Here is the latest on the forced labor issue between South Korea and Japan:

Here is the latest from the Imperial Japanese forced labor issue with South Korea:

Japan has protested a South Korean court order on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to sell assets in order to pay compensation to two women subjected to forced labor for the company during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula during 1910-1945. Foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that the ruling a day earlier by the Daejeon District Court in South Korea was a “clear violation of international law.” “We must avoid serious impacts on Japan-South Korea relations,” Motegi said, describing the court’s decision as “truly regrettable” during a regular news conference in Tokyo.

Relations between the two countries, both important U.S. allies in North Asia, have been dogged by the bitter legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation, and ties soured in 2019 due to a dispute over export controls which has yet to be resolved.

The Daejeon District Court in South Korea ruled on Monday that Mitsubishi Heavy should sell two patents and two trademarks, according to a support group for the women, who are both in their nineties.

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link, but Tokyo believes this issue was resolved with the 1965 pact where $500 million from Japan was given to South Korea.  The ROK government at the time could have compensated everyone back then with that money, however it was instead used for the overall development of the country such as improving infrastructure.  The money ultimately helped with the country’s economic development at the expense of direct compensation to those effected by Japan’s colonial rule.  This is why Japan is so strongly against the court rulings they feel they have already paid compensation.

With that all said when is the ROK government going to launch lawsuits on behalf of victims of North Korea’s kidnappings and provocations in far more recent times than Japan’s colonial rule that began over a century ago?

It appears this is USFK’s response to North Korea’s recent missile launches:

The U.S. military in South Korea conducted a surgical strike drill simulating targeted attacks on major North Korean facilities, officials said Friday, amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula over the North’s missiles launches.

The Exercise Teak Knife was conducted at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Sept. 13, which provided opportunities for U.S. special tactics airmen “to practice skillsets used in special operations across the Indo-Pacific,” the U.S. Special Operations Command Korea said in its recent Facebook post.

The program included “a free fall insert, C-130J tactical landing, and fast rope insertions from three MH-60 Seahawks,” and many garrison units and U.S. Navy members also took part in the exercise, which “maximized unit and individual readiness,” it added.

The U.S. military has carried out the exercise regularly since the 1990s, often together with South Korean troops, but it is unusual for it to make the matter public. The exercise involves simulated attacks on key facilities in North Korea, such as its missile and nuclear installations, according to the officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on North Korea’s recent missile launch:

The Japanese government says North Korea appears to have fired one ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan early on Tuesday. Shortly after the launch, a North Korean diplomat rose to speak at the United Nations and called on the US to scrap its hostile policy against the country.

The South Korean military says it believes the North fired a short-range missile from the northern part of the country toward its east coast. It says it’s collecting and analyzing information together with the US military.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said, “The Japanese government is on high alert and monitoring the situation. We are also analyzing how the launch was conducted.”

Japanese government officials say it is unlikely the suspected ballistic missile has fallen inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the launch was timed to happen before Kim Song the North Korean ambassador to the U.N. gave a speech about the self defensive nature of their weapons program.

The Korean left is going to be triggered by this news:

A history museum in memory of former President Park Chung-hee will be formally opened in the southeastern city of Gumi this week, the municipal government said Monday.

The President Park Chung Hee History Museum featuring nearly 5,700 pieces of relics left behind by the former leader will be opened to the public on Tuesday, according to the municipality of Gumi, 260 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The museum built near the late Park’s birthplace in the city will display or store 5,649 pieces of relics commissioned by the Park Chung-hee Memorial Association in 2004, it said. The opening ceremony is slated for 11 a.m. and there will be no other celebratory events in consideration of COVID-19, it added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I ended up finishing up watching Squid Game on Netflix and it was pretty good, but the violence in the drama was a bit over the top. This is definitely not a series for kids to watch:

A pop-up replica set of Netflix’s original Korean series “Squid Game,” which was set up at Itaewon Station in central Seoul, closed down earlier than scheduled due to mounting concerns over a spike in COVID-19 infections here.

According to Seoul Metro, the pop-up set, operated by Netflix Korea, closed on Friday after drawing large crowds on the back of the growing popularity of the Korean drama.

The set was scheduled to be open until Sunday. 

“The operator of the set made the decision as concerns over violations of social distancing rules have been raised,” a Seoul Metro official said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Anti-China sentiment continues to grow in South Korea, but with how intertwined the ROK’s economy is with China will their government be willing to do anything significant to counter China’s attempted hegemony over the Peninsula?:

However, a recent poll highlighted a major paradigm shift in the trend of South Korean public perception toward surrounding states, which may affect the presidential candidates’ foreign policy pledges. According to the poll by Hankook Research and South Korean online newspaper SisaIn, the South Korean public was least favorable toward of China; even North Korea and Japan were viewed more positively.

The participants were asked to give a favorability score to four countries – China, Japan, North Korea, and the United States – on a scale between 0 and 100. South Koreans gave the most negative rating to China with an average of 26.4, lower than North Korea at 28.6 and Japan at 28.8. The United States had the most favorable rating at 57.3. Furthermore, to the question of whether participants thought a particular country is “good” or “evil,” 58.1 percent labeled China as evil, whereas only 4.5 percent said it was good.

The increasing anti-China sentiment in South Korea is a remarkable trend for Seoul’s foreign policy. Previously, South Korean public opinion focused on North Korea and Japan as the country’s top potential threats. The same poll in late 2019 showed that Japan was the least favorably viewed country among South Koreans, with 21.0 favorability, while China rated 35.6. Although there were issues such as historical disputes centered on the former Korean kingdom Goguryeo and illegal Chinese fishing in South Korean waters, the hatred for China was relatively weak compared to concerns over the North Korean nuclear program and the rise of the far-right movement in Japan.

The Diplomat

You can read more at the link, but I will believe the significance of these polls when Koreans come out and protest against China like they did against the U.S. in the early 2000’s. The fact they don’t despite China’s wide unpopularity shows how intimidated Koreans are by the CCP.