Tag: Japan

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.

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.

I am sure the KCTU and the other leftist clowns will be out in force if Kishida visits South Korea for a summit with Yoon. Anyway it will be interesting to see if Kishida does visit, if he makes any new apologies for Imperial Japan’s colonial actions in South Korea:

South Korea is in talks with Japan over a trip to Seoul by outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the presidential office said Sunday.

The move could set the stage for summit talks between President Yoon Suk Yeol and Kishida, and represents a step forward compared with just days earlier, when South Korea said that no decision had been made yet after Japan’s Kyodo News reported that Kishida was considering holding summit talks with Yoon in South Korea in early September before stepping down.

“We are in discussions with Japan over Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to South Korea and will make public the decision once it is made,” a presidential official told Yonhap News Agency by phone.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here we go again with the Korean leftists trying to raise anti-Japanese sentiment for political purposes:

Seoul’s presidential office is facing mounting pressure as controversial remarks regarding Japan by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s foreign policy aide have prompted criticism from the opposition for bringing humiliation to South Korea.

Labeling the aide’s remarks as carrying the intention of a “pro-Japanese traitor” — or “chinil” in Korean, describing those overly favorable to Japan to the extent of betraying national interests — the liberal main opposition Democratic Party of Korea pledged Tuesday to propose a bill to prohibit people who had previously praised or justified Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from becoming public officials. The main opposition party also pledged to introduce the bill as closely aligned with its core party policy, meaning that party members would all vote for it to counter Yoon’s conciliatory approach to Japan.

The latest controversy hails from a media interview with Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the presidential National Security Office. Kim said in an interview with public broadcaster KBS on Friday evening that Yoon’s omission of Japan’s wartime wrongdoing from his Liberation Day speech comes from Seoul’s forward-looking approach to its bilateral ties with Tokyo.

“If Japan turns a blind eye to its history and fails to say what it should say, we should harshly complain about it and try to change that,” Kim said.

“But what matters is Japan’s feelings (about apologizing),” Kim added. “When we pressure someone who does not feel inclined to do so to apologize, does that truly help Korea-Japan relations and cooperation? The level of trust between Kishida and Yoon seems very high.”

This answer was in response to the interviewer’s question about criticism over Seoul’s failure to speak up boldly about bilateral issues with Tokyo.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but why doesn’t the Korean Democractic Party instead of passing a bill to ban people who make pro-Japanese statements from holding office pass a bill saying that if you make pro-North Korean statement you cannot hold public office? Japan for many decades has not been a threat to South Korea and has strong economic and cultural ties. North Korea on the otherhand continues to be a threat on all fronts to South Korea.

The reason the Democractic Party doesn’t want to pass a bill banning people with pro-North Korea views from holding office is because many of them would have to leave government then. The Korean left is filled with those sympathetic to North Korea and even spies.

If the government wants to pass a bill, pass one against those holding pro-China views. China is the nation that most recently attacked and devestated South Korea during the Korean War five years after the Imperial Japanese were defeated. China continues to be the nation that enables North Korea to be the threat to South Korea that it is today not Japan.

This is a good deal for Japan, they get to sell the Patriot missiles to the U.S. and maintain their charade of not providing aid to Ukraine:

Japan will begin selling domestically produced missiles to the United States in a bid to bolster U.S. weapon supplies in the region. The U.S. will purchase approximately $19.6 million worth of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors, or PAC-3 missiles, the Japanese Defense Ministry’s agency for acquisition, technology and logistics said in a Sunday news release. The number of missiles included in the deal was not disclosed. (….)

“By providing Japanese-made PAC-3 missiles to the United States, Japan can indirectly assist Ukraine with much-needed air-defense systems, but without provoking a public backlash,” Brown told Stars and Stripes by email Wednesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Another example of the growing trilateral cooperation in Northeast Asia:

The defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan signed a document on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework (TSCF) on Sunday , Seoul’s defense ministry said, in a move solidifying their continued commitment to three-way security cooperation against North Korean threats.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Minoru Kihara, respectively, inked a Memorandum of Cooperation on the framework in Tokyo amid their deepening security cooperation in response to the North’s persistent nuclear and missile threats and growing military alignment with Russia.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This seems like a fair compromise, Japan gets their UNESCO site and South Korea gets a marker explaining the history of Korean forced laborers:

South Korea has given the green light to designate Japan’s gold and silver mines on Sado Island — where an estimated over 1,500 Koreans were forced to work at the end of Japan’s colonial rule — as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.

Japan’s ongoing efforts to have the Sado Island Gold Mines recognized have fueled a dispute with South Korea. The controversy revolves around Japan’s deliberate omission of its history regarding the forced mobilization of Koreans during its brutal colonial rule over the peninsula. (….)

An inscription on the World Heritage list typically requires a two-thirds majority vote from the WHC member states. However, it has become customary for the final decision to be reached through consensus, ensuring broader agreement and cooperation among the committee members.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry’s confirmation came hours after Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported that a preliminary agreement had been reached. Under the agreement, Japan will display the history of Korean forced laborers at the site in exchange for South Korea’s consent to the inscription of the Sado Mine complex as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.