Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

　　　　　“I’m shameful as a Korean.” “They don’t know diplomatic protocol.” “At a time when South Korea, the United States and Japan are required to work together in rejecting a nuclear-armed North Korea, the Moon Jae In government is running counter to the requirement.” South Korean conservative leaders whom I met in mid-November criticized the Moon government for using “Dokdo shrimp” for a banquet to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump and for leading a former comfort woman to hug Trump at the banquet.
　　　　　Behind the back of South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Secretariat decided to use the shrimp named after Dokdo, the South Korean name of Japan’s Takeshima Island that South Korea has illegally occupied in the Sea of Japan. The secretariat also took initiative in inviting the former comfort woman to the banquet. Leading the secretariat is Chief Presidential Secretary Lim Jong Seok, who had been a radical, revolutionary activist supporting North Korea and has never declared his conversion. I have learned that ten out of twenty-six direct subordinates in the Secretariat had been radical activists like Mr. Lim in the 1980s.
　
Agreeing to disagree
　　　　　I toured Los Angeles, Washington and New York as a member of lecturers for a cross-America symposium sponsored by the Save Korea Foundation to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late South Korean President Park Chung Hee. The foundation, comprising Korean conservatives in South Korea and the United States, has been established by former Korean Bar Association President Kim Pyung Woo who served as lawyer for Park’s daughter, then President Park Guen Hye in her impeachment trial. South Korean participants in the symposium included conservative leader Cho Gap Che and former Joong Ang Ilbo chief editor Moon Chang Keuk. Moon had once been nominated as prime minister by Park Geun Hye but declined the post after being criticized by the KBS Television network for talking about positive aspects of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in his speech.　
　　　　　In the symposium, I made a speech in Korean language on the three themes: impeachment of Park Geun Hye as seen from Japan, North Korea’s global abduction and a Korean Peninsula after Kim Jong Un (North Korean dictator). In my speech, I insisted that Japan and South Korea have no choice but to agree to disagree on territorial and historical issues since countries or nations cannot agree on such issues. But I also said the two countries can agree to spread freedom, rule of law, human rights, market economy and other universal values throughout the Korean Peninsula and beyond the peninsula to the continent of China. Cho Gap Che said he cannot agree with Nishioka only on the comfort women and Dokdo issues but has exactly the same view about North and South Korea.
　
Moon seeking North-South federation
　　　　　Instead of trying to spread universal values to North Korea, the Moon Jae In government is seeking to weaken the alliance with the U.S. and form a federation with the North led by the third hereditary dictator. Moon is attempting to collapse South Korea’s national credo of anti-communist liberal democracy. While forces trying to defend the national credo may have a bloody clash with the government, overseas liberal democracy supporters including myself strongly hope that South Korea’s national credo will be defended, I said in my speech, getting a nod from South Korean conservatives.

Tsutomu Nishioka is a member of the Planning Committee at the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals and Visiting Professor at Reitaku University.