文在寅政権による「正統性」の追求と日韓関係

抄録

How should today’s Japan-ROK relations be interpreted which is said the worst in their history? This paper discusses the logic of Moon Jae-in administration from the perspectives of its “justification” and “orthodoxy/legitimacy.”

Under the constraints of the nation’s division and the Cold War, ROK successfully maintained the “justification” of politics as a result of its democratization that took place immediately after the economic development. However, this “justification” was maintained with the lack of political “orthodoxy/legitimacy,” the dilemma of which was inevitably brought to the surface after the end of the Cold War and the democratization.

It was brought to the surface with the movement of going back their history in a way of trying to secure the “orthodoxy/legitimacy” of their politics by liquidating remnants of “pro-Japanese,” the collaborators with the Japanese colonial government. It was Moon Jae-in administration that played the central role of such movement, the administration that was born as a result of the “Candle Revolution,” which led president Park Geun-hye to her impeachment and dismiss.

President Moon Jae-in took it as his mission to establish the “orthodoxy/legitimacy” and to bring ROK back to the state of what the nation needs to be like, by eradicating deeply-rooted evils and wiping out “the pro-Japanese conservatives with vested interests.”

After the liberation, those “pro-Japanese” collaborators were supposed to be condemned, but they were instead protected under the Cold War and turned into a power of pro-Japanese conservatives with vested interests, as the mainstream of the politics and society, by colluding with the authoritarian governments for the sake of anti-communism and economic development. The true liberation and decolonization process, according to the logic, become complete only when successfully having eradicated those pro-Japanese and replaced the mainstream in order to secure the “orthodoxy/legitimacy,” which has been long absent and undiscussed.

Such movement grew into the denial of “ROK lead by conservatives,” taking place with the eradication of the deeply-rooted evils. It was not necessarily targeted at Japan but inevitably involved the issues of comfort women and forced labor as diplomatic problems, which was crucial for Moon Jae-in administration because it stands on the denial of Park Geun-hye. For Moon Jae-in, Japan-ROK normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965 lacked both “justification” and “orthodoxy/legitimacy,” which was nothing but the deeply-rooted evil.

If the eradication of pro-Japanese conservatives is expanded to the denial of ROK by conservatives, and furthermore, if Japan-ROK normalization of diplomatic relations is treated as deeply-rooted evils, it could lead to a political situation that will deny the Japan-ROK relations over the past half century and will call for a drastic reconstruction of the relations from the very beginning.