SEOUL — President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea flew to a set of islets locked in a territorial dispute with Japan on Friday, dismissing protests from Tokyo and making a trip that was bound to heighten diplomatic tensions between Washington’s two key Asian allies.
Japan called Lee’s visit ‘‘unacceptable’’ and recalled its ambassador from Seoul in protest, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters in Tokyo.
Adding drama to the historical hostility that Lee’s surprise trip magnified, the archrivals were set to clash in London on Friday for the Olympic bronze medal in soccer....
With his popularity plummeting amid corruption scandals implicating his associates, Lee is badly in need of a boost to his political leverage. Opposition politicians were quick to accuse him of making the unprecedented presidential trip to tap South Koreans’ deep-seated nationalistic sentiments against Japan for gains in domestic politics....
Related: South Korean President Says He's Sorry
The dispute over the islets remains one of the most contentious issues left unresolved from Japan’s often brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 until its World War II defeat in 1945....
Lee's trip came after Japan angered South Koreans by reconfirming its territorial claim to the islets in its defense white paper published last month.
Lee is scheduled to deliver his last major national speech as president on Aug. 15, which South Korea celebrates as a major national holiday observing Japan’s World War II surrender and Korea’s liberation.
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I wonder who the next president will be:
"South Korean dictator’s daughter wins nomination for president" by Choe Sang-hun | New York Times, August 21, 2012
SEOUL — The daughter of a former dictator became the first serious female contender for South Korea’s presidency on Monday when she was chosen as the governing party’s candidate for elections in December.
Park Geun Hye, a daughter of President Park Chung Hee, who ruled South Korea from 1961 till 1979, was the first woman and the first child of a former president to become the presidential candidate of a major political party in South Korea. She cited Queen Elizabeth I of Britain as her role model....
Related: Korean Cuties
In 2007, Park lost the presidential nomination of her party, then in opposition, to President Lee Myung Bak, whose election brought power back to conservatives after two consecutive liberal presidents: Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun. Lee is barred by law from seeking reelection.
Seeking to retain power, the conservatives confront the best and worst of their legacy in Park’s candidacy.
Her father, Park Chung Hee, is the conservatives’ godfather, and his twin bequests of economic growth and political repression still divide South Koreans.
Under Park Chung Hee, the country soared from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War and industrialized while maintaining a staunchly anti-Communist stance against North Korea and cherishing a military alliance with Washington.
For elderly South Koreans, especially those in her father’s home province of Gyeongsang in southeastern South Korea, his name is enough for them to vote for Park Geun Hye.
But under the elder Park, the government also persecuted dissidents, often framing and torturing them as Communist subversives. Many of the victims are now opposition leaders.
While he was our guy, of course.
His economic policy helped a handful of family-controlled and politically connected business enterprises grow into the ‘‘chaebol’’ conglomerates, like Samsung and Hyundai, which spearheaded the country’s export-driven economy but were accused of squeezing smaller businesses at a time of a widening gap between rich and poor.
Park Chung Hee also banned rock music, miniskirts for women, and long hair for men.
Liberals, who seek to retake power, trace their roots to a prodemocracy movement against Park Chung Hee and subsequent dictators.
They champion reconciliation with North Korea....
On Monday, Park Geun Hye pledged to broaden welfare and fight corruption. She has also indicated she would mend relations with North Korea.
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She isn't the only one talking that way:
"Japan to hold first talks with North Korea in 4 years" by Isabel Reynolds | Bloomberg News, August 15, 2012
TOKYO — Japan is set to hold its first talks with North Korea in four years, while its diplomatic relations with South Korea suffer over disputed islands and wartime conflicts.
Japan will hold preliminary discussions with North Korea on Aug. 29 in Beijing, Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, Osamu Fujimura, told reporters Tuesday. The topics discussed will include the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, he said, without specifying which officials will participate.
‘‘We want to go into these talks with the aim of reaching a comprehensive solution to various problems and past misfortunes in order to normalize diplomatic ties,’’ Fujimura said.
The meeting in Beijing will mark the Japanese government’s first dealings with the administration of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who took power after succeeding his father last year. Japan — along with South Korea, China, the United States, and Russia — is a partner to six-nation talks on North Korea’s denuclearization that dissolved when the North withdrew in 2009.
Cho Tai Young, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman, had no comment Tuesday.
North Korea’s and Japan’s Red Cross societies held talks in Beijing on Thursday and Friday on the possible repatriation of the remains of Japanese who died in what is now North Korean territory at the end of World War II. Those discussions were the first between the two societies in a decade.
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Related: Japan and North Korea hold first talks since 2008
And what could spoil the party?
"S. Korea-US war drills begin amid North’s protest" Associated Press, August 21, 2012
SEOUL — South Korea and the United States began annual military drills Monday that North Korea calls a precursor to war. US officials said the two-week Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills involves more than 80,000 troops from the United States, South Korea, and seven countries that fought with them in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Pyongyang has repeatedly threatened to attack Seoul over perceived insults and denounces the exercises as preparation for a preemptive attack....
It's not like we haven't done it before.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the exercises are routine and urged North Korea to refrain from ‘‘bellicose statements.’’
Tell it to Israel, will ya'?
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I'll bet I know just the woman to help work things out:
"Clinton tries to calm Japan, S. Korea" Bloomberg News September 10, 2012
TOKYO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Japan and South Korea to cool tempers in their showdown over contested islands, as part of a wider US effort to defuse rising regional tensions stoked by maritime disputes.
‘‘I raised these issues with both of them,’’ Clinton said Sunday after meeting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan and President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia....
Clinton wrapped up a six-nation, 11-day tour Sunday....
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I guess we will just have to look to the heavens for help:
"Feuds a concern as children inherit Moon's empire" by HYUN-AH KIM Associated Press / September 3, 2012
GAPYEONG, South Korea (AP) — Unification Church patriarch Sun Myung Moon leaves behind children who have been groomed to lead a religious movement famous for its mass weddings and business interests — if family feuds don’t bring down the empire.
Moon, the charismatic and controversial founder of the church, died Monday at age 92 at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong County, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being hospitalized with pneumonia, church officials said.
The church has amassed dozens of businesses in the United States, South Korea and even North Korea, including hotels, a ski resort, sports teams, schools, universities and hospitals.
One expert said the church’s business prospects appear brighter than its religious future. Tark Ji-il, a professor of religion at Busan Presbyterian University, described the church not as a religious organization but as a corporation made up of people with similar religious beliefs.
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Also see: Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 92; built worldwide religious movement
