This editorial is written by Antonio Chiang (江春男) on Taipei Times:
Recently China and South Korea have been leading the drive to prevent Japan from gaining a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has publicly criticized Japan for trying to secure a UN Security Council seat while the Chinese have staged a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations in several major cities in China. These actions are likely to have considerable political ramifications for the East Asian region.
The anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese and Korean public has been smoldering for decades. The flames of this resentment have been fuelled as a result of Japan’s approval of a new history textbook, its constant territorial disputes with neighboring countries, its bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat and annual visits by senior political figures to a Tokyo shrine honoring Japan’s war dead. There are indeed several very intricately intertwined reasons behind the recent wave of anti-Japanese sentiment. But the politicization in China and South Korea of their grievances has left its mark on Tokyo-Beijing and Tokyo-Seoul relations.
