Refuel row: Japan rescinds airbase access to South Korean jets over Dokdo islets dispute

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1. Tokyo has rescinded a plan to allow South Korean military jets to refuel at a base in Okinawa after learning the aircraft had recently flown near the Dokdo islets – rocky outcrops off the Korean peninsula’s east coast that are administered by South Korea but have been claimed by Tokyo since the end of World War II.

   The refuelling stop would have marked the first time South Korean military aircraft had used a Japanese base and was intended as a gesture of growing defence cooperation, according to a report by the Yomiuri newspaper on Monday.

   The news of South Korea’s military manoeuvres near the disputed islets has provoked anger in Japan, with some online users accusing Seoul of being deliberately provocative over an issue that is sensitive for both sides, while others praised Takaichi for being decisive in her response.

   “The Takaichi administration is on solid ground,” one widely shared comment read. “The airspace around Takeshima was violated, and they wanted to use Naha as a gas station for South Korea’s participation in the Middle East Air Show, which has no benefit to Japan.”

   Another post added: “We need to ensure that Takeshima, the name Sea of Japan and the Rising Sun Flag are all correctly recognised without any distortion.”

   Stephen Nagy, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University, said the backlash reflected deeper unresolved tensions, as well as the challenges of insulating forward-looking diplomacy from domestic pressure.

2. I lived and worked in Korea as an English teacher for a year 2009. Early into my time there I was invited on a free bus trip organised by a local school to visit a coastal town with 50 plus other English teachers. As we pulled into the parking lot at our destination, a woman boarded the bus and handed out a bunch of t shirts covered in Korean text. Many of the teachers just blindly put them on. I took a shirt, feigned interest and threw it into my bag. As soon as we disembarked the bus, we were shepherded to a big group of others Koreans with signs and wearing the same shirt. I slinked away and watched from a distance. News crews appeared to film the event, hyper focused on the foreigners wearing the shirts. I later asked my colleagues what the shirt read. It said “Dokdo belongs to Korea” and some other inflammatory comments about Japan.

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