By Choi Sung-jin



During his visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama stopped short of stepping toward the monument dedicated to about 30,000 Korean victims of the American bombing, a few hundred meters away from the central facility.



In paying respects to all of the victims, President Obama included "thousands of Koreans," along with over 100,000 Japanese and a dozen Americans held prisoner during the atomic bombing of the city 71 years ago. A foreign ministry spokesman in Seoul said Obama's mention of the Koreans was significant.



Some critics, while acknowledging the event's bilateral nature between the U.S. and Japan, pointed out the Korean government's poor diplomatic responses, though.



Until about a month ago, the Korean diplomats seemed to have all but given up on Obama paying a visit to the monument for Korean victims. As public opinion called for Seoul to make efforts toward that direction, however, officials belatedly made demands to the U.S. government in "such a strong tone as to astonish experts at the Washington think tanks," diplomatic sources said.



U.S. officials said they attempted to minimize President Obama's time and movements within the facility to avoid unwanted encounters with Japanese protesters who demanded an apology, as well as subdue the displeasure of conservatives in the U.S. with the visit itself. Obama stayed at the peace memorial for about 50 minutes. His visit was mainly aimed at emphasizing that the U.S. has accomplished an alliance of rapprochement with a former enemy.



"There was little space for Korea to get in, as neither the host nor the guest really wanted that," a diplomatic watcher said. "Yet Seoul could, and should, have pushed harder, because out of the 80,000 Koreans in the Japanese city in 1945, about 50,000 were bombed and 30,000 died, around 10 percent of the total number of victims."



Attracting the attention of diplomatic observers in this regard was President Park Geun-hye's visit to Africa during Obama's visit. With President Park half the globe away, the Japanese and U.S. leaders might have felt it less of a burden to reject Seoul's diplomatic request, another observer noted.



According to some in the Japanese media, the Tokyo government had considered inviting the Korean president to the G7 meeting to further stress enhanced ties between Japan and Korea particularly since the two governments agreed on ways to settle the sex slavery issue several months ago.



A Cheong Wa Dae spokesman accompanying Park's African visit said they have not received any "official" invitation from Tokyo, adding that the president's visit to Africa had been planned long before Obama's Hiroshima visit was decided.



Critics, however, pointed to President Park's summit diplomacy being seemingly irrelevant with pressing global events. During the Asia-African conference in April 2015 where leaders of all major countries met and discussed issues concerning the two continents, President Park visited four South American countries.



For Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Obama's visit to Hiroshima was a diplomatic victory whereby he could emphasize Japan's victimhood and thus hide or reduce his country's atrocious role as the aggressor. Even Obama's omission of a formal apology seemed to help Abe, as it will make it easier for the nationalistic Japanese leader to forego any apology to the former Asian victims of Japan's invasion, the observers said.



In contrast to Seoul's lukewarm response, the Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement calling for the separation of regrets of America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima from Japan's "responsibility as a perpetrator."



