S. Korea - China ties at best in history

President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye greet children during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Thursday. [Photo/Agencies]

President Xi says China-S. Korea ties at best in history

Chinese President Xi Jinping has returned to Beijing after a state visit to South Korea. On Friday, ...

Chinese FM: Xi Jinping´s visit a new milestone in ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping has wrapped up his two-day state visit to South Korea. On the flight ho...

Chinese president delivers speech to students and politicians

S. Korean officials and students react to Xi´s speech

During his visit, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at Seoul National University. He talked ab...

Xi's visit a new dawn for China-ROK ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the Republic of Korea (ROK) could be the beginning of a new era in China-ROK relations.

Agreements reached during his visit include deals for the launch of RMB clearance in Seoul, political and security cooperation, and expanded people-to-people exchanges.

The visit has plotted a clear course for the future of relations, according to Wang Fan of the China Foreign Affairs University.

ECONOMIC COOPERATION

"Many issues that had been idling were discussed, with solid results," said Wang.

On Thursday, China and ROK agreed on direct trading between the RMB and won, the ROK currency, and signed a deal on renminbi (RMB) clearing in Seoul. Eliminating the need to exchange through U.S. dollars will save on transaction fees and hedge against foreign exchange volatility.

Beijing and Seoul also agreed to try to conclude FTA negotiations before the end of this year.

"The positive attitude to a free trade agreement will set a good example for other countries in East Asia," said Wang. Once established, the agreement will contribute to the progress of a China-Japan-ROK FTA and economic integration.

While the achievements in currency and trade are a natural result of increased economic exchange, Wang believes they were facilitated by Xi's visit.

China is already the ROK's largest trading partner and largest market for Korean exports, while ROK is China's third most important trading partner and was the fifth biggest source of foreign investment in 2013. Two-way trade totaled 274 billion U.S. dollars last year, and the leaders have promised a rise to 300 billion U.S. dollars by 2015.

TRUST AND REGIONAL STABILITY

Thursday's joint statement declared denuclearization and peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula to be in the common interests of all countries involved in the six-party talks.

The six-party talks, involving China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Japan, the ROK, Russia, and the U.S. have been suspended since late 2008.

Xi told Park that China and ROK should become partners that share common development, commit to regional peace and Asia's revitalization, and boost world prosperity. Beijing and Seoul share an unavoidable responsibility to maintain regional tranquility.

PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE EXCHANGE

Both sides will celebrate the Year of Chinese Tourism in ROK in 2015 and the Year of South Korean Tourism in China in 2016 and elevate personnel exchanges to 10 million in 2016.

The two sides reached a consensus on waiving visas for service passport holders and decided to gradually expand visa-free coverage.

"People-to-people exchanges are already in a very good phase," said Wang. "These measures ensure the exchange will be continued."

Chinese and South Koreans made a record 8.22 million trips to each other's countries last year. More than 60,000 Chinese students are studying in ROK, which has the same number of students in China.

The two countries also pledged cooperation in such areas as public diplomacy, culture, film production, panda research, protection of cultural heritage and hosting sports events.

"These agreements create a favorable atmosphere for deepening mutual understanding between the two nations," said Wang. - Xinhua

Xi's South Korea trip hailed for boosting ties

Commentators laud prospects of an enhanced bilateral relationship.

President Xi Jinping's just-concluded two-day visit to South Korea has boosted ties and contributed to regional peace and stability, analysts say.

Kim Han-kwon, director of the Center for China Studies at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies in South Korea, said Xi's visit has deepened the two countries' cooperation in such fields as security, economics and culture.

"It is a boost not only to the political trust between leaders of the two countries but also to the friendship between the two peoples," he said.

The director called on both nations to maximize their common core interests, put aside differences and seek common ground.

Cha Jae-bok, a researcher with the Northeast Asian History Foundation of South Korea, said Xi's visit is of great significance to relations, and especially economic ties.

During the visit, the two sides signed a deal on establishing arrangements for the Chinese yuan's clearance in Seoul and agreed to push for the completion of negotiations on a free-trade agreement by year-end.

Those decisions will boost South Korea's financial markets and promote the process of economic integration among Asian countries, Cha said.

Shin Seong-ho, associate dean of the Office of International Affairs at Seoul National University, said Xi's speech at his university gave a broad and in-depth blueprint of the development of Asia and the whole world, rather than solely focusing on South Korea-China ties.

Kyung Hee University professor Ha Young-ae said the visit has bolstered South Korean public confidence in ties.

Japanese political commentator Jiro Honzawa said Xi's visit could serve to contain Japan's right wing. The deepening of ties could help safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and all of East Asia, he said.

His views were shared by Qian Feng, vice-director of Thailand's Chinese-language newspaper Asian Daily.

"The two heads of state reached consensus on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which laid a foundation for regional stability," he said.

During his South Korea visit on Thursday and Friday, Xi met with a number of South Korean leaders and politicians, and the two sides confirmed over 90 cooperation programs covering 23 fields.

Source: China Daily/Asia News Network

Australian 'racist rant woman'; AUD goes down under

Australian police have charged a woman for racially abusing passengers on a train after a video recording her tirade was posted online and went viral, sparking a social media backlash.

The 55-year-old, named by Australian media as Karen Bailey, was arrested late Thursday after allegedly launching an expletive-filled rant at young children and an Asian woman during a Sydney train journey.

New South Wales police said she was charged with offensive language and will appear in court later this month.

Bailey started to scream at two children aged seven and 10 after she boarded the train, telling their mother to "getting your fucking bogan children off the seat", the mother, Jade Marr, told the Newcastle Herald.

"It was unbelievable to think somebody would say those things and act like that," Marr said.

The Australian slang term "bogan" roughly translates as "trashy".

Bailey then turned her attention to other passengers as they filmed her outburst, telling a man beside an Asian woman that "he can't even get a regular girlfriend, he's got to get a gook".

The term gook is a disparaging term to describe Asians. Bailey also mocked the Asian woman's accent and pulled back her eyes to ridicule her features.

The video, which was posted on YouTube by a passenger on Wednesday, had been viewed more than 250,000 times by Friday morning and attracted almost 1,000 comments.

Most of the comments criticised Bailey for her outburst, although several were supportive of her remarks.

Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said on Twitter that "there is no excuse for acts of racial insult, humiliation and intimidation".

"When confronted with such conduct, everyone should consider a response, including reporting it to a relevant authority," he wrote.

Bailey told media group Ninemsn she was having a "really, really rotten day" and "it's awful what I said to that woman, I do agree".

"There's no excuse to rant at people like that," she said. "It's awful and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, regardless of any race."

Bailey initially gave her name as Sue Wilkins to passengers and some media outlets once the video of her rant went viral.

The incident came two years after a French-speaking woman singing on a Melbourne bus was told by a man to "speak English or die" in another video posted on the Internet that went viral.

Two Chinese students were burned, beaten and racially abused on a Sydney train in the same year, sparking an uproar on China's social media sites.

Source: AFP

Australian dollar goes down under
  
Currency in biggest drop since January

Stevens: 'Most measurements would say it is overvalued, and not just by a few cents' - Bloomberg

CANBERRA: Glenn Stevens’ renewed jawboning of the Aussie pushed it toward the biggest two-day drop since January as the central bank governor said investors were underestimating chances of a significant fall in the currency.

“Most measurements would say it is overvalued, and not just by a few cents,” Stevens said in the text of a speech delivered in Hobart.

“We think that investors are underestimating the likelihood of a significant fall in the Australian dollar at some point.”

The Aussie - which has traded as high as about US$1.11 and as low as 77 US cents in the past five years - fell 0.8% on Wednesday, continuing a retreat from an almost eight-month high.

The elevated currency has impeded efforts to stimulate non-mining areas of the economy with record-low interest rates.

“The speech represents the start of a new journey down the road of jawboning,” Stephen Walters, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s chief economist in Australia, wrote in a note. “The gap between AUD and commodity prices remains unusually wide, so the new adventures of jawboning likely will continue.”

Walters said he expects the RBA will hold the benchmark cash rate steady at 2.5 % for at least another year, “but remain of the view that a rate cut in the near term remains more likely than a hike.”

The Reserve Bank of Australia kept its benchmark steady for an 11th month on July 1 and flagged a period of steady borrowing costs.

“Investors in their search for yield and in the very low volatility world that we presently live in where people think that the risk of anything going wrong seems to have completely gone away, I think that’s over optimistic,” Stevens said in response to a question on the currency yesterday.

“And I think part of those are underestimation of the likelihood of the Aussie going down at some point, and possibly quite materially.”

The Australian dollar had gained almost 8% since the RBA moved to a neutral bias in February this year.

It traded at 93.68 US cents at 4:48 pm in Sydney, from 94.30 cents before Stevens’ speech was released.

The comments onthe Aussie are “clear jawboning,” said Sue Trinh, a senior currency strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. “His comments were taken as noticeably more dovish than what the market was geared up for.”

Stevens said language in recent statements about stability of interest rates was intended to clarify that the central bank did not think a higher benchmark was imminent.

“Overall, I judge that language to have served its intended purpose,” he said.

“Present market pricing suggests that market participants expect interest rates to remain low for some time yet.”

Changes in language should be expected to continue over time as more information becomes available, he said.

Long before any rate increase is considered the board would probably “revert to the more normal formulation that the stable policy settings ‘remained appropriate’ or something like that,” he said.

— Bloomberg

Japanese World War II criminals' confessions released

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   Video: Japanese World War II criminals' confessions released

   After the end of World War Two, when Japanese war criminals were apprehended and interrogated, they wrote confessions.
   
   

   More documents decoded to reveal Japan´s war crimes

   An archive bureau in northeast China is drawing together experts to decode a vast number of document...
   
   BEIJING, July 3 -- Confessions made by 45 Japanese war criminals tried and convicted by military tribunals in China after World War II (WWII) were published online on Thursday.
   
   Handwritten confessions, along with Chinese translations and abstracts in both Chinese and English, have been published on the website of the State Archives Administration, said the administration's deputy director Li Minghua at a press conference on Thursday.
   
   "These archives are hard evidence of the heinous crimes committed by Japanese imperialism against the Chinese," Li said.
   
   "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, disregarding historical justice and human conscience, has been openly talking black into white, misleading the public, and beautifying Japanese aggression and its colonial history since he took office," Li told reporters.
   
   "This challenges WWII achievements and the post-WWII international order.
   
   "The administration has made them available online before the 77th anniversary of the July 7 incident to remember history, take history as a mirror, cherish peace... and prevent the replay of such a historical tragedy," Li added.
   
   The July 7 incident, or the Lugouqiao Incident, in 1937 marked the beginning of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which lasted eight years.

China began publishing "confessions" of 45 convicted Japanese World War II criminals on Thursday, officials said, in Beijing's latest effort to highlight the past amid a territorial dispute between the two.

• PHOTOS

This file photo shows a man looking at a painting depicting civilians fleeing Shanghai during the war, at the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing. (AFP PHOTO/Frederic J. BROWN)

• Enlarge
• Caption 

BEIJING: China began publishing "confessions" of 45 convicted Japanese World War II criminals on Thursday, officials said, in Beijing's latest effort to highlight the past amid a territorial dispute between the two.

The documents, handwritten by Japanese tried and convicted by military courts in China after the war, are being released one a day for 45 days by the State Archives Administration (SAA), it said in a statement on its website.

In the first, dated 1954 and 38 pages long, Keiku Suzuki, described as a lieutenant general and commander of Japan's 117th Division, admitted ordering a Colonel Taisuke to "burn down the houses of about 800 households and slaughter 1,000 Chinese peasants in a mop-up operation" in the Tangshan area, according to the official translation.

Among a litany of other crimes with a total toll in the thousands, he also confessed that he "cruelly killed 235 Chinese peasants seeking refuge in a village near Lujiayu".

He also "ordered the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Squad to spread cholera virus in three or four villages".

The document, which is littered with descriptions of "Japanese imperialists", appeared to have been written by someone with native-level command of Japanese, said one Japanese journalist who saw it.

However, some of the sentences were very long and contained multiple clauses, possibly indicating it had gone through several drafts.

It was not clear whether Suzuki's or the other yet-to-be-published confessions -- all of them relating to 45 war criminals put on trial in China in 1956 -- were previously publicly available.

Suzuki was held by Soviet forces at the end of the conflict and transferred to Chinese custody in 1950, earlier Chinese documents said, adding that he was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the court and released in 1963.

The publication of the confessions comes as Tokyo and Beijing are at odds over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea, and as Beijing has argued that a reinterpretation of Japan's pacifist constitution could open the door to remilitarisation of a country it considers insufficiently penitent for its actions in World War II.

China regularly accuses Japan of failing to face up to its history of aggression in Asia, criticism that has intensified since the democratic re-election in December 2012 of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has advocated a more muscular defence and foreign policy stance.

China was outraged in December last year when Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of Japan's war dead, including several high-level officials executed for war crimes after World War II, are enshrined.

"These archives are hard evidence of the heinous crimes committed by Japanese imperialism against the Chinese," the SAA's deputy director Li Minghua was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, disregarding historical justice and human conscience, has been openly talking black into white, misleading the public, and beautifying Japanese aggression and its colonial history since he took office," Li said.

The SAA said the documents were being released to mark the 77th anniversary Monday of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, a clash between Chinese and Japanese troops near Beijing, commemorated as the start of what is known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which ended with Tokyo's World War II defeat in 1945.

- AFP/xq/Channel News Asia

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Japan's move escalates regional tension, signals fascism emergence: foreign experts

Foreign analysts and scholars have harshly criticized a resolution passed by the Japanese cabinet on Monday to allow it a larger military role in Asia, saying it will escalates regional tensions and is a sign of fascism emergence.

The resolution, which allows Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense by reinterpreting the pacifist Constitution, greenlights Japan to take military action to defend other countries even though the nation itself is not under attack, marking a major overhaul from Japan' s postwar security policy.

"Japan is changing," warned Shada Islam, the director of Brussels-based Policy, Friends of Europe in a written interview with Xinhua.

The move is part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to transform Japan into a "normal country" when it comes to defence and security, said Islam, adding that he has also pushed through a law to strengthen control of state secrets, created American-style National Security Council, and lifted Japan' s self-imposed restriction on exporting weapons.

Abe's so-called "proactive pacifism" is clearly not popular at home and he has had to abandon his original plan to secure direct constitutional revision -- but this move should reassure the United States that Japan is taking on some responsibility for its own defence, she said.

Public opinion in Japan will continue to act as a brake on some of the Abe's more ambitious plans, so Abe will have to carefully balance his policies, she said, adding that the resolution "will certainly not enhance security and could increase tensions in northeast Asia."

It is absurd for Japan to allows collective self-defense, said Enes Begicevic, a journalist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, adding that Japan's move will lead to regional instability.

"This constitutional change is both historic and worrying as it moves one of the pillars which has maintained the balance of peace in East Asia since the end of the Second World War," said Augusto Soto, professor of ESADE institution of Ramon Llull University and Director of Dialogue with China Project.

This measure could have the effect of destabilizing Asia and the Pacific and this is understood by an important part of public opinion in Japan which is against the Abe administration. However, this opinion does not have the political power to stop the Japanese government's initiative, he said.

In the face of this situation China could launch a political offensive in order to try and convince Japanese public opinion that the announced measure goes against Japanese interests, he advised.

"The new interpretation of the constitution that Japan's cabinet has adopted now may do little good to the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region," Angel Maestro, a Spanish columnist of the Financial World and a expert on asian affairs.

Japan's neighbors may worry this is the sign of a new rise of the fascism in Japan's Political Arena. These countries may strengthen their defense forces as insurance against the possibility that Japan has chosen an expansionist foreign policy as it did during the Second World War, which would raise tensions in the region and escalate conflicts that already exist, he said.

"I think it may increase the historical mistrust that Japan already faces from its neighboring countries, especially China and Korea, about its military intentions," said Piin-Fen Kok, Director of China, East Asia and United States Program with the EastWest Institute.

It' s up to Japan to explain clearly to its neighbors why it is doing this, and why this is good for regional and global security. Japan also needs to provide assurances to its neighbors that it will not revert to its militaristic past, Kok said.

"Collective self-defense is a compromise born from Shinzo Abe's political will, who leads a group of people that don't represent the mainstream of Japanese politics," Professor Axel Berkofsky, senior associate research fellow of Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) has told Xinhua.

"It is funny to say that Japan should regain the respect of the world. It was just saying: It's a weak commitment, a political move, a dream, a vision of Abe himself," he added.

- Xinhua (Editor:Wang Xin、Huang Jin)

Japan’s removal of ban on collective self-defense stirs international unease

The Japanese cabinet has approved a resolution that would allow the country to exercise the right of collective self-defense by reinterpreting the Pacifist Constitution.

The resolution sets three conditions that would enable exercise of the right including "clear danger" to the lives of its people due to armed attacks on Japan or "countries with close ties".

The move is an overhaul of Japan’s exclusively defense-oriented security policy after World War II and over half of Japanese are against it.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that China is opposed to Japan's pursuit of its domestic political goals by deliberately inventing a "China threat", and urged Japan to respect the legitimate security concerns of its Asian neighbors and deal prudently with relevant issues. He said that Japan must not undermine China's sovereignty and security interests, nor should it harm regional peace and stability.

Japan’s removal of the ban on collective self-defense comes at a time of strained Sino-Japan relations, said Yuan Yang, a researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences of PLA. According to Yuan, China’s rapid economic and military development is the motive behind Japan’s move to constrain China.

Yuan Yang believes that lifting the ban on collective defense would ease certain restrictions on the Japanese military forces and might lead to gradual expansion of its military capability.

Yuan points out that Japan’s emphasis on "countries with close ties", rather than confining itself to its allies, increases the possibility of conflict between China and Japan. There is now the possibiltiy that the two countries might clash over issues related to third parties as well as the Diaoyu Island issue and other issues in the East China Sea.

Zhou Yongsheng, a professor with the China Foreign Affairs University, has also noted that the most serious consequence of removing the ban on collective self-defense might be a military alliance betweeen Japan and countries like the Philippines and Vietnam.

Faced with this situation, China needs to show the world that with peaceful development as its basic state policy, it will never pose any threat to other countries. It should try to unite all peace-loving forces, especially peace forces in Japan, to prevent these Japanese government moves. But China also needs to make it clear to the world that with its own strengthened military forces, it has nothing to fear from the provocative actions of other countries. - (People's Daily Online)

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The Japanese cabinet's approval Tuesday of the right to collective self-defense is a major shift of Japan's defense policy.

Japan's Peace Constitution states the self-defense forces can only adopt an exclusively defense-oriented policy. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had intended to overturn the constitution, but due to strong domestic opposition, he reinterpreted the constitution to allow Japan to defend its allies.

Generations of Japanese right-wing politicians have staged a relay race to amend the pacifist constitution. They proclaimed the right to send soldiers overseas, and now it is the right to exercise force. Abe has almost fulfilled this task, and the Peace Constitution will become nothing but a figurehead.

Abe and his followers are eager to free Japan from the restraints imposed by its defeat in World War II. The US aims to contain China by making use of Japan, which provides room for Abe's strategic ambition. Japan's aggression, previously restrained, has gradually awakened. The US has been quite aware of this, but it believes such a Japan suits its interests.

In the near future, Japan will be cautious in exercising the right of collective self-defense, but it's hard to say in a few years' time. Both Tokyo and Washington wish to see more disturbances in Asia, as the US hopes it will hinder China's rise and Japan wants to seek opportunities to realize its rise both politically and militarily.

China needs to expose the Japanese rightists' evil intent. Although South Korea also feels disgusted by Japanese right-wing forces, it will not stand up in opposition to Japan. Seoul is wary of its distance from China, Japan and the US.

We should not be too optimistic about the opinion war between China and Japan. To count on international opinion to press Japan has been proved unpractical, because the US and the West have no intention to stop Japan, despite their awareness of Japan's dirty tricks. China should avoid a worse situation when it has to make strategic compromises with Japan in spite of Japan's wrongdoings.

An aggressive Japan is nothing to be afraid of. China can well manage the security risks an overweeningly ambitious Japan poses. As long as China continues to rise, the US will deploy more forces in Asia. But between Beijing and Tokyo, Beijing has strategic advantage and is able to deter Tokyo.

With the increase of Japan's military moves and the intensifying of confrontation between China and Japan, the region will face the pressure and new strategic elements are likely to emerge.

It's almost 70 years since the end of WWII, but Japan has apparently forgotten about its past. The Japanese people have found every reason for their burning nationalistic ambitions.

Japan's victorious past has gradually turned into the policies and actions of the Japanese government. It's hard to say how far it will go, but what we need to do is to be ready in a way that makes Japan feel daunted.

Source: Source:Global Times Published: 2014-7-2 0:13:01

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