"Japan pulls out of naval drills over demands it remove " Topic

…'rising sun' flag

"Japan has withdrawn from an international fleet review this week after rejecting demands that its warship take part without its "rising sun" flag ensign – regarded by many Koreans as a symbol of Japanese militarism and colonial rule.

South Korea – the host nation – had asked all 14 countries sending vessels to the five-day event, which begins on Thursday at a naval base on the island of Jeju, to ensure they display only their national flags and the flag of South Korea.

The rule – in effect a demand for Japan to remove the kyokujitsuki flag from a destroyer due to take part in the exercise – was introduced amid simmering bilateral disputes over Japan's use of Korean sex slaves during the second world war and ownership of a group of islets called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea…."
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Armand

Really?

That's what SK is objecting to?

I hope they get along better with their new, "benevolent" neighbors/masters, the Chinese.

Good luck with that!

It seems like an odd point of contention so many years after the war, but I imagine that it might be similar to how Americans or Europeans might perceive a swastika at a modern western event.

Or people wanting to tear down American civil war statues some 150 years after the events.

People have very long/short/selective memories.

SK had no issues with the flag in 1998 nor 2008, so what has changed?

Japan did the right thing.

Does this also include the USN Ensign being banned if a USN ship were to participate?

If so the USN should also not participate.

xtrema, unlike Japanese forces under the IJN naval ensign, the US Navy under the USN ensign never enacted 35 years of murder and cultural genocide upon the Koreans. Subtle difference, I know.

Edit: and that's without getting into the years of mass murder and genocide the Japanese got up to the previous time they invaded, in the Imjin war. The Koreans have plenty of reason for an aversion to the rising sun flag.

Here's the thing, though. Bronco53: The 'meatball' flag is the national flag, sign of a civilian vessel.

The Rising Sun is the military ensign, sign of a military vessel.

There's a really important bit of international law attached to that.

Let's say that the Japanese agreed to not fly the Rising Sun flag, and flew the meatball instead. Now, every other navy, including the South Koreans, would be entitled to attack the JMSDF ship as an illegally-armed merchant ship. Or as a pirate ship. And there would be nothing that the Japanese could complain about in the attack.

Would be interesting to see what the US opinion of 'Thou Shalt not fly the Rattlesnake Jack' happens to be. Because the Rattlesnake Jack is not the national flag, and is not the RoK flag. But it has to be flown by US Navy ships at anchor, by law. The Rattlesnake Jack is the US military-vessel flag.