Tabloids brimming with anti-Korea diatribes

Tabloids brimming with anti-Korea diatribes

BY MARK SCHREIBER

Japan Times

October 12, 2013

 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/12/national/tabloids-brimming-with-anti-korea-diatribes/#.Ul0bxRZaZZl

For 11 consecutive days from the start of this month, every front page of the Yukan Fuji, a nationally circulated evening tabloid published by the Sankei Shimbun, was embellished with at least one negative reference to South Korea. Some headline excerpts:

“S. Korea blasts into 20-year-long economic panic. President Park strays from her public commitment. Samsung shares plunge again.” (Oct. 1) 

“S. Korea’s President Park makes self-destructive remark in diplomacy with Japan.” (Oct. 2) 

“S. Korea’s President Park accelerates (her) tyrannical rule.” (Oct. 3) 

“List of toxic foods produced in S. Korea — insecticide found in ‘fresh cucumbers’ ” (Oct. 4). 

“Anti-Japanese radiation propaganda boomerangs on S. Korea’s own marine products industries.” (Oct. 5) 

“Kara breakup drama; final curtain goes down on the Hanryu boom” (Oct. 6) 

And so on.

It was gratifying to see I wasn’t the only one who has taken notice of Yukan Fuji’s obsession. Tokyo Shimbun (Oct. 5) ran a story titled ” ‘Ureru’ susumu gekika, fueru kenkan hodo no ‘naze’ ” (The reason for the advancing intensification and increasingly strong anti-Korean reporting: “It sells”).

When Tokyo Shimbun’s reporter contacted Yukan Fuji for a comment, he was told, dryly, “We are dismally conveying the facts.”

“Anti-Korean stories sell better than those that report amicable ties,” explained an unnamed veteran weekly-magazine reporter. “These sentiments are supported by younger Japanese and are gradually spreading among the older generation as well. And they resonate with editors at the paper in their 30s and under.”

The key word here is kenkan, written with the characters ken (to hate or dislike) and kan, for Kankoku (the Republic of Korea). The term reportedly came into vogue from 2005 in what was to become a four-volume series of manga books by illustrator Sharin Yamano (a nom-de-plume) titled “Ken-Hanryu” (“Hating the Korean Wave”). The comics initially set out to attack TV dramas and other pop culture from Korea, collectively referred to as Hanryu.

“The atmosphere produced by the anti-Japanese/anti-Korean campaigns in the respective media is as bad as I have seen in monitoring the press for over three decades,” remarked Bill Brooks, a former media analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo who now teaches at the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies in Washington, D.C. He described the trend as “sad and disturbing.”

“As one result, the tone and intensity against minority groups in Japan have increased dramatically, in great part because of the use of the Internet by previously marginal hate groups to link to like-minded racists who have organized hate-speech rallies and marches in Korean residential areas.

“Unless there is leadership in both countries willing to make efforts toward reconciliation and mutual understanding, the vicious cycle of distrust, hate and recrimination is likely to careen forward, toward wrecking the bilateral relationship beyond easy repair,” Brooks asserted.

Yukan Fuji has appeared particularly incensed over campaigns by Korean lobbying groups in the U.S. aimed at vilifying Japan, such as by the installation last July of a 500-kg metal statue of a “comfort woman” — as wartime sex slaves were euphemistically called — in Glendale, California’s Central Park.

Jumping into the fray, the Shukan Asahi Geino (Oct. 17) featured a six-page report on how South Korea’s sports reportage is full of fabrications designed to incite readers. It cited the example of a column in the Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo’s online version allegedly quoting baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki as saying, after an international game in 1997, that he wasn’t able to hit the pitches thrown by Korean hurlers because the balls “reeked so much of garlic they made his head swim.” (There is no evidence Suzuki made any such comment.)

Not all reporting on Korea has been negative. Aera (Oct. 7) examined the flareups of nationalistic sentiments at soccer games and soundly denounced the use of sports heros for propaganda purposes. And Flash (Oct. 15) ran a six-page story in FAQ format about the Zainichi (Korean residents of Japan), which largely served to debunk accusations that they were exploiting tokken(special rights), as some right-wing groups have accused them of doing.

Even monthly magazine Sapio, whose October cover story was titled “South Korea can’t become an advanced country,” has moderated its rhetoric somewhat. It quoted blogger Ichiro Yamamoto as saying the vitrolic “hate speech” that has characterized demonstrations by Japanese right-wing groups is undesirable, if for no other reason that “It just gives people ammunition to apply reverse logic and justify anti-Japanese behavior in Korea ‘because the same type of thing is happening in Japan.’ ”

From Oct. 8, Yukan Fuji began a new series by military-affairs analyst Kazuhiko Inoue about the current state of South Korea’s armed forces. Inoue noted with disdain that recently built Korean navy vessels seem to have been purposely christened with names that underscore less-than-amicable relations with Japan, such as the amphibious assault ship “Dokdo,” named after the disputed islands (called Takeshima in Japan), and “An Jung-guen,” a submarine named after the Korean patriot — or “terrorist” depending on who’s talking — who assassinated Meiji Era statesman Hirobumi Ito in 1909.

Along with its bolstered naval budget, Inoue states somewhat ominously, these effectively proclaim that Korea “views Japan as one of its hypothetical enemies.”

ROK-Japan relations alarm U.S.

The most vexing aspect of the current impasse is that neither capital seems to have a scenario for moving forward. 

 

Michael Green

Korea JoongAng Daily

October 15, 2013http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2978840It has been axiomatic for post-war U.S. foreign policy strategy in Asia that the health of Korea-Japan bilateral relations has a direct impact on America’s position in the region. When Korea-Japan relations are tense, pressure on North Korea is diminished, other big powers are tempted to isolate the U.S.-Japan alliance, and trilateral defense cooperation necessary for the security of the Korean Peninsula falters. It’s fair to say that in the second Obama administration, one of the highest priorities in Asia policy has been to help Seoul and Tokyo find a way to improve relations. For that reason, Seoul’s harder line against Japan in various diplomatic meetings this past week came as a real shock.

When Shinzo Abe won the LDP presidency and control of the Japanese government in 2012, the Obama administration didn’t conceal its concern at his provocative statements on Japan’s culpability for wartime aggression and treatment of the people of East Asia. For some commentators in the United States, this was a moral question, but for most foreign policy professionals it was a matter of national interest that Japan not put a wedge in relations with Korea. For example, a group of leading Asia experts published a report at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2012 supporting a more confident Japanese security and foreign policy, but urging Tokyo to put a priority on relations with Korea, with particular reference to questions of history. 

Meanwhile, the Obama administration sent quiet but strong signals to the new Abe administration that gratuitous Japanese gestures, such as revising the 1995 Murayama statement apologizing for the war, would have a direct impact on U.S. national interests and potentially for support for the U.S.-Japan alliance in Congress. 

While some officials and experts worried that Abe would become bolder on these issues after a landslide victory in Japan’s July 2013 Upper House election, the opposite occurred. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary confirmed that the government would stick with current statements of remorse for the past; Abe and his most senior ministers did not go to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in August as some had expected; and Abe put off constitutional revision, making it clear that his highest priority would be revitalizing Japan’s economy. 

Even the narrower goal of recognizing Japan’s right of collective self-defense has been delayed to next summer by Abe, an indication that the Japanese government wants to win more support from its pacifist coalition partner Komeito, and neighboring countries. The U.S. government welcomed Japan exercising its right of collective self-defense under the UN charter, as the U.S.-Japan “two-plus-two” statement indicated last week, since the main purpose would be to strengthen bilateral U.S.-Japan joint planning and operations. On the whole, it seemed that the Japanese government had heeded U.S. advice and at least returned to a status quo ante that might be the basis for steadily improving relations with Seoul.

Last week, however, the administration realized that while they had been working on Tokyo, the Korean side had dug in further. The Blue House decision to publish a detailed rebuke by President Park Geun-hye at Secretary of Defense Hagel’s request to her for improvement in ties with Tokyo after their Oct. 1 meeting was the first blow. Then reports that Park and Abe barely looked at each other during the APEC summit in Bali earlier this week revealed that the leaders’ personal chemistry would not solve the impasse. The Korean Supreme Court ruling on Japanese culpability and editorials attacking the U.S. for supporting Japan’s decision to move forward with the right of collective self-defense added to the complexity of the problem for Washington.

The most vexing aspect of the current impasse is that, unlike Japan-China relations, nobody in either capital seems to have a scenario for moving forward. Progressive Japanese politicians who had once been critical of Abe for his statements on history and eager to move forward with Korea now say that Abe has done his part and the ball is in Seoul’s court. Senior Korean political figures explain that once President Park has made a point of principle - in this case that Abe must do more - she rarely bends. 

Americans are in no position to lecture others about such issues, given the ongoing self-destructive stand-off between the White House and Congress over the U.S. government shutdown. But the administration will have to think of something, because the current situation between Tokyo and Seoul will eventually begin to take a toll on both the U.S.-Japan and the U.S.-Korea alliances. 

*The author is the senior vice president for Asia and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an associate professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.