South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye yesterday said that Japan needed to come to terms with its colonial history as tension between two Asian allies of the US simmered over Japan’s rule of Korea and an island dispute.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants to issue a statement that would supersede a landmark 1995 apology for Japan’s past military aggression, a move that would likely raise hackles in South Korea, ruled by Japan from 1910-1945, and in China, where bitter wartime memories run deep.
“The two sides must have a correct view of history and pursue a future of reconciliation and cooperation, and for this it is important for Korea and Japan to try to build confidence,” Park told Abe’s aide, Fukushiro Nukaga, in Seoul, according to her spokeswoman, Cho Yoon-sun.
A “correct view of history” is shorthand for South Korea’s desire for Japan to acknowledge its wartime and colonial excesses, something Tokyo says it has already done, but which Seoul says falls short of what is required.
“The older generation must make the commitment to try to heal the wound and must not become an obstacle to opening the way for the future generation,” the spokeswoman cited Park, who takes office next month, as saying.
A handful of protesters assembled at Gimpo Airport outside Seoul ahead of Nukaga’s arrival and one stabbed himself in the stomach with a small knife and was taken to hospital.
Tensions over territorial claims and reparations and an apology for Korean sex slaves, known as comfort women, who were forced to work at Japanese military brothels, have spilled into the diplomatic arena, as well as economics.
South Korea canceled plans for an intelligence deal last year, while a US$57 billion currency swap to shore up Asia’s second and fourth-largest economies was allowed to lapse after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited a disputed island.
On Thursday, a Seoul court ruled that a Chinese citizen who carried out an arson attack on the Yasukuni Shrine for war dead in Tokyo could not be extradited to Japan as he had committed a “political crime” and might not get a fair trial.
The man, 38-year-old Liu Qiang (劉強), left for China yesterday, after serving 10 months in a South Korean jail for setting fire to the Japanese embassy in Seoul early last year.
Abe told reporters in western Japan that the ruling was “extremely regrettable.”
Park is the daughter of former South Korean president Park Chung-hee, who established diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1965 after more than a decade of tortured talks brokered by Washington. This won aid to help an industrial drive that propelled South Korea out of poverty.
Japan says it has settled all its obligations and has apologized for its colonial rule in a series of statements, although Abe’s government has raised doubts about whether it stands by a 1993 statement on comfort women, as well as the 1995 apology by then-Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama.
Seoul says there has not been sufficient apology for the hundreds of thousands of South Koreans used as sexual slaves by the Japanese army and that reparations are not complete.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the