Sat, Jan 18, 2014 page6

• Japan calls for summit talks with China, South Korea

  OLIVE BRANCH: The leaders of the three countries each came into power at about the same time, but have never met, while issues between the countries threaten security

  • AFP, TOKYO
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  Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida yesterday called for summit talks with China and South Korea after more than a year of fractious arguments that have prevented any top-level meetings.

  Beijing and Seoul have refused to meet with conservative Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, citing what they say is his lack of remorse for World War II wrongs and his intention to remilitarize Japan.

  “Individual problems that we have with China and South Korea are the kind of issues that are difficult to solve in the short term,” Kishida said.

  ISSUES

  “But I wonder if it’s right to take the attitude that we should not have talks because we have issues... Exactly because there are problems, political leaders should hold talks and make efforts to solve them, shouldn’t they?” he added.

  Abe, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and South Korean President Park Geun-hye each came to power about a year ago, but entrenched positions and growing nationalism in the three countries have prevented them from meeting.

  Seoul and Beijing were angered by Abe’s visit last month to a shrine in Tokyo that counts 14 senior war criminals among the 2.5 million souls it commemorates.

  China and South Korea view the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s wartime aggression in Asia.

  Abe defended the visit as a pledge against war and said it was not aimed at hurting feelings in China and South Korea.

  Two separate territorial disputes that Beijing and Seoul said have their roots in Japan’s early imperial ambitions have also roiled relations with their neighbor.

  The diplomatic scrap between Tokyo and Beijing has increasingly spilled onto the world stage, with dozens of Chinese diplomats penning op-ed pieces in newspapers around the world seeking to swing global public opinion behind them.

  ATTACK

  China’s envoy to the African Union this week launched an attack on Abe in a press conference, warning of the impending “resurrection of Japanese militarism” and branding the premier a “troublemaker.”

  Tokyo launched its latest rebuttal yesterday, with the publication in the Washington Post of an opinion piece by Japanese Ambassador to the US Kenichiro Sasae, in which he said Beijing’s “anachronistic propaganda” was out of step with the world.

  “China’s leaders clearly misread global attitudes,” he said in the article.

  “It is not Japan that most of Asia and the international community worry about; it is China,” he added.

  “China has quadrupled its military expenditures, which are hardly transparent, in the past decade. During the same period, Japan has decreased its expenditures by 6 percent,” he wrote.

  The row over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea continues to draw significant attention in foreign policy circles, with some observers warning of the danger of an armed clash and others drawing comparisons with Sarajevo in 1914, when a localized act of violence flung an entire continent into war.

  OPEN DOOR

  Although Beijing has repeatedly ruled out talks with Abe — saying in December that he would be unwelcome in China — Tokyo continues to insist the door is open.

  “Among issues we have with China and South Korea are... things that could invite unexpected situations. Holding summit talks would give people in each country a sense of security,” Kishida said yesterday.

  “We will continue stressing the importance of dialogue and we strongly hope that China and South Korea respond to our call for talks,” he said.
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