Kim says U.S. military crucial to Asia stability: daily

0 Comments | Asian Political News, March 16, 1998

TOKYO, March 10 Kyodo

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung said the U.S. military presence in Japan and South Korea is vital to maintaining peace and stability in Northeast Asia, a Japanese daily reported Tuesday.

In an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun on Monday, Kim said the political stability now present in the region would ''immediately collapse'' should the United States withdraw its forces from bases in the two countries.

Kim indicated that the U.S. serves as a linchpin of regional security that, once withdrawn, could trigger an arms race between Japan and China.

Such an event would be destabilizing to South Korea, leaving the country open to influence by four major powers -- Japan, the U.S., China and Russia, he told the Yomiuri at the presidential Blue House.

Kim discussed relations between South Korea and Japan, saying the two peoples do not yet enjoy a satisfactory level of mutual understanding and cooperation even after 33 years of normalized relations.

He expressed dissatisfaction regarding Japan's perception of its wartime conduct and its approach toward ending lingering problems, urging it to take a humanitarian approach toward compensating Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

On Japan's unilateral scrapping in late January of a 1965 bilateral fisheries treaty, Kim said he expects to have an opportunity to exchange honest views with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto when they meet during an Asia-Europe summit in London next month.