via Khmer NZ
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Today, Aug. 29, marks the centennial of the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1910. This is the first installment of a series on the current state of the two countries' bilateral relationship, which has been evolving rapidly.
Many South Koreans have hated and envied Japan since this country annexed the Korean Peninsula 100 years ago, while many in Japan have looked down on Koreans, but with the recent rise of the South Korean economy, Japan can no longer afford such arrogance.
One recent example took place in Cambodia, a country Japan has thoroughly supported since the end of its civil war in the 1990s. In Sihanoukville, Cambodia's only full-fledged port city, a special economic zone is being developed using part of 20 billion yen in yen loans extended by Japan.
Covering about 70 hectares, the equivalent of 70 baseball fields, the zone is expected to have a profound effect on Cambodia's development.
A senior official at a Cambodian public corporation involved in the development was shocked when an official of Samsung Group, South Korea's largest chaebol, announced that the group wanted to lease all the land in the zone. The special economic zone is scheduled to be completed in autumn next year; not even the rents have been decided yet.
"This can't be. Japan was the country that provided assistance [for the zone]," the official thought. He declined politely but was unable to hide his surprise at Samsung's offer to in effect buy the zone, to take on Cambodia's entire future.
"I think [Samsung] planned to construct factories for TVs and air conditioners, to establish a major base aimed at the global market," he said.
Dalian--in China's Liaoning Province--has been considered a stronghold of Japanese companies. However, Changxing Island, off the coast of Wafangdian in Dalian, looks like a South Korean island.
South Korea's STX Corp., the world's fourth-largest shipbuilding company, invested 3 billion dollars (about 255 billion yen) to build factories there that employ more than 10,000 people. The number is to be increased by another 10,000 within a few years, sources said.
Japanese companies are losing ground to South Korean firms in many places around the world.
In home electrical appliances--an industry Japan has dominated--Samsung Electronics Co. made about 10.93 trillion won (about 780 billion yen) in operating profits in 2009, more than Japan's nine major electric companies combined.
In the same year, South Korea's trade surplus topped Japan's for the first time. The country's living standards are rapidly approaching those of Japan, and confidence is growing.
An increasing number of South Korean intellectuals now say the country's modern history began in the colonial period. It was breaking a taboo to accept this new idea and calmly link South Korea's current situation as an economically strong nation with what it learned from Japan in the past.
"Remarkably, the unilateral condemnation of Japan has faded. This is a great change that I couldn't have imagined," said Prof. Lee Yong Hoon of Seoul University, who advocated this theory in a 2006 book.
The Investigative Commission on Pro-Japanese Collaborators' Property, an organization directly under the South Korean president, ended its activities in July. The commission was set up in 2006 to seize property and other assets from the descendants of people identified as Japanese collaborators.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said the country will become a leading advanced nation.
"We aim to become the world's best in business and sports, and have the No. 1 pop star," a person
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