Tag: Japan

If Tokyo can keep some of their political leaders from making controversial statements about the comfort women and Dokdo issues maybe the negotiations this time will actually get completed:

The South Korean government on Thursday announced it will resume negotiations on a sensitive military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan for the first time in four years to better respond to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats.

“North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and launched over 20 ballistic missiles this year alone, and its nuclear and missile threats are escalating by the day, so our security situation is becoming more critical,” said Moon Sang-gyun, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, as he announced Seoul’s decision to restart talks on signing a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Tokyo.

A meeting of the National Security Council at the Blue House was convened earlier in the day to reach the decision to resume negotiations.

Sealing a bilateral intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan has been a sensitive issue for Korea in the past, and efforts to negotiate a GSOMIA between Seoul and Tokyo were halted since June 2012, when negotiations broke off.

A deal to share information with Tokyo fell apart at the last minute amid domestic outcry over the secretive nature of the closed-door negotiations and ongoing bilateral tensions and mistrust over unresolved historical and territorial disputes with Japan stemming back to colonial rule.

South Korea has continued to hesitate to sign a bilateral GSOMIA to share intelligence directly with Tokyo, though it agreed to a trilateral information-sharing arrangement with Washington as an intermediary in December 2014.

“The decision to resume talks that would allow the two countries to exchange military intelligence came in the face of unprecedented nuclear and missile threats from North Korea,” said Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam in a press conference in Tokyo Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Lim held a trilateral meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama to discuss a coordinated response to the threat posed by the North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Sugiyama said Japan will “sincerely respond” to the decision to resume GSOMIA negotiations.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Any tri-lateral cooperation like this good between the US, ROK and Japan:

The United States, Japan and South Korea will practice detecting and stopping ships carrying weapons of mass destruction during a sea exercise this weekend.

The trilateral exercise comes in light of North Korea’s continued work on its nuclear weapons and missile program, South Korean defense officials told reporters in Seoul on Thursday.

The maritime interdiction operation will be held Saturday and Sunday in international waters south of South Korea’s Jeju Island, Yonhap News reported.

The sea services also will conduct search and rescue exercises aimed at rescuing personnel on disabled ships, the report said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

A group of citizens holds a regular Wednesday rally calling for the Japanese government to make an official apology for Japan’s past wrongdoings against women in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Oct. 12, 2016. Some 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers in front-line brothels during World War II. The victims are euphemistically called “comfort women.” (Yonhap)

Japanese authorities investigate the scene where an explosion took place at a park in Tokyo on Sept. 24, 2016. The explosion injured three South Koreans who were preparing to open a booth for Korean cuisine at the South Korea-Japan cultural exchange event. (Yonhap)

Over at Mashable they have the story about Lieutenant Hiroo Onada posted who was the Japanese soldier who after Japan surrendered during World War II decided to fight on with his companions.  The below article features some great photos that are worth checking out:

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender, bringing an end to World War II.

But for some, the war was not over.

Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was 22 years old when he was deployed to Lubang Island in the Philippines in December 1944. As an intelligence officer, he was given orders to disrupt and sabotage enemy efforts — and to never surrender or take his own life.

Allied forces landed on the island in February 1945, and before long Onoda and three others were the only Japanese soldiers who had not surrendered or died. They retreated into the hills, with plans to continue the fight as guerrillas.

The group survived on bananas, coconut milk and stolen cattle while engaging in sporadic shootouts with local police.

In late 1945, the group began encountering air-dropped leaflets announcing that the war was over, and ordering all holdouts to surrender. After careful consideration, they dismissed the leaflets as a trick, and fought on.  [Mashable]

You can read the rest at the link, but Lt. Onoda and his companions over the decades would either surrender or be killed leaving him ultimately along until his surrender in 1974.  I always thought that Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda should have been hunted down and held accountable for his crimes.  His group had to have known that the war was over and yet they continued to kill civilians.  I believe the real reason his group did not surrender was not because of honor, but because they did not want to be held accountable for the war crimes they committed.

A sporting chance for #NorthEstAsia #Trilateralism. Next 3 Olympics are Pyeongchang 2018, Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022: https://t.co/hyO5yfItfu

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) September 24, 2016

#Japanese delegation work on table-top exercise as part of ROK-Japan-US security cooperation dialogue on Maui pic.twitter.com/zBMSEvblDQ

— Pacific Forum CSIS (@PacificForum) September 19, 2016

This is pretty significant because with the Japanese participating in training patrols in the South China Sea it may encourage other countries to do so as well which would only further erode Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea:

China is “disappointed to the point of despair” with Japan’s conduct in the South China Sea, it said Monday, after Tokyo announced it may set up training patrols with the US in the contested region.

China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the strategically vital waters in the face of rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbours, and has rapidly turned reefs in the area into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

In a speech last week Japanese defence minister Tomomi Inada called China’s actions a “deliberate attempt to unilaterally change the status quo, achieve a fait accompli, and undermine the prevailing norms”, according to a transcript released by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Inada said Japan would increase its engagement in the South China Sea through joint training cruises with the US Navy, exercises with regional navies and capacity-building assistance to coastal nations.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see what the ROK will do if more countries come forward to conduct these training patrols in the SCS.

I wonder how much this has to do with election year politics in anticipation of next year’s ROK Presidential campaign season?:

South Korea shied away from forging a military intelligence sharing pact with Japan during talks between the leaders of the two countries in Laos, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The long protracted issue of signing the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) was discussed during the summit meeting between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Vientiane, on Wednesday, Cho Jung-hyuck, spokesman of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs, said during a regular briefing.

“(But) Securing the sufficient understanding and cooperation from the National Assembly and the public is necessary,” Cho quoted the South Korean side as having told the Japanese side.

Park and Abe are in the Southeast Asian country to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting and the East Asia Summit.

The remarks suggest Park may have rejected Abe’s offer for the agreement’s signing.

South Korea and Japan came close to forging the GSOMIA in 2012, but the final signing was aborted amid public protests in South Korea. Protestors then accused the South Korean government of attempting to sign the militarily sensitive deal with the former colonial ruler in a clandestine manner.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It seems that if the Chinese are coming out and threatening the Japanese with military action for moving their ships through waters that an International Court has said is not Chinese; this almost forces the Japanese to sail through them to force the point that these are international waters and that they will not be intimidated:

Beijing is thought to have threatened Japan that it would launch military action if Tokyo pressed ahead with its stance on the South China Sea dispute. Chinese officials are reported to have conveyed the warning to a top-ranking Japanese official in June.

According to diplomatic sources, cited by Japan’s Kyodo news agency, China’s ambassador to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, told Japan that it would cross a “red line” if Japanese vessels took part in the so-called freedom of navigation operations launched by the US in the South China Sea. Cheng even went on to indicate that Beijing would not hesitate to take military action. This emerged only on Sunday, 21 August though the incident reportedly occurred in June.  [IB Times]

You can read more at the link.