In our life, we find mosquitoes very annoying. They continue to hum around us and make us feel uncomfortable.
On our planet is such a “mosquito,” Japan.
In Asia, at present, Japan is the source of the unstable regional situation.
The DPRK-US summit held in Singapore in June last year created an atmosphere of détente and peace on the Korean peninsula and in the region, the hottest spot in the world. The international community expressed enthusiastic support to it and hoped sincerely that it would lead to a durable global peace and stability.
On the contrary, Japanese politicians expressed their discontent with the announcement of the DPRK-US Joint Statement, and attempted to create bad blood between the two countries; they continue to do so still now. When the voices insisting on lifting the anti-DPRK sanctions are being raised in the international arena, they travelled to different countries; such words as “implementing the sanctions resolutions against the DPRK unconditionally,” “adopting countermeasures against avoiding sanctions,” “imposing maximum pressure” and “separate sanctions” tripped off their tongues; they even claimed that Japan would impose “separate sanctions” against the DPRK. This casts a shadow on the easing of the tense situation on the Korean peninsula and in the region.
When the south Korean Supreme Court passed judgment on the Japanese enterprises’ compensation for the victims of compulsory labour during the Japanese military occupation of Korea, Japan responded by taking extremely stringent measures on export restrictions, causing a stir in all parts of south Korea and arousing public anger and anti-Japanese feelings; south Korea is witnessing a mass struggles against Japan–demonstrations, announcing statements, interviews, boycott of Japanese goods, cancelling the trips to Japan and candlelit vigils.
Not only on the Korean peninsula but anywhere Japan is involved, situations are aggravated and there are troubles.
Another characteristic of the Japanese politicians is that they are stubborn like a mosquito.
They always turn a deaf ear to the demands of the international community.
Till today after a century, Japan denies the heinous unethical sexual-slavery crime it committed by forcibly conscripting or kidnapping Asian women including 200 000 Korean women and taking them even to battle fields. It insists that Korea’s Tok Islands, China’s Diaoyu Island and Russia’s four islands on the southern tip of Kuril Islands belong to it although the world believes they are not, causing continuous territorial disputes.
Despite being a war criminal state and a vanquished nation, Japan is persistently pushing ahead with its ambition to become a military giant and win the exercise of the “right to collective self-defence.”
In external relations, too, Japan fails to gain international trust. Down through generations, it has survived by fishing in troubled water and with the backing of the others.
This year dramatic events took place one after another on the Korean peninsula and in the region. The first-ever meeting and talks between Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, and Putin, President of the Russian Federation, DPRK visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the third DPRK-US summit held on the Military Demarcation Line at Panmunjom attracted world attention; conspicuous was that Japan was an onlooker. What is important is that none of these countries consider Japan’s involvement in the discussion of the situation on the Korean peninsula as desirable. What is noteworthy is that although Japan is talking aloud about the “blood-sealed ties” with the US, the latter is well aware of Japan’s intentions to make profit in the settlement of the political problems related with the DPRK by siding with the US.
Japan claims that it is ready to pay the charges for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and hints at a “Japan-DPRK summit in Pyongyang,” but this expression of its loneliness is not enough to gain international trust. They know full well that Japan is so changeable and troublesome that it may exert a negative impact on the situation on the Korean peninsula and in the region, and that it is unsuitable to be a diplomatic companion of the “sole superpower”.
Leaders from many countries visit the DPRK, travelling across continents and oceans, and even the US which had been most hostile towards the DPRK held a summit with it.
Japan has advocated on the international arena the “isolation of north Korea,” but what is isolated in the diplomatic activities in northeast Asia is Japan. Immediately after the G20 summit held in Osaka, Japan, Trump headed for Korea and he crossed the demarcation line between the north and south of Korea for the first time in history as an incumbent US president. Witnessing this scene, what impression would the Japanese people have got? They might have thought of the future of their “lonely island” that drifts away from the trend of the times. It would be an unpleasant thing for the Japanese politicians, but they cannot blame anyone.
The Japanese and foreign mass media are commenting on the present status of Japan in a similar vein; worthy of note is that Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, carrying the news of the DPRK-US summit at Panmunjom, commented that Abe’s diplomacy was again placed outside the mosquito net.
