Yoon Suk Yeol will be treated to his favourite dish – omelette rice – when he becomes the first South Korean president to visit Japan in more than a decade on Thursday, as hopes rise for an end to years of animosity between the north-east Asian neighbours.
Given that the menu for official dinners has been a diplomatic flashpoint between the two countries, efforts by Yoon’s hosts to accommodate his palate are evidence of the recent thaw in relations, as regional tensions rise over North Korean missiles and Chinese military activity.
Yoon and Kishida are expected to use the first summit between Japanese and South Korean leaders since 2011 to address thorny bilateral issues, including Japan’s use of Korean forced labour before and during the second world war.
The countries have also been locked in a dispute over the so-called “comfort women” – tens of thousands of mainly Korean women and girls who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula. The countries also have competing claims to the Takeshima-Dokdo islands, which are administered by South Korea.
After years of wrangling over the countries’ bitter wartime legacy, officials in Tokyo are playing up Yoon’s affection for Japan, and apparently rewarding him with a dinner of omurice – fried rice encased in an omelette – at Rengatei, a 128-year-old restaurant in the capital’s upmarket Ginza neighbourhood.
The request for the dish came from Yoon himself, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun. Rengatei, which opened in 1895, was apparently chosen to host Yoon and Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, after the South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo said Yoon had spoken fondly of a “certain restaurant” during a conversation with a Japanese official before he became president in 2022.
In an interview with the Yomiuri on the eve of his visit, Yoon, whose father once taught at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, said his earliest memories of Japan were of clean streets and honest people.
“I expect that normalising bilateral relations will not only serve the interests of both countries, but also will send a very positive sign to the international community,” he told the newspaper.
When they are not bonding over dinner, the two leaders will try to build on a recent improvement in relations, as they attempt to address North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes and reset trade and security cooperation.
The challenge posed by Kim Jong-un’s regime was underlined on Thursday morning when it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that landed in the sea off the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido. It was the North’s first ICBM launch in a month, and its third weapons test this week.
“Peace and stability in the region are important for the region, and we must further strengthen cooperation among allies and like-minded countries,” Kishida said, referring to the missile launch.
The US welcomed the two-day summit, which comes after sustained pressure from Washington on Tokyo and Seoul to mend ties and work together to address regional security concerns.
The meeting will be a “tangible manifestation” of the efforts made by the US allies to advance their relationship, state department spokesperson Ned Price said, adding that “the three of us have an especially important trilateral relationship”.
Bilateral ties sank to their lowest point in decades in 2018 after South Korea’s supreme court ordered two Japanese companies, Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to compensate some of their former Korean employees for forcing them to work during the war.
An estimated 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during colonial rule, according to South Korean data.
Japan has insisted that all compensation claims were settled “completely and finally” by a 1965 bilateral treaty that included $800m in economic aid and loans from Tokyo.
Hopes for a resolution to the dispute rose last week when the South Korean government announced it would set up a foundation to compensate former forced labourers without Japan’s involvement. In return, the Japanese government reaffirmed previous statement of remorse over its colonial rule and said it would lift export controls, imposed in 2019, on materials needed by South Korea’s semiconductor industry.
Kishida welcomed the compensation plan and spoke of “bolstering relations” during Yoon’s visit. But the measure has angered some of the victims, who say it falls short of their demand for a full apology and direct compensation from the Japanese companies involved.
Recent polls found that nearly 60% of South Koreans opposed the compensation scheme, while 57% of Japanese supported it.
“Japan has expressed deep remorse and heartfelt apology in regard to its past colonial rule through the position of its previous governments,” Yoon said.
The leaders, who last met in November on the sidelines of an Asean summit in Cambodia, will also discuss Chinese military activity and disruption to the supply chain. Japan said the “strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest Japan has ever faced” in a defence strategy paper released in December.
“There is an increasing need for South Korea and Japan to cooperate in this time,” Yoon said.
