South Korean diplomacy is under heavy fire for being “adrift” and lacking bearings. Some lawmakers are even calling for the resignation of its chief representative, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se.

But with the Ministry continuing to maintain that nothing is amiss, a shift in policy continues to look unlikely.

Its defense of its current diplomatic strategy continues even a US visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week that seems to bear out fears about a new honeymoon between Washington and Tokyo leaving Seoul out in the cold. Speaking before the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on May 4, Yun said the visit was “part of the US’s summit diplomacy efforts in line with its Asia-Pacific rebalancing policy,” adding that “other major East Asia leaders, including the South Korean President and the Presidents of China and Indonesia are also scheduled to visit the US this year.”

Yun’s argument appeared to be that there was no need to read any special significance into Abe’s visit, and that it shouldn’t be seen as cause for alarm in Seoul’s diplomacy.

Other remarks by Yun seemed aimed at playing down the new coziness between Washington and Tokyo. In particular, he targeted arguments that the US-Japan alliance is undergoing a “qualitative change” after the revision of the two countries’ defense cooperation guidelines.

“There is a still a gap with the South Korea-US alliance in terms of the alliance’s completeness,” he said.

“While we [South Korea] share a solid combined command system and operational plan in terms of our alliance’s functioning, Japan maintains a separate command system from the US and is working on strengthening a mechanism for mutual cooperation,” he explained.

The claim from Yun is that the South Korea-US alliance, where the US holds wartime operational control (OPCON), is more “solid” than the US-Japan alliance. The remarks had some accusing him of stretching the truth about the OPCON transfer delay - which many have called a major factor working against South Korean sovereignty in diplomacy and security - to argue the relative “superiority” of the South Korea-US alliance to the US-Japan one.

Yun also dug in his heels in response to claims that the current dilemma in Seoul’s relations with Tokyo was brought on by too much emphasis on resolving historical issues as a precondition for summits or other diplomacy.

“[Some people] are looking about South Korea’s diplomacy as if it were the cause of the situation deteriorating like this, and we need to make it clear that it stems from Japan’s historical revisionism,” he said. His argument points to Tokyo as solely responsible, without any acknowledgement that President Park Geun-hye’s intensive push on the historical issue for domestic political reasons has turned into an obstacle to South Korean diplomacy.

The corner Seoul now finds itself in may have less to do with diplomatic authorities’ strategic responses to South Korea’s situation than with the President’s focus on summit visits.

“We botched the Bandung Summit opportunity by having the Deputy Prime Minister for Education going to a venue attended by heads of state and foreign ministers from all around the world where we could have had a number of bilateral meetings,” said New Politics Alliance for Democracy lawmaker Lee Hae-chan on May 4.

“At the very least, we should have had the Prime Minister or the Minister of Foreign Affairs going,” Lee added. “This is why we’re hearing about a ‘lack of strategy.’”

Even members of the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) are calling on Yun to step down and pave the way for a shift in Seoul’s diplomatic strategy.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hasn’t taken the initiative in addressing any of the issues - not Dokdo, not the comfort women, not the visits to Yasukuni Shrine [by Japanese lawmakers],” said Saenuri lawmaker Lee Jae-oh. “There hasn’t been any progress anywhere.”

“We’ve arrived at a situation where Yun needs to fix his own mess by saying, ‘I’ll take responsibility for this and clear out so that the next minister can solve things,’ so that we can completely turn the tide in our relations with Japan,” Lee said.

Choung Byoung-gug, another Saenuri lawmaker, complained, “He’s saying that the diplomacy has been bungled, but that he’s doing a great job.”

“There hasn’t been anything to show for his efforts. At this point, Mr. Yun’s abilities are not enough to fix things,” Choung said.

Yun continued to maintain that Seoul’s current approach is problem-free.

“We’ve reflecting most of our position in our proactive negotiations with the US and Japan,” he explained.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working in many ways in our efforts to set in motion a positive feedback loop by making progress in resolving the comfort women issue,” he added.

By Kim Oi-hyun, staff reporter

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