So far, all three leaderships are busy shoring up their new found positions.... well see if the good will last.
By EVAN RAMSTAD in Seoul, CHESTER DAWSON in Tokyo and BRIAN SPEGELE in Beijing
New leaders in South Korea and Japan on Thursday both said they would seek co-operation to improve recently strained ties, although their statements appeared aimed for the moment at shoring up domestic support and indicated tensions remain.
The election on Wednesday of Park Geun-hye as South Korea's next president and on Sunday of Shinzo Abe as Japan's next prime minister rounded out leadership changes atop the three powers in northeast Asia. Last month, China started a once-a-decade power transition with the selection of Xi Jinping as Communist Party general secretary and successor to former party chief Hu Jintao.
New Korea, Japan Leaders Signal Soft Line - WSJ.com
Final touches of President-elect Park Geun-hye, right, and President Lee Myung-bak are painted in Seoul Thursday.
Diplomatic tensions between the three countries flared in recent months over historical and territorial issues, ranging from the possession of islands to fishing rights to recognition of wartime behaviors.
Even so, all three countries have a stake in keeping stable ties, largely owing to their extensive trade and economic connections and the common security challenge they face in the form of neighbor North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
For its part, North Korea's official state media has said nothing yet about the elections of Mr. Abe and Ms. Park, both conservatives who are wary of Pyongyang's history of broken diplomatic promises. North Korea has praised the power transition in China, the country that is its main political ally and economic benefactor.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Abe issued a statement welcoming the election of Ms. Park and noting that Japan and South Korea "shared values and strategic interests."
He added he would coordinate closely with South Korea to safeguard regional security and solidify ties. "I seek to facilitate a close mutual understanding with President-elect Park to, in a variety of ways, further deepen Japan-South Korean relations," Mr. Abe said.
Ms. Park, who is South Korea's first female leader, touched on regional geopolitics in a speech Thursday morning, the day after her election, though she didn't refer to Mr. Abe's remarks directly.
"I will try to expand reconciliation, cooperation and peace in Northeast Asia based on correct recognition of history," she said, making a reference to a widely held view in South Korea that Japan should make a fresh formal apology for actions during its colonization of the Korean peninsula a century ago, including the use of sex slaves by its military.
"She has stressed the importance of the Korean-Japanese relationship from virtually all angles but at the same time, she has also emphasized the importance of a correct understanding of history in Japan to take the relationship to the next level," said Lee Chung-min, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul and foreign-policy advisor to Ms. Park's campaign.
"She looks forward to a constructive, future-oriented relationship with the incoming Abe government in Japan."
Thursday afternoon, Ms. Park held private meetings with the ambassadors of the U.S., Japan and China to South Korea.
Mr. Abe has a long history of hard-edged comments toward China and South Korea over territorial claims and the revisiting of history. In recent months, when tensions flared between Japan and China over possession of islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, Mr. Abe harshly criticized the then-Tokyo government for not doing enough to defend them.
Even so, when he first served as prime minister in 2006, Mr. Abe had made similarly hawkish remarks about China and then acted quickly to soothe ties with a surprise visit to Beijing, as well as to Seoul.
Mr. Abe is now more likely to act pragmatically with South Korea than China, said Susumu Kohari, a professor of international relations at the University of Shizuoka. "But if he feels provoked by Seoul, then he'll be tempted to set his administration apart from his predecessor's and that could spark a wider conflagration," he said.
One potential flash point comes on Feb. 22, three days before Ms. Park's inauguration. That's the date Japan's southwestern Shimane prefecture celebrates its so-called Takeshima Day, a holiday affirming Japan's claim of the Liancourt Rocks, which South Korea controls and calls Dokdo. Finger-pointing on both sides may cast a pall on the broader relationship.
In Beijing, the focus of China's new leadership has turned largely inward in the month since Mr. Xi took control. The handover of the party reins took place in a year that saw the fall of former Communist Party star Bo Xilai—exposing tensions and ideological divides usually hidden from the public—as well as worries about a slowing economy and rampant corruption.
Mr. Xi has made only scant mention of foreign policy during his first weeks in office, and his views on China's role in the world remains a looming question mark for diplomats and observers.
Still, he has moved to demonstrate China's growing military heft. During a trip to the southern province of Guangdong this month, Mr. Xi's first official visit as party chief, he met military leaders and was shown in state media aboard the destroyer Haikou, part of the South China Sea fleet. In addition to simmering disputes with Japan, China faces territorial tensions with neighbors in the South China Sea including U.S. partners Vietnam and the Philippines.
—Min Sun Lee in Seoul and Yuka Hayashi in Tokyo contributed to this article.
Write to Evan Ramstad at [email protected], Chester Dawson at [email protected] and Brian Spegele at [email protected]
By EVAN RAMSTAD in Seoul, CHESTER DAWSON in Tokyo and BRIAN SPEGELE in Beijing
New leaders in South Korea and Japan on Thursday both said they would seek co-operation to improve recently strained ties, although their statements appeared aimed for the moment at shoring up domestic support and indicated tensions remain.
The election on Wednesday of Park Geun-hye as South Korea's next president and on Sunday of Shinzo Abe as Japan's next prime minister rounded out leadership changes atop the three powers in northeast Asia. Last month, China started a once-a-decade power transition with the selection of Xi Jinping as Communist Party general secretary and successor to former party chief Hu Jintao.
New Korea, Japan Leaders Signal Soft Line - WSJ.com
Final touches of President-elect Park Geun-hye, right, and President Lee Myung-bak are painted in Seoul Thursday.
Diplomatic tensions between the three countries flared in recent months over historical and territorial issues, ranging from the possession of islands to fishing rights to recognition of wartime behaviors.
Even so, all three countries have a stake in keeping stable ties, largely owing to their extensive trade and economic connections and the common security challenge they face in the form of neighbor North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
For its part, North Korea's official state media has said nothing yet about the elections of Mr. Abe and Ms. Park, both conservatives who are wary of Pyongyang's history of broken diplomatic promises. North Korea has praised the power transition in China, the country that is its main political ally and economic benefactor.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Abe issued a statement welcoming the election of Ms. Park and noting that Japan and South Korea "shared values and strategic interests."
He added he would coordinate closely with South Korea to safeguard regional security and solidify ties. "I seek to facilitate a close mutual understanding with President-elect Park to, in a variety of ways, further deepen Japan-South Korean relations," Mr. Abe said.
Ms. Park, who is South Korea's first female leader, touched on regional geopolitics in a speech Thursday morning, the day after her election, though she didn't refer to Mr. Abe's remarks directly.
"I will try to expand reconciliation, cooperation and peace in Northeast Asia based on correct recognition of history," she said, making a reference to a widely held view in South Korea that Japan should make a fresh formal apology for actions during its colonization of the Korean peninsula a century ago, including the use of sex slaves by its military.
"She has stressed the importance of the Korean-Japanese relationship from virtually all angles but at the same time, she has also emphasized the importance of a correct understanding of history in Japan to take the relationship to the next level," said Lee Chung-min, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul and foreign-policy advisor to Ms. Park's campaign.
"She looks forward to a constructive, future-oriented relationship with the incoming Abe government in Japan."
Thursday afternoon, Ms. Park held private meetings with the ambassadors of the U.S., Japan and China to South Korea.
Mr. Abe has a long history of hard-edged comments toward China and South Korea over territorial claims and the revisiting of history. In recent months, when tensions flared between Japan and China over possession of islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, Mr. Abe harshly criticized the then-Tokyo government for not doing enough to defend them.
Even so, when he first served as prime minister in 2006, Mr. Abe had made similarly hawkish remarks about China and then acted quickly to soothe ties with a surprise visit to Beijing, as well as to Seoul.
Mr. Abe is now more likely to act pragmatically with South Korea than China, said Susumu Kohari, a professor of international relations at the University of Shizuoka. "But if he feels provoked by Seoul, then he'll be tempted to set his administration apart from his predecessor's and that could spark a wider conflagration," he said.
One potential flash point comes on Feb. 22, three days before Ms. Park's inauguration. That's the date Japan's southwestern Shimane prefecture celebrates its so-called Takeshima Day, a holiday affirming Japan's claim of the Liancourt Rocks, which South Korea controls and calls Dokdo. Finger-pointing on both sides may cast a pall on the broader relationship.
In Beijing, the focus of China's new leadership has turned largely inward in the month since Mr. Xi took control. The handover of the party reins took place in a year that saw the fall of former Communist Party star Bo Xilai—exposing tensions and ideological divides usually hidden from the public—as well as worries about a slowing economy and rampant corruption.
Mr. Xi has made only scant mention of foreign policy during his first weeks in office, and his views on China's role in the world remains a looming question mark for diplomats and observers.
Still, he has moved to demonstrate China's growing military heft. During a trip to the southern province of Guangdong this month, Mr. Xi's first official visit as party chief, he met military leaders and was shown in state media aboard the destroyer Haikou, part of the South China Sea fleet. In addition to simmering disputes with Japan, China faces territorial tensions with neighbors in the South China Sea including U.S. partners Vietnam and the Philippines.
—Min Sun Lee in Seoul and Yuka Hayashi in Tokyo contributed to this article.
Write to Evan Ramstad at [email protected], Chester Dawson at [email protected] and Brian Spegele at [email protected]
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