Taliban bureaucracy

make haste in repairing relations.

That depends on first resolving the forcedlabour dispute. South Korean courts have approved the seizure of assets belonging to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel, Japanese industrial giants that used forced labour during the second world war. Appeals have delayed the process, but the assets, which include South Korean patents and revenues, may be liquidated and the proceeds given to victims (or, in most cases, their surviving relatives). On July 4th Mr Yoon’s government launched a council tasked with devising a plan to avert that irreversible step.

Much will depend on Mr Yoon’s ability to keep the public and the opposition on side. Any perception that he is doing all the give and Mr Kishida all the take will enrage voters. “We cannot dance a tango alone,” says Shin Kaksoo, a former South Korean ambassador to Japan.

Many Japanese politicians reckon the sides are playing tennis, not dancing together. “It’s very clear the ball is in Korea’s court—they have to fix it,” says one ldp lawmaker. Mr Kishida, who as foreign minister in 2015 led negotiations on the illfated comfortwomen agreement, is himself hesitant. He must also handle his party’s nationalist wing, which can be tineared on historical issues. Yet he may still be persuaded to twostep. Japanese diplomats recognise the strategic folly of continuing to quarrel with South Korea.

Averting the liquidation will require careful choreography and mutual trust, which is in short supply. If efforts fail, relations will surely deteriorate further. Military cooperation between America, Japan and South Korea could stall. Trade restrictions could multiply. China and North Korea would surely rejoice.

Shared strategic interests should, in theory, create a “lower limit” to how bad relations can get, says Sohn Yul of the East Asia Institute, a thinktank in Seoul. North Korea’s recent barrage of missile launches, and the spectre of a nuclear test, are a strong incentive for Japan and South Korea to work together. America has so far only sought to bring its two allies to the table, but it may try more active armtwisting as the spat threatens to upset its efforts to rally allies in the region against China.

The rewards for improved relations are big. A successful resolution to the court case might beget closer cooperation not only on security, but on a broader range of issues, such as supplychain resilience. More coordinated economic outreach to SouthEast Asia would help to counter China’s clout in the region. Yet the countries’ troubled history also imposes “an upper limit” on how good relations can get, Mr Sohn says. Without confronting the past, Japan and South Korea will struggle to face the future together. n

Afghanistan Bureaucratic nightmare

K A B U L Technocrats and former fighters rub shoulders in the civil service

Under ashraf ghani, Afghanistan’s president until the Taliban seized help you,” whispers one manager once he is sure none of his Taliban colleagues power last August, the country’s interior ministry oversaw much of the security apparatus involved in fighting the insurgents. It is now presided over by one of its deadliest foes, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who led a faction of fighters known for its highprofile bombings in Kabul, the capital. Corridors where American and European advisers once roamed are crowded instead with Mr Haqqani’s longhaired fighters. Civil servants who worked for Mr Ghani’s government sit alongside men who would cheerfully have murdered them a year ago.

Such shared offices are now found throughout the Afghan government. The country’s civil service, like those across South Asia, is a bloated, inefficient thing that puts much stock in the power of rubber stamps and official signatures. The Taliban has adopted this bureaucratic machinery wholesale, filling it with its own people. After all, citizens still need permits, licences and official forms.

Civil servants from the previous regime have little option but to make the best of it. They and their new colleagues rub along as well as they can. Pragmatic technocrats are growing out their beards and swapping suits for the traditional clothing favoured by their new masters. It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between old and new officials.

At other times the divide is clear. “Don’t worry. I am not one of them. I will can overhear. “These people are ignorant,” complains another. At one department, a functionary being interviewed by a journalist worries he has offended his bullying new Taliban director. “Please write that he is a great man,” he pleads. The Taliban’s appointments fill holes left when thousands of Afghan civil servants fled the country last year. The calibre of the replacements is often questionable. The new Taliban counterpart of the medical director at one Kabul hospital at least has a degree in medicine. But at other hospitals, staff said the new Taliban appointees were fighters or village clerics with more interest in how women dressed than in public health. Nor are things much better at the highest levels of government. The cabinet is packed with ethnicPushtun Taliban stalwarts. Other groups are sidelined. Appointments “have favoured loyalty and seniority over competence”, notes a un report. Decisionmaking is unpredictable, say foreign officials who deal with the new government. Any hope that the demands of running a battered country might mellow the militants’ ideology was dashed last week, after the regime held a jirga, or grand council, of religious scholars. More than 3,000 clerics and notables— all men—were invited to Kabul for three days of confabulation. It was the biggest gabfest since the Taliban took power. Speculation was rife that the jirga would revisit the unpopular decision to stop girls going to secondary school. Marginalised ethnic groups as well as some inside the Taliban sought signs of compromise from a leadership they see as increasingly remote and autocratic. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, offered no such thing. Instead, he delivered an emphatic speech in which he called for total obedience and unity. He outlined a theocracy where clerics would guide everything. Mr Akhunzada made it clear that anyone associated with the former government would not be allowed to share power. The Talibanised ministries and courts, he boasted, had banished bribery and corruption, and brought justice and harmony. There was no mention of girls’ education. For the officials in charge of implementing these policies, more awkward conversations lie ahead.