Relationship dossier
Japan
South Korea
Relationship assessment
Practical security and economic cooperation persists alongside unresolved historical and territorial disputes.
Japan toward South Korea
+10Japan has engaged South Korea in renewed summit diplomacy and security coordination, including trilateral cooperation with the United States. In 2019, Japan tightened export controls affecting South Korea, but the two governments took steps in 2023 to resolve related trade restrictions. Disputes over wartime history and the Dokdo/Takeshima islands remain significant.
South Korea toward Japan
+10South Korea has pursued summit diplomacy and security coordination with Japan, including trilateral cooperation with the United States. In 2023, its government withdrew a World Trade Organization complaint related to Japanese export controls and restored a bilateral military intelligence-sharing arrangement. Disputes over wartime history and the Dokdo/Takeshima islands remain significant.
Overall relationship
+15The relationship combines recurring government-level cooperation on security and economic issues with unresolved disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule and territorial claims. Summit diplomacy and trilateral coordination have enabled practical engagement, while historical and island disputes, along with trade frictions, continue to constrain the relationship.
How to read these scores
Scores are rough judgments, not objective measurements or current verification. Directional scores describe government policy and conduct, not public opinion. The overall score is an independent estimate, never an average.
- −100
- Extreme sustained hostility
- −50
- Substantially adversarial
- 0
- Mixed or neutral, supported by knowledge
- +50
- Substantially cooperative
- +100
- Exceptionally close sustained partnership
“Not assessed” means there is no recorded score. Pair existence makes no claim about diplomatic recognition or established relations.
Relationship context
Overview
Japan and South Korea have pursued practical cooperation on security and economic issues, including renewed summit diplomacy and coordination with the United States. Their relationship has also faced recurring disputes over Japan’s colonial-era rule, wartime labor and comfort women, the Dokdo/Takeshima islands, and trade measures. Cooperation has advanced at times without resolving these persistent sources of friction.
Areas of tension
- Disputes over compensation for Korean wartime labor under Japanese rule.
- Disagreement over Japan’s handling of wartime comfort women.
- Competing sovereignty claims over Dokdo/Takeshima.
- Trade and export-control restrictions introduced in 2019.
Key developments
The governments held a summit in Tokyo and agreed to pursue renewed cooperation, alongside steps to address trade restrictions.
Japan, South Korea, and the United States held a leaders’ meeting at Camp David and announced expanded trilateral cooperation.
Major uncertainties
- The durability of recent security and economic cooperation amid domestic political changes is unclear.
- The implementation and lasting political acceptance of measures addressing wartime labor claims remain uncertain.