S. Korea, China share 'concerns' on Japan's active military role

BEIJING, July 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's vice defense minister expressed "concerns" over a decision by Japan to expand its military role during this week's high-level defense talks with China's army deputy chief of staff, China's defense ministry has said. Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo and Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of staff of the China's People's Liberation Army, held the one-day talks in Beijing on Wednesday during which they agreed to set up a telephone hotline between their defense ministers. The Japanese Cabinet approved a resolution earlier this month that reinterprets a key article of Japan's pacifist constitution to exercise the right of "collective self-defense," which means that Japan can fight abroad for the defense of its allies if they are under attack. Relations between South Korea and Japan have been frayed seriously in a series of history-related issues, including a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Seoul as a symbol of Tokyo's militarism during World War II. During the Wednesday talks with Wang, Baek "expressed concerns over the Japanese government's insistence on the wrong and backward conception of history and its massive amendment of the defense policy," the Chinese defense ministry said in a statement posted on its website on late Thursday. Baek also "hoped to intensify regional security cooperation with China," the statement said. The remarks by Baek about Japan were not seen in a press statement released by the South Korean government shortly after the Wednesday talks. Wang "expounded China's view on the 'right-wing' political tide of the Shinzo Abe administration," according to the statement. Korea and China both suffered under brutal Japanese rule, with Korea being colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945 and some parts of China being occupied by Japan in the early part of the 20th century. kdh@yna.co.kr (END)