Friendship between top Korean and Japanese female skaters one of the feel-good stories of the Olympics. They cheer each other on, send gifts and keep in touch away from competitions. pic.twitter.com/MWhXwlTskJ
Japanese speed skaters celebrate after defeating the defending champion Netherlands in the women’s team pursuit finals at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in Gangneung, on South Korea’s east coast, on Feb. 21, 2018. (Yonhap)
I am surprised Lufthansa had Dokdo on the map in the first place considering it is such a tiny terrain feature:
German airline Lufthansa has come under criticism in Korea after deciding to remove Dokdo, Korea’s easternmost islets that Japan falsely claims as its own, from its in-flight maps.
“The software has been updated and will be installed on the aircraft at the end of this week at the latest. The name of the island will not be shown anymore,” Lufthansa told The Korea Times Tuesday.
The company also said it had no intention to insult any party and regretted any inconvenience the decision might cause.
The decision came after a Japanese passenger’s complaint about the description of Dokdo, which was written in English and Japanese, on a Tokyo-Munich flight in December. The passenger claimed the name should be “Takeshima.”
It is unclear whether Lufthansa will remove Dokdo from the aircraft for that route only or all of them, including planes that fly from Korea’s Incheon to Frankfurt and Munich. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but of course some Koreans are calling for a boycott of Lufthansa in order to get it to restore Dokdo to its inflight map.
This photo, taken on Feb. 14, 2018, shows Tokyo’s government website announcing a draft guideline for Japanese high school textbooks to state that Dokdo, a set of South Korea-controlled islets in the East Sea, belong to Japan. This is the first time that Tokyo has specified its territorial claim to Dokdo in high school textbooks. (Yonhap)
Japanese government official emailed this to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Same guy, self-described liberal, had recently told me that most comfort women were prostitutes. pic.twitter.com/hv2QxQNC19
For being a supposed Asia expert, Joshua Ramo made quite the blunder with his statements about Korea and Japan during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics:
Joshua Ramo
NBC Sports analyst Joshua Cooper Ramo has been relieved from its PyeongChang Olympic coverage after enraging many Koreans with ignorant remarks about their country.
An NBC Sports spokesperson, who refused to be named, told The Korea Times Sunday that Ramo has been removed from the role.
“It was possible for him to do more with us here; now it is no longer possible,” the official said.
Ramo angered Koreans here and overseas by saying during the opening ceremony on Friday, “Every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural and technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation.”
NBC apologized for the comment.
“NBC issued an apology in a written letter to the PyeongChang Organizing Committee, and on air, regarding the comments made by one of our presenters during our coverage of the opening ceremony,” the official said.“NBC has great respect and admiration for South Korea and its people.”
The official explained that NBC hired Ramo “to serve as an Asia expert during the opening ceremony.His role was to give an overview to our viewers of the host country and this region of the world.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but problem number is one is to claim “every Korean will tell you”. It would be more accurate to say some Koreans may believe Japan was important to the development of South Korea, but many other would disagree which is quite evident by the simmering tensions remaining today. Problem number two is why even go down this political rabbit hole during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics? Can’t these commentators just talk about the athletes and their accomplishments?
We just couldn’t go an entire Olympics without some Dokdo nonsense:
Japan lodged a protest with South Korea after flags hoisted during an Olympic preparation match were found bearing disputed islets in the Sea of Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday.
“We cannot accept the flag in light of Japan’s stance over the sovereignty of Takeshima and it is extremely regrettable,” Suga said at a news conference, referring to the South Korean-controlled, Japanese-claimed islands called Dokdo in Korean.
The sports flag appeared during a game between Sweden and the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team in Incheon ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Games. [Japan Times]
Via a reader tip comes yet another example of how North Korea continues to violate sanctions:
Japan has told the United Nations about a North Korean tanker spotted in the East China Sea that it suspects was engaged in a transfer of goods with another tanker in defiance of U.N. sanctions, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of hitting the United States has spurred deepening U.N. Security Council sanctions and stoked fears of a military conflict.
According to a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, the North Korean-flagged tanker “Rye Song Gang 1” – blacklisted by the United Nations last month for carrying banned cargo – was spotted by a Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force patrol plane with the Dominican-flagged tanker “Yuk Tung” tied up beside it in the East China Sea on Saturday.
The two boats were lit up and some kind of activity was taking place, the Foreign Ministry said, adding that the Japanese government strongly suspected them of transferring goods in violation of the U.N. sanctions. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but at some point it seems something has to be done to stop this activity instead of just watching it happen.
Here is the latest on the comfort women issue between Korea and Japan:
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha announces in a press conference Tuesday that South Korea will not seek a renegotiation of a controversial 2015 deal it reached with Japan to settle the issue of women forced into sexual servitude for Japanese troops before and during World War II. [YONHAP]Seoul does not plan to scrap or renegotiate the 2015 bilateral deal on the so-called comfort women, announced Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha Tuesday, though she underscored that the agreement is not a true resolution to the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.
The Korean government also plans to raise a fund equivalent to the 1 billion yen ($8.87 million) transferred by Tokyo to a foundation formed under the 2015 agreement for the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army’s forced recruitment of young women into sexual slavery before and during World War II, who are euphemistically referred to as comfort women.
“It is an undeniable fact that that the 2015 deal was an official agreement reached between the two countries, and we will not demand a renegotiation from the Japanese government,” Kang told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul.
The decision was reached after a Foreign Ministry task force spent months reviewing the negotiating process and contents of the 2015 deal, gathering survivors’ viewpoints and taking into consideration Korea-Japan relations, Kang added.
The two countries’ foreign ministries struck a deal on Dec. 28, 2015 to resolve the comfort women issue, which included an apology by the Japanese government and a 1 billion yen fund for the victims. The agreement provoked an immediate backlash from some survivors and civic organizations, who claimed Japan should take clearer legal responsibility by paying reparations.
The Korean Foreign Ministry launched a nine-member task force at the end of July comprised of foreign affairs officials and experts in Korea-Japan relations, international law and human rights. The task force was charged with assessing how the deal was reached and to pay more attention to the viewpoints of the victims, who had expressed disappointment at being left out of the negotiation process by the Park Geun-hye administration.
President Moon Jae-in has emphasized that the agreement is not accepted by the general public in Korea and called it “flawed.”
While Seoul does not plan to renegotiate or scrap the deal, Kang encouraged Japan to “accept the truth as it is, according to universally-accepted standards,” to help restore the honor and dignity of the victims and heal the wounds in their hearts.
“What the victims all wish for is a genuine apology [of Japan’s] own accord,” Kang added. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but I think the Japanese public has probably hit apology fatigue with all the demands for more apologies after their government has already made a number of apologies. Prime Minister Abe could apologize again and commit seppuku on top of Namsan and there would still be people complaining for more apologies.
That is why I have long believed that if Japanese Prime Minister Abe was really clever he should apologize for war time sexual slavery again, but this time in a large public speech to draw maximum media attention. During this speech then announce that Japan to atone for its past sins would become a champion of women’s rights beginning with the plight of modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China that both the South Korean and Chinese governments choose to ignore.
North Korean women trafficked in the sex industry in China are the modern day comfort women that the Chinese and South Koreans do nothing to stop. Japan becoming an advocate for these women would expose the current hypocrisy of their critics on this issue.
Here is what the USFK commander General Brooks had to say about North Korea’s recent overtures:
Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), speaks in a lecture at Seoul Cyber University on Jan. 4, 2018. (Yonhap)
The commanding general of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on Thursday stressed the importance of combat readiness and unity among regional powers to cope with North Korea’s recent peace offensive.
“We can be generally pleased by the recent overtures that happened. But we must keep our expectations at the appropriate level,” Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, who leads the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said at a lecture in Seoul.
He was referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s Day statement that his country is willing to join the Winter Olympics that will open in the South Korean town of PyeongChang next month. He proposed immediate inter-Korean dialogue to discuss the issue.
In a follow-up move, the two Koreas reconnected a cross-border communication channel Wednesday, two years after it was severed, and are preparing to hold high-level talks.
It represents Pyongyang’s “sincere” pursuit of reconciliation, but it may be in line with its typical strategy to keep apart five countries — South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia — aimed at weakening their power against the regime trying to win the status of a “nuclear capable” nation.
“We can’t ignore that reality,” the command emphasized during the session at Seoul Cyber University, organized by the National Unification Advisory Council, a presidential consultative body mainly on long-term inter-Korean ties.
In the face of the North’s peace gesture, he said, it’s important for South Korea and the U.S. to maintain an “ironclad and razor sharp” alliance and joint combat readiness in the event that it leads to a “negative outcome, not a positive outcome.”
He likened North Korea to the center of a palm and the five regional powers to five fingers, showing his right hand.
The North wants these five fingers to be separated but they should operate in “harmony and closely connected to one another” as a fist to create necessary pressure to cause a change in its course, he added. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I think the problem with General Brooks analogy is that two of the fingers have no intention of being part of the fist, Russia and China. It is arguable they share the same strategic objective of the Kim regime to separate the US from the ROK.
