korea Relations.” Roughly two-dozen IU faculty, staff, and students gathered on a Friday morning to hear Prof. Easley discuss the various methods Japan and South Korea have employed over the past several years to mitigate turbulence in bilateral ties. His public talk was jointly hosted by the Hamilton Lugar School’s East Asia & the World Speaker Series & Institute for Korean Studies, and co-sponsored by 21JPSI and the East Asian Studies Center.
Prof. Easley began his remarks by pointing out that Japan and Korea share a great deal in common, including similar economic, demographic, and security challenges, which suggests manifold opportunities for cooperation. Despite the potential strategic benefits of alignment, however, contemporary bilateral relations have often been strained due to different perspectives on sensitive historical issues that trace back to the early 20th century colonial period. In particular, issues related to “comfort women” and wartime labor disputes remain unresolved points of contention that negatively impact public opinion in both nations.
While commentators frequently argue that Japan-Korea relations reached a nadir under the Abe and Moon administrations, Prof. Easley argued that this overwhelmingly negative public narrative fails to recognize the important efforts made by both sides to stabilize the relationship—for example, mutual restraint in the face of nationalist flare-ups, carefully calibrated policies toward Beijing, and trilateral cooperation with the United States. He also argued that Japan-Korea ties are not as dependent on individual leaders as if often assumed, and explained how various lower-level mechanisms have ameliorated frictions.
After offering several policy recommendations, Prof. Easley fielded audience questions covering a wide array of topics, including the impact of inter-Korean relations on Japan-Korea ties.
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*The 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (21JPSI) was launched at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies in 2018. Under the leadership of Founding Director and HLS faculty member Adam Liff, 21JPSI aims to invigorate and expand research, teaching, and programming on contemporary Japanese politics, society, and international (esp. U.S.-Japan) relations, and to educate, raise awareness, and debate policy responses to the various political, social, and foreign policy challenges that Japan faces in this extremely dynamic era of 21st-century change. Seeded by a generous $900,000 grant from the Japan Foundation, in its first five years 21JPSI has enabled a new tenure-track faculty line in contemporary Japanese politics and society; facilitated the creation of four new courses on contemporary Japan; launched a new multidisciplinary speaker series on Japanese Politics and Society, national conferences and webinars on U.S.-Japan relations, and academic manuscript workshops; and funded graduate fellowships and faculty travel grants to support field research in Japan. For more information, please see https://jpsi.indiana.edu/ or write to jpsi@iu.edu.