Pop Culture to Be First Casualty Of Japan-Korea Chill Over Texts

South Korea will begin to unleash incremental countermeasures against Japan, including banning further imports of Japanese music, after determining that the official Japanese position on a series of middle school history textbooks rejects Seoul's call for revisions.

South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo met Monday with a Japanese delegation delivering an official position on the textbooks and other disputes between the two countries. Afterward, he dismissed a Japanese proposal for new bilateral exchanges.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a blunt statement:

"We cannot accept the duplicity in the Japanese government's position: While stating that its official position lies with the Joint Declaration on Korea-Japan Partnership of 1998 on the one hand, on the other it condones historiography that distorts and glorifies Japan's imperial past, which inflicted indescribable pain and agony so vividly remembered by the Korean people."

A Blue House official promised that "relevant countermeasures" would be taken. "We cannot tolerate distortion and the glossing over of a history of invasion," he said. The government reportedly will postpone the fourth phase, expected about November, of opening domestic markets to Japanese popular cultural items. Japanese music, video and broadcasting programs are highly popular in Korea.

Other sanctions under consideration include refusing to use the term "emperor" in official documents － the Japanese head of state would be called "King of Japan" instead － and working to frustrate Japan's attempts to win a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council.

A second recall of South Korean Ambassador Choi Sang-yong from Tokyo is also under consideration.

Leading government officials gave a frosty reception to the Japanese delegation. "Our people and our government are embarrassed and baffled, and Japan must take responsibility for the decision," Foreign Minister Han told Japanese Ambassador Terusuke Terada and three visiting senior Japanese legislators representing the country's government coalition.

Coming out of the meeting, the three Japanese legislators explained their government's decision to accept only two of the 35 textbook passages South Korea had wanted changed. "We did the best we could in the framework of our system," the leader of the delegation, Taku Yamasaki, said.

The Japanese delegation was denied a meeting with President Kim Dae-jung at the Blue House Monday. A "scheduling conflict" was cited.

A personal letter written by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was delivered to the foreign minister instead. The letter reportedly contains Mr. Koi-zumi's explanations of Japan's positions on the history books, a fisheries dispute involving the South Kuril Islands and Mr. Koizumi's proposed August visit to a Japanese military shrine.

President Kim and Mr. Koizumi will find themselves face to face at autumn meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the enlarged Association of South East Asian Nations including South Korea, China and Japan.

by Lee Chul-hee