Territorial dispute threatens six party talks
Updated
South Korea has threatened to stop cooperating with Japan in six-party talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme, if a territorial dispute over some islands worsens.
Ambassador Kwon Chul-Hyun who was recalled to Seoul earlier this week, said South Korea might consider withdrawing from the talks, if public opinion demanded it. South Korea has already rejected a Japanese proposal for foreign ministerial talks next week on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Singapore.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Scott Bruce, Korea specialist at the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco
LAM: Scott, given that the territorial dispute is a long-running one, why is South Korea raising the stakes now?
BRUCE: Well ultimately, this is not a dispute just about the islands. Islands is also a generous term, pile of rocks would also be an accurate description. Really what we see here from the South Korean side is the response that it's not just about the islands themselves, but America's station of the heavy handed history in the power of East Asia. Remember, Japan colonised the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and the memory of that occupation has been kept very much alive in South Korea. The prevalent interpretation of that era is one of crime and oppression against Korea by the Japanese colonisers. Thus, today, when Koreans look at the Dokdo Island issue, they see it as Japan claiming a part of their country and it provokes a very deep, emotional response.
LAM: And yet this response as you call it came about because of the Japanese education ministry deciding to include the issue in the high school curriculum. Is this yet another I suppose excuse for the South Koreans to show the Japanese that they won't take it lying down?
BRUCE: Well, ironically, the relations between the two countries had been improving over the last year or so. Then this issue came up.
The South Korean president has urged a calm reaction, but we have not seen calm response. You've seen the minister recalled, you've seen egg throwing at the Japanese embassy in Seoul. You even had to remove Japanese ads for condoms from the South Korean subway. Ironically, a relationship that had been very much on the mend is now going dramatically downhill very quickly.
LAM: So how deeply does this feeling run in South Korean society, this feeling that the Japanese have been arrogant in its modern history?
BRUCE: Well it provokes a very deep emotion amongst many. There are some who would like to see calm restored. There are others who have an understanding that South Korea and Japan are significant trade partners now and they share many areas of concerns. But for some, it provokes a very deep emotional issue that they cannot let go of.
LAM: But might there also be domestic, political considerations for President Lee Mung-bak, given the rash of difficulties that he has been facing in the six, seven months that he's been in office?
BRUCE: Yes there has, but you have seen the president attempt to calm the situation and ask for a measured response and ultimately that has not been what's happening in the street. In many ways, it's similar to the beef issue with the United States, where you had an issue between the two countries that sparked a wave of nationalism quite beyond what the government would have liked to have seen within its country.
LAM: And finally Scott Bruce, how crippling will it be for the six-nation talks on the North Korea's nuclear disarmament if Seoul goes ahead and carries out its threat and pulls out of the six-nation talks?
BRUCE: Well, South Korea is not likely at all to withdraw from the six party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. The issue of North Korea is far to important to South Korea to ever walk away from these discussions. One of the things that the recalled ambassador to Japan threatened today is South Korea would not support issues involved in the talks, but peripheral to the issues themselves that are very important to Japan, most notably this involves the issue of Japan, most notably this involves the issue of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Koreans in the '70s and the '80s. So South Korea will not back away from the talks themselves, rather, they will just not support the issues of great concern to the Japanese public and policymakers in response to the diplomatic brouhaha.
LAM: And we've also had reports of South Korean military veterans protesting outside the Japanese embassy, quite gruesomely killing pheasants and dripping their blood on Japanese flags. It's a highly emotional issue, do you think?
BRUCE: Absolutely. What we are seeing is an emotional response that goes deep into the history of South Korea and its relationship with Japan.
