Political Opposition Criticizes ROK Defense Minister for Korean Sailors Saluting Japan’s Rising Sun Flag

The Korean left is definitely coordinating to promote anti-Japanese sentiment against the Yoon administration as its tries to improve ties with Japan:

A salute South Korean sailors rendered to the “rising sun” flag of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force at a fleet review touched off an exchange Monday in Seoul between the nation’s defense minister and an opposition lawmaker.

South Korea’s navy attended the Japan International Fleet Review on Sunday in Sagami Bay near Tokyo for the first time since 2015. Eleven other countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and India, also sent warships to the ceremony.

Saluting the rising sun flag is equivalent to paying respects to a war criminal, said Jeon Yonngi, a Democratic Party member, during a National Assembly hearing.

The flag for some recalls Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and its military aggression during World War II, when the Japanese Imperial Navy flew the flag. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has flown the same banner for more than 50 years, according to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

South Korea in 2019 asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the flag at the Tokyo Olympics, suggesting that it recalls for Asians the “scars and pain” of World War II as the swastika does for Europeans, according to a July 23, 2021, report in the Mainchi newspaper.

Jeon at the hearing broadcast by the assembly asked National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup whether South Korean sailors should have saluted the flag as it passed on a Japanese vessel during the fleet review.

The sailors were saluting the host country warship, “in accordance with international practices,” Lee replied. “Thus, I would like to say it is not that the [South Korean navy] made a salute toward the rising sun flag.”

Stars & Stripes

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