Embattled at Home, South Korea’s Leader Turns on Japan, Stoking Old Hostilities https://t.co/e34eRIlTza
— mozu (@mozumozumozu) 2019年9月1日
With his presidency struggling, Mr. Moon is moving to rally his supporters by tapping into hostility toward Japan, refusing to back down in the trade fight and deploying the country’s military to assert its territorial claims, analysts say.
“As he struggled with domestic problems, he has opened a new front against Japan, inciting anti-Japanese sentiments in order to consolidate his core support base, which has shown signs of weakening” in recent weeks, said Yun Duk-min, a former chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. “He is also using brinkmanship, putting pressure on Japan to back down and at the same time hoping that the United States will intervene.”
Mr. Moon saw his approval ratings in polls climb in July and early this month as tensions with Japan spiked. But those numbers have begun dropping recently after his appointment of Cho Kuk, one of his closest political allies, as justice minister. The domestic news media has been flooded with allegations of ethical lapses in Mr. Cho’s family.
Mr. Moon saw his approval ratings in polls climb in July and early this month as tensions with Japan spiked. But those numbers have begun dropping recently after his appointment of Cho Kuk, one of his closest political allies, as justice minister. The domestic news media has been flooded with allegations of ethical lapses in Mr. Cho’s family.
“His diplomacy is amateurish and emotional, emphasizing national pride only,” Professor Park said.
In stirring up resentment against Japan, Mr. Moon is reverting to a strategy that brought him to power in the first place.
In his 2017 presidential campaign, he lashed out at “chinil” — or pro-Japanese — Koreans who he said collaborated with Japanese colonial masters and later thrived under South Korea’s Cold War-era military dictatorship by rebranding themselves as “anti-Communist” or “industrialist” conservatives. To his supporters, a paragon of such Korean families was his impeached conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, a daughter of the military strongman Park Chung-hee, a former lieutenant in Japan’s imperial army.
When tensions escalated last month, Mr. Cho, then Mr. Moon’s senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, called those who criticized the president and the court ruling “chinil.”
“Progressive South Koreans wonder how long their country should be dragged around,” said Yang Ki-ho, an expert on Korea-Japan relations at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, referring to a growing fatigue over the Trump administration’s heavy-handed treatment.
NYTにしてはめずらしく、韓国に批判的な記事。「Sex slave 」や[forced labor」については相変わらず。
それはいいとして、瀬戸際外交やるところなんて、キタチョーそっくりだね。
