The Korean left is of course trying to appeal to anti-Japanese sentiment because Prime Minister Kishida did not give yet again another apology for things that happened 80+ years ago:

The main opposition party slammed President Yoon Suk Yeol of “flattering” his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, accusing him of making consecutive concessions to Tokyo without securing a formal apology or compensation for its historical grievances.

A day after the Japanese prime minister left Seoul, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Sunday pledged to revise rules to stop comfort women statues at home and abroad from being defaced or meddled with, without disclosing details. It also promised to elicit Japan’s formal apology and compensation for its past wrongdoings.

“The Japanese government has been constantly pouring in diplomatic efforts to take down the comfort woman statues in Germany and Italy, but the Yoon administration is merely repeating the disastrous pro-Japan flunkeyism, much less a strong reaction to them,” the women’s club of the party said in a statement.

Korea Herald

Here is what Kishida did say:

Kishida on Friday repeated his remarks from his previous visit to Seoul in March 2023 that he had inherited “all of his predecessors’ recognition of history,” including a declaration between former Korean President Kim Dae-jung and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in 1998 — under which Japan recognized its past suffering inflicted on the South Korean people when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula.

Kishida also reiterated his 2023 remarks, saying it was “heartbreaking that many South Koreans went through difficult and sad experiences in the past,” in an apparent reference to Japan’s abuse of Korean forced labor, though delivered in an informal and personal tone.

Japan clearly has apology fatigue and what Kishida did was just reemphasize the apologies of previous Japanese leaders instead of making yet another new apology. According to this Joong Ang Ilbo article Japan has made 63 apology statements to Korea. However, according to the same article 85% of Koreans think Japan is not sincere in their apologies. This is why the Korean left continues to jump on this issue because it is good politics for them to bash Japan and attack Korean conservatives on.

I guess being gay is not part of being Gangnam Style with complaints forcing the taking down of a gay app ad:

 A giant-screen advertisement showing homosexual people kissing and embracing each other was taken down four days after it began airing on the streets of Seoul’s southern district of Gangnam due to a series of complaints.

The matchmaking app for homosexual people first appeared on the giant screen set up along the streets of Gangnam’s Nonhyeon-dong on Aug. 26 under a contract that calls for the ad’s airing at least 100 times a day for one year.

The images showed gay and lesbian couples looking at each other, kissing and embracing.

But the ad was suspended Aug. 30 at the request of the Gangnam Ward government.

“Many complaints were received,” a Gangnam Ward official said, adding the office asked for the ad’s suspension under related law that bans advertisements that are feared to harm traditional customs with obscene content.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea’s low cost provocation continues:

North Korea sent more trash balloons toward South Korea on Sunday, the South’s military said, in what marked the fifth straight day of such launches.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the North resumed its balloon campaign at around 9 a.m., just hours after it floated some 200 balloons late Saturday.

“Considering the safety of our people as the top priority, the military will resolutely and calmly respond in accordance with the manual,” the JCS said.

In response to the balloon launches, the South’s military has been blasting daily anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts through loudspeakers on the border since July 21. It has refrained from directly shooting down the balloons, citing safety concerns.

Around 50 trash bundles landed in the capital and Gyeonggi Province from Saturday’s launch, but no hazardous materials have been found, the JCS said. They largely contained scrap paper, pieces of plastic and plastic bottles.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

I wonder how much of this questioning is motivated by how the opposition party has been attacking President Yoon’s wife over the handbag from hell?:

The wife of opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was questioned by prosecutors Thursday over allegations of corporate credit card misuse while Lee served as Gyeonggi governor.

Kim Hye-kyung, accompanied by a lawyer, appeared at the Suwon District Prosecutors Office, south of Seoul, to face questioning, which lasted for about two hours.

The investigation centers on allegations that the couple used a corporate credit card from the Gyeonggi provincial government for personal purposes in 2018 and 2019, while Lee served as governor, by having a subordinate buy food items with the card. 

In July, prosecutors notified Lee, currently chair of the main opposition Democratic Party, and Kim to appear for questioning as part of the investigation. 

Lee’s side responded that he would face questioning after his party’s national convention on July 18, but he has yet to appear before prosecutors.

Thursday’s questioning was expected to last into the night, but ended in two hours after Kim exercised her right to remain silent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The fear is with these territorial incursions is that one day a lower level commander may take action against one of these provocations which leads to a larger conflict:

Recent incursions by China into Japan’s territorial waters and airspace showcase a deliberate effort by Beijing to normalize its increasingly assertive actions against its regional neighbors, according to two defense experts. A Chinese survey vessel on Saturday briefly entered territorial waters off Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. Five days earlier, on Aug. 26, a Chinese Y-9 surveillance aircraft breached Japanese airspace over a small island off Kyushu, an unprecedented action by a Chinese military aircraft.

The incidents add to an already tense relationship between China and Japan, whose claims in the Senkaku Islands are repeatedly tested by the Chinese coast guard. China’s coast guard is even more aggressive against the Philippine coast guard, bumping hulls and employing water cannons and other measures in territorial disputes in the Philippine exclusive economic zone of the South China Sea.

The two incursions of Japanese territory were “provocative and risked flaming tensions in the region,” according to Brian Hart, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project. “The greater long-term implication is that Beijing is employing its military forces in increasingly provocative ways, which heightens the risks of misperceptions, miscalculations, and dangerous accidents,” Hart told Stars and Stripes by email Wednesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.