Unraveling the Japan-South Korea ““Virtual Alliance””: Populism and Historical Revisionism in the Face of Conflicting Regional Strategies
Domestic politics combined with strategic repositioning toward the U.S. set back ties between Japan and South Korea in 2004––05. Despite the North Korean nuclear crisis and the challenge of shifting great power relations in Asia, as well as closer economic and cultural bilateral ties, politicized forces are pulling the two countries apart.
Korea and the Japan-U.S. Alliance: A Japanese Perspective
Due to the geographical proximity and history, the Korean peninsula has traditionally been and continues to be one of the primary security interests for Japan. The Korean peninsula has been the strategic pivot in Northeast Asia and would directly affect the course of Japan’s own security. The memoirs of Munemitsu Mutsu (late ninteenth-century Meiji-era diplomat) Kenkenroku, a realist classic in understanding Japanese diplomacy toward Korea, depicted how Japan struggled in dealing with Korea during the Sino-Japanese War over the Korean peninsula in the transition to the modern era.1 As one Korea security expert and former military intelligence officer noted, the relationship between Japan and the Korean peninsula has traditionally been described as “shinshi-hosha” in Japanese, “lips and teeth, cheekbone and jawbone” in English, taken from an ancient Chinese phrase—which meant a relationship so mutually dependent that if one falls the other falls with it.2 Since the defeat of Japan in the Second World War and the end of the colonial period, Japan has allied with the United States to deal with security on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia.
Arab Uprisings and the Outstanding Return to Democracy: Tunisia as a Model
In the wake of the Middle Eastern crises, the Tunisian case in focus has been doted as a unique phenomenon being that it was the Genesis of the revolution that ultimately spread across the Middle East like wild fire, but has eventually heralded a new dawn as democracy has incidentally returned to the Empire. This literature therefore looks closely at the extent to which the ‘DignityRevolution’ has been instrumental in the Middle East uprisings, which have brought an end to dynastic autocracies. The literature zeros in on the Tunisian uprising which has attracted global concerns, sympathy and has sparked interests in the international arena. The literature finds that the people hold colossal prospect in the uprising and its resultant effect, as it paved the way for the revolutionist to generate, gather and disseminate information on the condition of the entire region to the international community. The people in this context were of utmost importance and played a very crucial role in the creation of awareness, mobilization of protesters and utmost determining the direction of the uprising and also ensuring a speedy return to democratic rule. The paper submits that the role of the people in ensuring that the ruins of the uprising is not left littering around and democracy restored is highly commendable and should be a model for all other Arab countries involved in the revolution.