Japan and Korea: should the US be worried about their new spat in 2001?

The downturn in relations between Japan and Korea in 2001 largely resulted from new middle school textbooks in Japan, but deeper forces are at work. Public opinion in each country remains negative, while the history question endures in many forms. Close economic ties and deepseated cultural affinity lack indispensable elements of integration. The two states have pursued markedly different geopolitical strategies of late. The North Korean diplomatic initiative of 2000 aroused doubts in each country about the other. Now that the US has declared the North part of an ‘axis of evil’, it must do more to bridge the gap between the South and Japan, finding a way to balance new pressure on the North with suitable enticements that will ease the way for its two allies to work together.