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March 26, 2005
Rising sun
Rhetoric in East Asia has been heating up in recent days. As previously noted, Japan and South Korea have been engaged in a bit of a spat over some uninhabited islands (Takeshima to the Japanese, Tokto to the Koreans). A Japanese prefectural assembly had asserted Japanese soverignty over the disputed islets, stoking a century-old Korean anomosity toward Japan in its most common, contemporary forms -- irritation over Japanese officials' visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where several Japanese war criminal are interred, and anger over historical revisionism in Japanese textbooks.
Earlier this week, however, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun raised the stakes beyond the standard schoolyard tussle:
In a statement posted on the presidential office website, Mr Roh has called on citizens to prepare to sacrifice economic and other exchanges with Japan.
"There could be a hard diplomatic war ... that may reduce exchanges in various sectors and cause economic difficulty," he said.
"But we do not have to worry much about it ... we are determined to take the hardship on our shoulders if we really have to." [emphasis mine]
Roh has since backpedaled a bit, Japanese PM Koizumi responded diplomatically, and the South Koreans reciprocated in kind. One needs to keep this issue in perspective. Roh was appropriate in specifying the situation as a "diplomatic war" -- under no circumstances will Japan and South Korea come to blows over these islands. But diplomacy is nothing if not rhetoric, and Roh's was unusually pointed and emotive. If nothing else, it succeeded in drawing further attention to strains in the Japan-South Korea relationship. Such strains, as Roh pointed out, extend far beyond some uninhabited islands -- they are deep, long-standing, and utterly unresolved. Indeed, the Takeshima/Tokto spat is not a cause but a result of a rapidly developing trend -- an increasingly assertive Japan bumping into an East Asia that still remembers all too well (and none too fondly) the last time Japan asserted itself.
It's no surpise, then, that South Korea isn't the only state casting a wary glare at Japan. As also previously noted here, it is Japan's relations with China that will likely represent a key dynamic of the twenty-first century. Japan, also this week, joined with the United States in opposing the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China. Strategically, and on the merits, this makes sense. It also makes for tenser relations between the two countries. In a remarkable, if somewhat questionable display of Chinese grassroots activism (did somebody say information-based public diplomacy?), some 400,000 Chinese have signed an on-line petition opposing Japanese membership on the Security Council. According to one of the petition's organizers, "we are soliciting the signatures to oppose Japan's bid because Japan does not qualify as a normal country and it does not deserve the seat on the U.N. Security Council." And what's the official Chinese line?
We understand that Japan hopes to play a bigger role in international affairs. Meanwhile we hope that Japan adopts a correct and responsible attitude towards history issues. You may have also noticed Chinese public recently commented a lot on Japan's efforts to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We do hope that the Japanese side will deal with the history issues properly in order to win trust from others.
For Asian neighbors such as Taiwan, Korea, and China -- and even for neighbors further afield such as Australia and Iraq -- Japan is increasingly making its presence felt. Its technological prowess, economic muscle, and historical baggage give Japan greater weight on the world stage than any other mere country, and each move it makes sends reverberations in proportion to such weight. Keep an eye on Japan.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 11:40 PM to Asia
