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Nearly 60% of South Koreans view Japan as military threat: joint survey

Raphael

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Nearly 60% of South Koreans view Japan as military threat: joint survey | The Japan Times

About 58.1 percent of South Koreans view Japan as a military threat, up from 46.3 percent the previous year, now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to beef up postwar security policy, a survey said Friday.

The joint survey, conducted by Japanese civic group Genron NPO and South Korean think tank East Asia Institute from April to May, drew responses from around 1,000 people in each country and found that only 11.2 percent of Japanese respondents view South Korea as a military threat.

In a multiple-choice question, 83.4 percent of South Koreans and 71.6 percent of Japanese said they regard North Korea as a military threat, while 36.8 percent of South Koreans and 64.3 percent of Japanese said they viewed China as a military threat.

“It is shocking that in South Korea, Japan is seen as a military threat more so than China,” Genron NPO chief Yasushi Kudo said at a news conference.

Abe’s government is on pushing to pass bills to expand the types of missions the Self-Defense Forces can engage in and to enable Japan to engage in collective self-defense, or coming to the aid of an ally under armed attack, even when Japan itself is not under attack. They are also aimed at allowing Japan to participate in more peacekeeping operations abroad.

Around 40 percent of the South Koreans polled said they also believe a military clash with Japan could occur within several years, while less than 10 percent of Japanese said likewise.

Ties between Japan and South Korea have deteriorated in recent years over history-related issues, including the ianfu, or “comfort women,” Japan’s euphemism for the tens of thousands of females forced to provide sex to Imperial Japanese soldiers before and during the war. Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, when it was liberated by the Allied Powers.

The two countries are also in a territorial row over a pair of tiny outcroppings in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan. South Korea refers to the body of water as the East Sea.

“South Korean people have an image of Japan as being a militaristic country based on their historic memories of the war and Japan’s colonial rule. Prime Minister Abe’s recent foreign policy is enlarging that image of Japan,” Jeong Han Wool, executive director and senior researcher at the East Asia Institute, said at the news conference.

On a more optimistic note, around 70 percent of the Japanese and South Koreans who participated in the survey — the third of its kind — are concerned that public sentiment is deteriorating on both sides. More than 80 percent say the leaders of both countries need to hold a summit to improve the bilateral relationship.

If a summit is actually held, it will be the first since May 2012.

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83.4% view N. Korea as a threat
58.1% view Japan as a threat
36.8% view China as a threat

I think Japan could alleviate this perception if it expressed more sincere contrition for colonialism, sexual slavery and WWII. Unfortunately, the current regime has adopted a wholehearted pro-revisionist stance and constantly glorifies war crimes. If a country can't recognize their past conduct was atrocious beyond comprehension, how can we trust their future conduct?
 
Nearly 60% of South Koreans view Japan as military threat: joint survey | The Japan Times

About 58.1 percent of South Koreans view Japan as a military threat, up from 46.3 percent the previous year, now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to beef up postwar security policy, a survey said Friday.

The joint survey, conducted by Japanese civic group Genron NPO and South Korean think tank East Asia Institute from April to May, drew responses from around 1,000 people in each country and found that only 11.2 percent of Japanese respondents view South Korea as a military threat.

In a multiple-choice question, 83.4 percent of South Koreans and 71.6 percent of Japanese said they regard North Korea as a military threat, while 36.8 percent of South Koreans and 64.3 percent of Japanese said they viewed China as a military threat.

“It is shocking that in South Korea, Japan is seen as a military threat more so than China,” Genron NPO chief Yasushi Kudo said at a news conference.

Abe’s government is on pushing to pass bills to expand the types of missions the Self-Defense Forces can engage in and to enable Japan to engage in collective self-defense, or coming to the aid of an ally under armed attack, even when Japan itself is not under attack. They are also aimed at allowing Japan to participate in more peacekeeping operations abroad.

Around 40 percent of the South Koreans polled said they also believe a military clash with Japan could occur within several years, while less than 10 percent of Japanese said likewise.

Ties between Japan and South Korea have deteriorated in recent years over history-related issues, including the ianfu, or “comfort women,” Japan’s euphemism for the tens of thousands of females forced to provide sex to Imperial Japanese soldiers before and during the war. Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, when it was liberated by the Allied Powers.

The two countries are also in a territorial row over a pair of tiny outcroppings in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan. South Korea refers to the body of water as the East Sea.

“South Korean people have an image of Japan as being a militaristic country based on their historic memories of the war and Japan’s colonial rule. Prime Minister Abe’s recent foreign policy is enlarging that image of Japan,” Jeong Han Wool, executive director and senior researcher at the East Asia Institute, said at the news conference.

On a more optimistic note, around 70 percent of the Japanese and South Koreans who participated in the survey — the third of its kind — are concerned that public sentiment is deteriorating on both sides. More than 80 percent say the leaders of both countries need to hold a summit to improve the bilateral relationship.

If a summit is actually held, it will be the first since May 2012.

-----------------------------------------------------

83.4% view N. Korea as a threat
58.1% view Japan as a threat
36.8% view China as a threat

I think Japan could alleviate this perception if it expressed more sincere contrition for colonialism, sexual slavery and WWII. Unfortunately, the current regime has adopted a wholehearted pro-revisionist stance and constantly glorifies war crimes. If a country can't recognize their past conduct was atrocious beyond comprehension, how can we trust their future conduct?



To be very frank, BOTH Xi and Abe are pandering to the respective right wingers of their countries. AND both seem to have taken this calculated approach, to push some rather stark and required economic reforms.

Also, China must work towards breaking Korea from US-Japan. China and Korea were always supposed to be allies. Korea can also keep Japan at check in that region.

China must abandon North Korea, for a tacit agreement with South Korea, to remove US troops, and give away its US alliance. Not only there is strategic advantage, there is also huge economic advantage.

China's northeastern hinterland, is facing very difficult economic situation. Just imagine what a huge economic opportunity it will be to connect Seoul to Shenyang, and Beijing. The economic opportunities and connectivity will go so far to elevate Dongbei regions.
 
S Koreans are much level headed than many of the Chinese who need medication

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This thread below is a perfect example of how the Japanese is constantly playing tricks on China. Read it thoroughly

Japan gets contract to build strategeic roads on Indo-China border
 
Such a poll is retarded to start with. It includes many kiddos who are probably still in high schools with knowledge, historic memory and info coming mostly out of main stream media and some consumer electronics or TV sit coms.

If pulls one on >=40 age group, the picture would likely be drastically different.
 
Such a poll is retarded to start with. It includes many kiddos who are probably still in high schools with knowledge, historic memory and info coming mostly out of main stream media and some consumer electronics or TV sit coms.

If pulls one on >=40 age group, the picture would likely be drastically different.

as far as I can recall the unfavourable perception of South Koreans towards the Japanese is consistently strong
Many times our Government appears as a joke comparing to the S Koreans due to the American factor which stand behind the Japanese regardless in all Japan's conflicts with China

Territorial claims

Dokdo islands by Koreans | PRIMA NEWS

South Korea makes a point about its claim on islands disputed with Japan - The Washington Post

21349367721.JPG


Dokdo-islands-by-Koreans.jpg


BN-CF522_0404sk_P_20140404030451.jpg


Comfort women

‘Comfort women’ issue added to U.S. spending bill

20140116001132_0.jpg

A new statue of a “comfort woman” was unveiled on Geojedo Island, South Gyeongsang Province, Thursday.
(Yonhap News)

comfort-women-protest3.jpg


Japanese residents demand removal of 'comfort women' statue in California - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

AJ201402230010M.jpg

A former "comfort woman" attends a ceremony to unveil the statue of a Korean comfort woman erected in a park in Glendale, southern California, on July 30, 2013. (Erika Toh)
 
Such a poll is retarded to start with. It includes many kiddos who are probably still in high schools with knowledge, historic memory and info coming mostly out of main stream media and some consumer electronics or TV sit coms.

If pulls one on >=40 age group, the picture would likely be drastically different.

The anti-Japanese stance is stronger in elder generations.

Getting better

2013

http://www.genron-npo.net/english/opinionpoll_js_1.pdf
" In South Korea, this number was 76.6%, showing that almost 80% of South Koreans have an unfavorable impression of the Japanese"

Visit Yasukuni again, and it will cross that again.
Also the hostility between China and Japan has come down a little bit, due to decreased rhetoric.
 
The Japanese strategy towards their atrocious past is trying to delay or confusticate the recognition of history

All the people. the poor comfort women included, who once lived under the bayonets of the Imperial Japanese are aging and advancing towards their last days. People's memories are short.

In the next 50 years, most if not all of the people will forget what the most terrible things the Japanese has done to humanity

So it is very important to put more pressure on the Japanese NOW

China and S Korea should get involved more actively on capturing the correct historical chapters in the form of books, documentaries, semiars, museums, monuments, statutory days of remembrance .. bring all these to the United Nation and despatch these through the inernet to the rest of the world!
 
The Japanese strategy towards their atrocious past is trying to delay or confusticate the recognition of history

All the people. the poor comfort women included, who once lived under the bayonets of the Imperial Japanese are aging and advancing towards their last days. People's memories are short.

In the next 50 years, most if not all of the people will forget what the most terrible things the Japanese has done to humanity

So it is very important to put more pressure on the Japanese NOW

China and S Korea should get involved more actively on capturing the correct historical chapters in the form of books, documentaries, semiars, museums, monuments, statutory days of remembrance .. bring all these to the United Nation and despatch these through the inernet to the rest of the world!

China and South Korea just signed an FTA. This will likely bring the two nations more closer, at the cost of others, including the break-away province of Taiwan.

The anti-fascist war anniversary that will be held in Beijing is a platform to remember the past together with the Koreans and other colonized peoples.
 
Getting better

2013

http://www.genron-npo.net/english/opinionpoll_js_1.pdf
" In South Korea, this number was 76.6%, showing that almost 80% of South Koreans have an unfavorable impression of the Japanese"


This is understandable since Korea was a colony of Japanese Empire. Naturally they will have strong anti- colonial feelings against Japan and Japanese.

Interestingly tho, Taiwan, which was also a colony, have very favorable views of Japan.
 
China and South Korea just signed an FTA. This will likely bring the two nations more closer, at the cost of others, including the break-away province of Taiwan.

The anti-fascist war anniversary that will be held in Beijing is a platform to remember the past together with the Koreans and other colonized peoples.

I hope Taiwanese will actively participate in the events
There is an award winning movie "賽德克•巴萊 Warrior of the Rainbow" which depicted how the Taiwanese have fought gallantly against the Japanese invasion

Seediq_Bale_Poster.jpg


Legend of the Rainbow Warriors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also "The 1895 war between the Japanese and the Formosan resistance movement was portrayed in a film little known outside Taiwan, called 1895, released in November 2008"

220px-1895_poster.jpg


1895 (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I hope Taiwanese will actively participate in the events
There is an award winning movie "賽德克•巴萊 Warrior of the Rainbow" which depicted how the Taiwanese have fought gallantly against the Japanese invasion

Seediq_Bale_Poster.jpg


Legend of the Rainbow Warriors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also "The 1895 war between the Japanese and the Formosan resistance movement was portrayed in a film little known outside Taiwan, called 1895, released in November 2008"

220px-1895_poster.jpg


1895 (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do hope, as well, that, Taiwan will participate in great numbers.

This I took last week at one of the indigenous people museums. Historical consciousness still prevails in Taiwan.

IMAG0850.jpg
 
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This is understandable since Korea was a colony of Japanese Empire. Naturally they will have strong anti- colonial feelings against Japan and Japanese.

Interestingly tho, Taiwan, which was also a colony, have very favorable views of Japan.

It is due to current geopolitical environment.
 
I do hope, as well, that, Taiwan will participate in great numbers.

This I took last week at one of the indigenous people museums. Historical consciousness still prevails in Taiwan.

View attachment 226675


@TaiShang , have you read the works of Liao Ping-hui and David Der-Wei Wang ? They authored an excellent piece titled "Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule : 1895 - 1945."

8227542553.jpg


Liao Ping-hui and David Der-wei Wang (ed.), Columbia University Press, New York: 2006. 416 pp.

Taiwan’s unique colonial history, a “historical period most consequential to the formation of the complex identity of the island,” is difficult to view using the standard lens of contemporary colonial and post-colonial studies. Unlike most colonizing governments of the time, the Japanese government on Taiwan conducted meticulous censuses, resulting in “one of the most accomplished feats of data-collection from any population, at any given time, anywhere in the world.” From a theoretical perspective, this demonstrates significantly that a colonizing government does not necessarily need to distort truth in order to govern; rather, through illuminating data on everything from land rent to population to number of cows, the Japanese colonial government was able to control every aspect of life in the colony. This, the authors say, illustrates “the close relation between power and knowledge.”

The Japanese mechanism of control over Taiwan comprised the following: 1) exchange and mediation with native Taiwanese elites, in order to ensure their collaboration; 2) disciplining and training, aimed at schoolchildren and students, which via rituals and education strove to create a disciplined imperial subject body; and 3) punishment and threat, via military and police force, which maintained public order. By allowing members of the elite landowning class to keep their land, and by providing their children with educational opportunities, the Japanese colonial government effectively achieved what the authors call a “weak hegemony” by polarizing the Taiwanese “into two identity groups: the educated elites who imagined themselves to be sub-Japanese and the underclass majority who had not yet forgotten their Han-ness.”

Though during WWII the Japanese banned the use of Chinese in an attempt to foster a deeper Japanese patriotism, at first the colonial government allowed the Taiwanese to keep their own culture and language. They hoped that the Confucian values common to both cultures, coupled with continued Japanese rule, would cause the Taiwanese to gradually develop into true Japanese subjects. Attracted by the industrial modernity and ‘Westernization’ of Japanese culture, many Taiwanese intellectuals embraced Japanization to some degree. Yet according to the authors, “what developed under Japanese rule was not a simple relationship of oppressive subjugator and the resisting subjugated, but rather a struggle by the Taiwanese people to form a Taiwanese identity while intentionally assimilating the Japanese ideology imposed on them.” With the arrival of the printing press from Japan, literary periodicals and newspapers became popular among both elite and lower-class Taiwanese. The authors estimate that by 1930, “in Asia the literacy rate in Taiwan… was second only to that of Japan.”

The “shared cultural experience” of print media, in addition to creating the first Taiwanese “public sphere,” led “the Taiwanese masses… to imagine that they belonged to a single community” and so was instrumental in establishing a Taiwanese identity.

However, due to the fact that they were subject to more intense brutality and discrimination at the hands of the Japanese, the lower classes on Taiwan did not as easily forego their traditional culture. According to the authors, this gave rise to two kinds of literature: “that of the masses and that of the intellectuals. The mass genre underlined the socioeconomic predicaments of minority groups – mainly the poor and women who were traditionally bound… while the intellectual genre constituted a grand narrative of elite immersion into Japanese identity.”

Generally speaking, the result of this dichotomy was that the upper classes on Taiwan embraced modern Japanese education while the lower classes protected traditional Taiwanese culture.

The results of this distinct cultural combination were apparent upon the arrival of the Nationalist government in Taiwan at the end of WWII. Writer Wang Baiyuan voiced the feelings of many Taiwanese: “Though Taiwan was under oppressive Japanese imperialism, it has lived through half a century in a highly developed industrial capitalism. Its consciousness, social institutions, and political inspiration all came out of an industrial society.” China, by comparison, was still an “underdeveloped” agricultural society. Taiwan’s unique blend of Japanese modernity and Chinese tradition would serve to distinguish Taiwan from mainland China well into the next half-century.
 
@TaiShang , have you read the works of Liao Ping-hui and David Der-Wei Wang ? They authored an excellent piece titled "Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule : 1895 - 1945."

8227542553.jpg


Liao Ping-hui and David Der-wei Wang (ed.), Columbia University Press, New York: 2006. 416 pp.

Taiwan’s unique colonial history, a “historical period most consequential to the formation of the complex identity of the island,” is difficult to view using the standard lens of contemporary colonial and post-colonial studies. Unlike most colonizing governments of the time, the Japanese government on Taiwan conducted meticulous censuses, resulting in “one of the most accomplished feats of data-collection from any population, at any given time, anywhere in the world.” From a theoretical perspective, this demonstrates significantly that a colonizing government does not necessarily need to distort truth in order to govern; rather, through illuminating data on everything from land rent to population to number of cows, the Japanese colonial government was able to control every aspect of life in the colony. This, the authors say, illustrates “the close relation between power and knowledge.”

The Japanese mechanism of control over Taiwan comprised the following: 1) exchange and mediation with native Taiwanese elites, in order to ensure their collaboration; 2) disciplining and training, aimed at schoolchildren and students, which via rituals and education strove to create a disciplined imperial subject body; and 3) punishment and threat, via military and police force, which maintained public order. By allowing members of the elite landowning class to keep their land, and by providing their children with educational opportunities, the Japanese colonial government effectively achieved what the authors call a “weak hegemony” by polarizing the Taiwanese “into two identity groups: the educated elites who imagined themselves to be sub-Japanese and the underclass majority who had not yet forgotten their Han-ness.”

Though during WWII the Japanese banned the use of Chinese in an attempt to foster a deeper Japanese patriotism, at first the colonial government allowed the Taiwanese to keep their own culture and language. They hoped that the Confucian values common to both cultures, coupled with continued Japanese rule, would cause the Taiwanese to gradually develop into true Japanese subjects. Attracted by the industrial modernity and ‘Westernization’ of Japanese culture, many Taiwanese intellectuals embraced Japanization to some degree. Yet according to the authors, “what developed under Japanese rule was not a simple relationship of oppressive subjugator and the resisting subjugated, but rather a struggle by the Taiwanese people to form a Taiwanese identity while intentionally assimilating the Japanese ideology imposed on them.” With the arrival of the printing press from Japan, literary periodicals and newspapers became popular among both elite and lower-class Taiwanese. The authors estimate that by 1930, “in Asia the literacy rate in Taiwan… was second only to that of Japan.”

The “shared cultural experience” of print media, in addition to creating the first Taiwanese “public sphere,” led “the Taiwanese masses… to imagine that they belonged to a single community” and so was instrumental in establishing a Taiwanese identity.

However, due to the fact that they were subject to more intense brutality and discrimination at the hands of the Japanese, the lower classes on Taiwan did not as easily forego their traditional culture. According to the authors, this gave rise to two kinds of literature: “that of the masses and that of the intellectuals. The mass genre underlined the socioeconomic predicaments of minority groups – mainly the poor and women who were traditionally bound… while the intellectual genre constituted a grand narrative of elite immersion into Japanese identity.”

Generally speaking, the result of this dichotomy was that the upper classes on Taiwan embraced modern Japanese education while the lower classes protected traditional Taiwanese culture.

The results of this distinct cultural combination were apparent upon the arrival of the Nationalist government in Taiwan at the end of WWII. Writer Wang Baiyuan voiced the feelings of many Taiwanese: “Though Taiwan was under oppressive Japanese imperialism, it has lived through half a century in a highly developed industrial capitalism. Its consciousness, social institutions, and political inspiration all came out of an industrial society.” China, by comparison, was still an “underdeveloped” agricultural society. Taiwan’s unique blend of Japanese modernity and Chinese tradition would serve to distinguish Taiwan from mainland China well into the next half-century.

Yes, I know of the historical development. In fact, I did a paper on this and also made a presentation at a conference on Taiwan's development under Japanese occupation. The physical improvement cannot be denied. Nonetheless, in the final analysis, it was still an occupation and is seen and taught as such.
 
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