Japan and South Korea both face a common set of deep geopolitical, economic, and demographic challenges. Their neighborhood consists of China, North Korea, Russia, and Taiwan, and their path to retain economic competitiveness in a turbulent world is more unclear than ever. Their populations are aging rapidly. Now, they share one more obstacle, perhaps the most serious yet: how to manage the relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.
Both countries depend on economic integration with the United States. Their leading sectors such as automobiles and semiconductors are taking major hits from U.S. tariffs. At the same time, they have large digital services deficits with the United States, mostly in information technology services, as they depend on U.S. tech giants for their digital infrastructure. As security allies of the United States, both countries also face uncertainty in navigating their respective alliances, with justified concern about how trade and economic negotiations may spill over into the security domain.
The positive relationship that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba fostered in their meeting on August 23 could not have come at a better time. Lee stopped by Japan on his way to Washington to meet with Trump. Although the Trump-Lee summit went well in most respects, especially given the harsh social media posts by Trump just prior to the meeting, it was the Lee-Ishiba meeting that went far better than many could have realistically hoped for, given Lee’s previous position on Japan relations.
ROK and Japan’s Domestic Politics Aligned
Domestic political alignments often matter more in ROK-Japan relations than geopolitical or economic factors. South Korea’s left-leaning progressive politics tend to take stronger stances against Japan, stressing historical issues, while its right-leaning conservative political leaders tend to favor closer ties with Japan in the interests of big business. On the Japanese side, the right-leaning and far-right spectrum of politics has traditionally been most difficult for Japan-ROK relations. An admittedly simplistic, but nonetheless useful, framing is that when South Korea’s leadership leans strongly to the left while Japan’s leadership leans strongly to the right, the relationship risks being fraught.
The progressive Lee had been a vocal critic of his conservative predecessor’s pursuit of closer ties with Japan, so many in Tokyo were bracing for another period of difficult relations with the ROK. However, in the run-up to the election, Lee softened his stance on Japan and moved to a more centrist position. But even after Lee’s party won a landslide victory in the National Assembly, concern has lingered in Japan that Lee would revert back to his earlier position and take a stronger stance against Japan.
Ishiba is centrist to center-left on the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s unusually broad political spectrum, and the LDP’s rightmost wing had not had a strong say in Ishiba’s policies. In the recent Upper House election, the LDP lost seats to a new far-right party and a relatively new conservative party. This lack of a strong far-right voice in the Ishiba administration helps ROK-Japan relations.
Lee’s and Ishiba’s current positions are ideal for constructive relationship-building, and the South Korean leader’s visit suggests this constructive trajectory remains on track. The next critical juncture in the relationship may be whether Lee stays the course and how Japan’s domestic politics shift after the election. But for now, their domestic political alignment, combined with new challenges brought on by the Trump administration, make the current moment a perfect opportunity for deeper cooperation and collaboration—particularly in technology.
Strategic Technology Cooperation and Collaboration
During the Ishiba-Lee meeting, one major area of discussion was technology cooperation, in specific areas such as AI and hydrogen. This was a constructive area of focus for the leaders to agree upon at a high level, with details yet to be formulated. The next step for concrete technology collaborations to be effective is to frame them as solutions to specific social challenges facing both countries.
For example, both countries are facing dramatically aging and rapidly shrinking populations, particularly in rural areas. Both lack sufficient workers and need to automate more jobs, so AI and robotics offer one area for technology collaboration. The crux of this collaboration is in transforming blue-collar work to white-collar work in agriculture, construction, transportation, service industries, and other areas facing labor shortages. Concrete, near-term efforts should bring together policymakers, established technology firms, and startups from both countries to build ties and foster deeper understanding of each other’s common challenges and allow them to connect with others that may have specific parts of solutions. This is how collaboration in AI deployment can look on the ground.
At the same time, there is a business and technology domain labeled “age-tech” that directly addresses the challenges that occur when large numbers of elderly people need solutions for caregiving, healthcare, mobility, and other factors of related to aging. Age-tech summits and discussions can bring together private-sector firms, healthcare and insurance stakeholders, industrial policy experts, and policymakers at various levels of government to share lessons and collaborate on solutions.
Technology collaboration between the two countries also can take place through developing ties across each other’s startup ecosystems, both of which are growing. Broader access to venture capital by entrepreneurs, a wider range of opportunities for investors, and more international labor pools across both countries can build the basis of deeper economic integration and fabric of interpersonal relationships that can last beyond a president or prime minister’s tenure. Government efforts already underway to strengthen ties, such as the K-Startup Center established in Tokyo in 2024, are welcomed by Japan as helping to internationalize its startup ecosystem. Korean and Japanese startups are even gathering in Silicon Valley in order to learn from each other in the U.S. innovation ecosystem, with the first event co-hosted by the consul generals of Japan and South Korea at the Japanese government-funded Japan Innovation Campus. These networks can build a stronger foundation of technology collaboration across the three countries at the startup ecosystem level.
The Possibility of a U.S. Role
The United States can play an active role in facilitating ROK-Japan technology collaboration if it chooses. Harnessing the Silicon Valley ecosystem at the forefront of global technological innovation could be an extremely useful way for the United States to play a far more influential role in ROK-Japan relations. However, even if the U.S. opts instead to focus on trade, Japan and South Korea’s domestic politics are at a juncture where a wide range of areas with extreme upsides could benefit both countries if specific technology collaborations are put into action. Perhaps ironically, the Trump administration’s economic shakedowns are helping to bring the Japan–South Korea relationship and their technology collaborations closer together.
