Defence
Fearing Korea
If war were to break out on the Korean Peninsula, how would Japan get its 60,000 citizens living in South Korea out of there? Answering that has become ever more pressing for prime minister Shinzo Abe since North Korea’s powerful nuclear test in September and missile test-firings in recent months. It was among the possible scenarios that Abe reportedly discussed with US president Donald Trump in Tokyo on Monday but the logistics go beyond a mass evacuation. While Tokyo hopes to get its Self-Defense Forces involved, many Koreans bristle at the thought of Japanese troops entering South Korea due to Tokyo’s brutal annexation and colonisation of the Korean peninsula in the early 1900s. That leaves Japan dependent on US forces and an approval from South Korea – two obstacles preventing Abe from resolving the issue.