Yoon slammed for ‘kneeling’

Seoul – South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol was in hot water yesterday after comments he made about former colonial power Japan not needing to “kneel down” to improve ties went viral on social media.

Yoon, who is on a six-day state visit to the United States, has made boosting relations with Tokyo a key plank of his administration’s policy as he seeks to increase regional security cooperation in the face of rising threats from North Korea.

Bilateral ties were long strained by lingering issues linked to Tokyo’s brutal 1910 to 1945 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula – including sexual slavery and forced labour – even as Washington has repeatedly urged its two key regional allies to boost cooperation.

Yoon told The Washington Post ahead of his trip that he could not accept the idea that Japan “must kneel because of our history 100 years ago” if ties between the two countries were to be improved.

The comments – including the hashtag #mustkneel – quickly became a trending topic on Korean language social media and Twitter and prompted wall to wall coverage in mainstream media.

Yoon’s office said yesterday that the president had meant “he can’t accept the claim that improving relations with Japan is impossible unless they kneel down in a time of great need for security alliance,” a presidential aide told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It is foolish to render the entire history of cooperating meaningless because of an unfortunate history spanning less than 50 years,” the aide said. –