Envoy takes stand on South China Sea issue

SEOUL-Although reiterating that the postwar compensation issue with South Korea was settled 50 years ago, Japan has committed to engaging in high-level talks to swiftly conclude the prickly issue of “comfort women”.

NHK said that Abe will seize the opportunity to hold summits with the leaders of South Korea and China as they will also be attending the global meetings.

The country’s National Computing & Information Center, which led South Korea’s drive in e-government services, celebrated the 10th anniversary of its establishment on Friday. The leaders of both countries have tried to manage these perception gaps with inconsistent results.

To hasten economic integration, China, South Korea and Japan have scheduled meetings on such topics as ICT, transport and logistics, customs, and science and technology.

The government is considering a plan that would provide humanitarian relief, including financial, jointly with South Korea to Korean women forced to serve in wartime brothels for Japanese troops, informed sources said.

Director-general level talks on the comfort women issue became stalled due to an emerging spat between the two countries over Japan’s moves to list with UNESCO as World Heritage sites historical industrial areas and complexes in Japan, a few of which were also used as labor camps for South Korean prisoners of war.

“The protection of the freedom of navigation and flight over the South China Sea should be guaranteed”, Yun said on Thursday at the two-day ASEM foreign ministers’ meeting. South Korean resentment of the comments lingers even though the Japanese cabinet eventually upheld that apology. Despite an agreement between Park and Abe to reach an “early settlement” on the issue of comfort women, the flimsy diplomatic pronouncement is not likely to resolve tension over what South Koreans view as Japanese war crimes anytime soon.

Strong alliance relations with the United States can also foster Seoul-Tokyo estrangement, ironically, if such relations lead Japanese and South Korean policymakers to believe that they have a sturdy bulwark against any truly damaging implications of their row. Already China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, while South Korea is China’s third-largest trading partner.

The three leaders pledged to step up cooperation to boost their economies and work toward addressing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The global commons challenges are great and the stakes are high, and highlighting the value of bilateral cooperation and leadership on these issues can help counteract each country’s tendency to underestimate the other’s strategic value.

In June, the three states consciously considered holding the summit, between September and November either in Seoul, Busan or on Jeju Island in South Korea.

Seoul has been careful not to take sides on the sensitive issue, but Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo last week for the first time made a public remark that appeared to put Seoul closer to supporting Washington’s stance on the issue at a regional security forum held in Malaysia. But South Korea may be slow to follow Japan’s example. South Koreans generally believe that Japan does not appreciate the pain and suffering that they endured under Japanese rule.