Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon yesterday agreed that they must work to ease the feud between the two neighbors that has spilled over into trade and security after their highest-level meeting in more than a year.
Both sides issued statements expressing a desire to repair ties after an about 20-minute meeting between the two leaders.
Lee delivered a letter to Abe from South Korean President Moon Jae-in that, according to Yonhap news agency, described Japan as a valuable partner in securing a lasting peace with North Korea and urged efforts to resolve their disputes.
“It’s important that relations must not be left in their current state,” Abe told Lee, describing them as “very severe,” according to a statement from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Lee urged Abe to continue communications and exchanges, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said separately.
The meeting is the most positive signal since South Korean courts last year issued a series of rulings backing the claims of people forced to work for Japanese companies during the country’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Japan has argued that all compensation claims were settled by a 1965 treaty that established ties between the two countries.
Moon has said the US-brokered agreement did not take into account the emotional suffering of the victims of Japan’s occupation.
The meeting helped set communications back to a more normal channel, but far more action was needed, said Kim Tai-ki, an economics professor at Dankook University near Seoul.
“With the key issue being trust, it will take much longer than top-level photo opportunities for it to actually rebuild,” he said.
Abe last met Moon in September last year and passed up a chance to meet him for formal talks during G20 events in June in Osaka, Japan. They are both expected to attend an ASEAN summit in Bangkok at the start of next month, which could afford them a chance for direct talks.
Economic worries in Japan and South Korea have mounted as they have both been in the fallout from a trade dispute between their major partners, the US and China.
Consumer spending in Japan is set to cool after Abe hiked the sales tax on Oct. 1 from 8 to 10 percent, while South Korea’s economy is on track for the smallest expansion since the global financial crisis as trade uncertainties weighed on investment.
Tensions have rapidly escalated, with Japan striking South Korea from a list of trusted export destinations and imposing restrictions on the sale of specialized materials essential to the country’s semiconductor and display manufacturing industries. South Korea responded by announcing its withdrawal from an intelligence-sharing pact, as its citizens boycotted Japanese goods and travel.
After largely sitting on the sidelines as tensions re-emerged, the administration of US President Donald Trump has over the past few months pushed the two sides to try to work out their differences. The US has been particularly critical of South Korea’s exit from the intelligence pact, as it is relying on cooperation between its two closest Asian allies to help counter China and North Korea.
As the meeting started in Tokyo, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha sent mixed signals by offering support for the discussions and cautioning Japan that it needs to withdraw its export curbs for ties to improve.
The pretext for Lee’s visit was his attendance at Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement ceremony on Tuesday.
Each country is the other’s third-largest trading partner and neither can afford a damaging economic fight as global growth cools.
South Korean exports are poised for an 11th monthly decline and semiconductor sales, which account for the largest share of exports, fell 29 percent in the first 20 days of this month, Korea Customs Service data showed.
The number of South Koreans visiting Japan last month dropped by about 58 percent from a year earlier, data showed.
“The current dismal situation does not benefit either country,” said Shin Kak-Soo, South Korea’s ambassador to Japan from 2011 to 2013.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing