Tag: Japan

You can see the racist conspiracy theories that the Chinese government promoted against Ambassador Harris when he was the INDOPACOM commander has been successfully promoted in South Korea as well:

“I am American ambassador to Korea, not the Japanese American ambassador.”

The former U.S. Pacific commander and admiral spoke not out of frustration but as a matter of fact, responding to suspicions of some Koreans that his Japanese heritage might make him biased in Japan’s favor and influence a U.S. stance on matters related to Korea and Japan. He was born to a U.S. military man and a Japanese mother in Japan and he was the first person of Asian descent to lead the Pacific Command.

He said that while serving as Pacific commander, China also once accused him of favoring Japan regarding his stance on Beijing’s hegemonic moves in the South China Sea. He said that not in the U.S. or elsewhere had his eth-nicity been made an issue during his career.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the ambassador’s critics in Korea even accuse him of wearing a mustache to replicate what Japanese colonial governors of Korea once had.

Here is a hit piece from the Hankyoreh describing a USINDOPACOM strategy that doesn’t exist:

A South Korean government official said, “The reason so many senior US officials are visiting South Korea and campaigning hard for a GSOMIA extension is because GSOMIA is just that important to the Indo-Pacific strategy.”

Indo-Pacific Strategy gives Japan priority over S. KoreaThe US’ previous strategy for East Asia positioned the US itself at the center with South Korea, Japan, and Australia acting as “spokes.” Fundamentally, South Korea and Japan were on an equal footing. The Indo-Pacific strategy, in contrast, involves a framework where the US, Japan, India, and Australia form a “quad” hemming China in from all sides, while South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and others are included as lower-level partners.

Under this framework, the US-Japan alliance becomes upgraded to a global alliance. In pushing through security-related legislation, Japan’s Shinzo Abe administration increased its potential for intervention on the Korean Peninsula by concocting the concepts of “situations of major influence” and “existential threat,” with an eye on direct intervention if war breaks out. Under this system, Japan would need to receive initial military information on North Korean nuclear missile launch activity through GSOMIA to attack preemptively in a scenario of imminent armed attack by the North.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link, but if Japan was about to face a nuclear missile attack they don’t need the GSOMIA because the US would inform them. The biggest attribute of the GSOMIA is creating a mechanism where the ROK and Japan can work together.

As far as what the Hankyoreh describes as the USINDOPACOM strategy, I have read their strategy and it mentions nothing of what the Hankyoreh is claiming. You can read the USINDOPACOM strategy at this link.

It appears that the media in Japan is pushing the 5x times greater spending narrative for U.S. troops just like the Korean media:

Japan’s government on Sunday denied a report it had been asked to fork over five times as much as it now pays to support United States forces stationed in the country.

Kyodo News reported Saturday that Japan had rejected a request for the funding increase that was delivered by John Bolton, then national security adviser to President Donald Trump, when he visited Tokyo in July.

Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono refuted the report, according to a transcript of a Sunday press conference posted on the Defense Ministry’s website.

In Japan’s fiscal 2019 draft budget, about $1.8 billion has been earmarked to host U.S. forces, which include more than 50,000 servicemembers, mostly stationed on Okinawa. Japan would have to pay more than $9 billion annually if it had acceded to the request, Kyodo reported.

The talk about cost-sharing echoes news from South Korea, where U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday called on the government to increase its share of the cost to support 28,500 U.S. troops stationed on the divided peninsula.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but this is called negotiations. I am sure the U.S. side gave a big number to start out with that will be reduced over time to amount both sides can live with. What will be interesting to see over time is the difference in reactions between the Japanese and Korean governments over this issue.

As I predicted there was no way that the Moon administration was going to reverse course on withdrawing from the GSOMIA. Promoting anti-Japanese sentiment is literally the only issue his party has to run on for the parliamentary elections coming up early next year. Reversing the decision on the GSOMIA would have been a major loss of face for the Moon administration:

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday he will try to persuade Japan to “smoothly” resolve the dispute over the two neighbors’ military information-sharing arrangement, according to the presidential office.

During a 50-minute meeting with Esper at Cheong Wa Dae, Moon explained his government’s basic position that it’s “difficult to share military information” with Japan, which has imposed export restrictions against South Korea for a stated reason that Seoul is not trustworthy as a security partner, Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said.

In late August, the Moon administration decided not to renew the General Security of Military Agreement (GSOMIA) and it’s slated to expire as of next Saturday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the pending termination of the GSOMIA:

The United States appears to be heaping pressure on South Korea to retract its decision to end a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo amid North Korea’s continued saber-rattling and specter of tighter security cooperation between China and Russia.

U.S. diplomats have openly voiced concerns over the looming termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), seen as a symbolic platform for Washington to expand its trilateral defense collaboration with the Asian allies.

In August, Seoul announced its decision to end GSOMIA in response to Tokyo’s new export curbs seen as political retaliation for last year’s Korean Supreme Court rulings against Japanese firms over wartime forced labor. It will expire on Nov. 23 unless Seoul reverses the decision.

In a recent interview with Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Marc Knapper, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Korea and Japan, urged Seoul and Tokyo to maintain GSOMIA despite their chilled ties.

“Nobody is happy with the situation. Actually not nobody — there are people happy with the situation, but they happen to be in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang,” Knapper said in the interview.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I seriously doubt the Moon administration will cut any deal with the Japanese on the forced labor issue because what will the Korean left campaign on in the Parliamentary elections next year? They need this issue as a distractor from the economic woes facing the country and the Cho Kuk corruption mess:

 From creating a fund to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor to entrusting a civilian panel with addressing the thorny issue, a flurry of proposals are raising cautious hope for a thaw in frosty ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

Diplomatic circles, scholars and media in both countries have put forward the ideas while Seoul and Tokyo have been exploring a diplomatic off-ramp — or at least a path for de-escalation — through a series of high-level or working-level talks in recent months.

“These proposals illustrate the resilience of the Seoul-Tokyo relationship at work, when both countries apparently feel fatigued about their ties having long been on a collision course,” Nam Chang-hee, a professor of international politics at Inha University, said.

This week, Japan’s Kyodo News reported that Seoul and Tokyo are weighing the idea that the government and companies in South Korea, with the participation of Japanese firms, set up a fund under the name of “economic cooperation,” not as compensation for forced labor.

Seoul’s foreign ministry rejected the report as “untrue,” while reiterating its “openness” to searching for a solution “acceptable to the victims and people of both countries.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what I think is going on is that each side trying to create the appearance that they are the ones that are being reasonable by trying to work towards a solution knowing full well one will not be agreed upon.

It is pretty clear that domestic political concerns are more important for the Moon administration than security concerns:

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe noted the importance of trilateral security cooperation with South Korea during their talks in New York Wednesday, the White House said. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Trump and Abe discussed issues of mutual interest and signed a preliminary bilateral trade agreement. The White House did not elaborate on the discussions on South Korea, but the two leaders are likely to have touched on Seoul’s decision to pull out of a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the South Korea-Japan spat:

Japan did not ask South Korea for intelligence on North Korea’s recent launch of two “unidentified projectiles” after Seoul ended its military information sharing pact with Tokyo. 

Political analysts in Seoul said Sunday the key motivation behind the silence was because it did not want to be viewed as seeking help to acquire classified information after the termination of the pact, commonly known as GSOMIA, Aug. 22.

However Tokyo seems fully capable of monitoring North Korea’s military activities in cooperation with the United States and does not need to work with South Korea, they added. 

Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) and Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) have yet to finalize their assessment of the projectiles’ maximum altitude and speed ― two key pieces of information when analyzing the specifications of North Korean missiles or projectiles.

“I think Japan is curious to know about North Korean projectiles last week but does not want to appear to be begging for help from the South,” Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network said. “This is why Japan has not asked for related information on the projectiles. It is as simple as that.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but maybe the Japanese are not bother to ask the ROK because they already received their intelligence information from the United States?

Via a reader tip comes news that airline tickets between Korea and Japan are supposedly less than $10:

 If you’ve ever wanted to travel between Japan and South Korea, there’s no better time than now — air fares are as low as $8.38. 

As a trade spat between the two countries drags on, travel between them is dropping — and so are flight prices.

It costs as little as 10,000 South Korean won ($8.38) to fly one-way from Seoul to Fukuoka on budget airline Eastar Jet right now, and only 1,000 Japanese yen ($9.35) the other way. 

This is excluding tax and fuel surcharges — but still, added up, the prices are far lower than normal. The Eastar flight from Fukuoka to Seoul costs 7,590 yen ($71) with all the additional fees.

CNN

You can read more at the link, but I looked up the ticket prices on the Eastar website for flights between Seoul and Fukuoka and this is what I got:

It is accurate that Eastar is offering 10,000 won tickets, but the article fails to mention you must have membership with Eastar Airlines and that the ticket does not include the ability to check in bags.

For people with this cheap ticket who want to bring a bag it will cost 10,000 won per kilogram. If someone brings a 10 kilogram check in bag would add 100,000 won to the ticket, so that is where the airline will be making up costs.