Tag: United States

It will be interesting to see how long this cooperation lasts:

Despite repeated attempts by reporters to bait him into dredging up lingering resentments against Japan, a senior South Korean diplomat bit his tongue, downplaying 70-year-old tensions at a trilateral meeting in Washington.

“Diplomacy is about trying to find a way to work together while we have healthy differences on issues,” South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong told reporters at the State Department on Thursday.

Cho said South Korea had not changed its stance “on the issues of history,” but understood that cooperation between Korea and Japan was “beneficial to both governments.”

The press conference played perfectly into Washington’s Asia rebalance strategy, which relies on the U.S. mediating differences between Japan and South Korea in order to better coordinate on China’s economic and military rise in the region.

“We have an extraordinary array of shared interests and that’s built on a foundation of shared values,” Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken said during the joint press conference. “That was obvious to me in conversations we had over many hours today covering an extraordinary array of issues.”  [Foreign Policy]

You can read the rest at the link, but I will get excited about cooperation when I see something more tangible happen between the two countries.

China’s AIIB and the US Reputation Risk http://t.co/tHLizY2tfg pic.twitter.com/VmBd0sNfgI

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) April 16, 2015

How strong is the U.S.-Japan relationship? http://t.co/pnMHPI6Avf pic.twitter.com/mG7bdw76Zq

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) April 15, 2015

U.S.-Japan defense pact likely to address Seoul's demand over collective self-defense http://t.co/nivsWw1ZAd

— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) April 9, 2015

That is what the below Diplomat article discusses which is based on a Chinese news media article:

During the Deng Xiaoping era, China’s foreign policy was characterized by the phrase “tao guang yang hui,” generally translated as “keeping a low profile.” In recent years, however, observers have begun to question whether this strategy still holds sway in Chinese diplomacy, particularly in light of Xi Jinping’s recent exhortation for China to practice “major power diplomacy.”

Chinese media just turned that debate over on its head, by positing that it’s Washington, rather than Beijing, that is entering a period of “low profile” foreign policy today.

An article in Xinhua, published online Wednesday, posits that the U.S. has turned inward and is entering its own period of tao guang yang hui. The article argues that America’s “confidence and power” to “interfere” in external affairs has weakened over the past six years, with President Barack Obama preoccupied with domestic economic development. The lede cites Obama’s philosophy of “don’t do stupid stuff” as evidence.

The piece interviews Chinese experts who agree, as Xinhua puts it, that the U.S. inward-focus is growing “more and more obvious” and that “for the last two years of Obama’s term, [the U.S.] may enter an American-style period of ‘keeping a low profile.’”

One of the experts who contributed to the debate is scholar Wang Jisi of Peking University, who notes that although the U.S. isn’t in an irreversible decline, “U.S. influence on global political affairs has obviously declined.” The reason for this, Wang says, is a combination of weakening influence and power among U.S. allies (notably in Europe and Japan) and the rise of developing countries like China. Wang and another expert, Xu Changyin of Xinhua’s own World Affairs Research Center, both argue that Obama will try to focus on internal economic issues for the remainder of his term.  [The Diplomat]

You can read the rest at the link, but one way to look at this is that the Chinese government knows that now is the time to push hard on issues of contention knowing the US will do little about it.  An example of this appears to be happening in the South China Sea where the Chinese continue to claim sovereignty over the entire sea while the US pushes allies in the region to do more.  The South China Sea issue is actually small compared to if China tries to use this time frame to push militarily on the Taiwan issue.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

What the AIIB Means for the US-China Power Transition http://t.co/JEuazVGrxI pic.twitter.com/HbB8GTa4vN

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) March 29, 2015

Regarding Korea, China and Japan’s troubled modern history, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman seemed to side with Tokyo’s stance when she said, “Of course … it is not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy. But such provocations produce paralysis, not progress.” By Park Yong-seok

This speech was probably not a good idea:

Washington said on Monday that there has been no change in U.S. policy, part of an attempt to rectify controversial remarks made by an American diplomat that seemed to position the United States with Japan on historical issues with its neighboring Asian countries.

On Monday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf expressed surprise over how Seoul had interpreted comments made by Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs.

“We were, frankly, a little surprised to see that some interpreted her remarks as being directed at any particular leader in the region,” she said.

On Friday, Sherman stated in an address at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington that, “It’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy,” words that seemed to be directed at South Korean President Park Geun-hye or Chinese President Xi Jinping, though the Asian leaders were not specifically identified.

Sherman’s remarks, which appeared to trivialize sensitive historical issues, were met with strong backlash in Seoul over the weekend, namely her claim that Seoul and Beijing “have quarreled with Tokyo over so-called comfort women from World War II.”

“There are disagreements about the content of history books and even the names given to various bodies of water,” she continued, likely referring to the dispute over the name of the body of water between Korea and Japan, designated as the East Sea in Seoul and the Sea of Japan in Tokyo.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but publicly calling out leaders like this is sure to backfire and entrench their positions.  Something as sensitive as the comfort women issue I think requires more quiet back room diplomacy.  The Chinese government is never going to stop using historical issues to drum up anti-Japanese sentiment to turn attention away from major domestic issues when needed.  The South Korean government does this as well, the best example is when former President Lee Myung-bak was plagued by scandals so he took a trip to Dokdo to bash the Japanese and his poll numbers rose.  However, if the Japanese right wing would stop making provocative statements in regards to this issue more traction in regards to reconciliation between Korea and Japan could happen.

Here is the latest ban on a US food import to Korea:

The government’s import ban on U.S. chicken is feared to raise poultry prices.

U.S. poultry accounts for half of Korea’s chicken imports, or over 10 percent of consumption here.

In particular, prices of chicken legs could soar if the ban continues because Korea imports tens of thousands of chicken legs each year.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Sunday, Korea has banned the import of U.S.-bred chicken since Dec. 20, two days after a highly-pathogenic avian influenza virus was found in chickens on an Oregon farm.

Since then, no U.S. poultry has been brought into Korea unless they were killed before Dec. 20, or were heat-treated at over 70 degrees Celsius.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Census Bureau: 30.3% Millennials Still Living With Their Parents http://t.co/uGJa2F5laG

— CNSNews.com (@cnsnews) February 17, 2015