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A Rising Sun Flag on a Japanese warship in Sagami Bay

Japan has decided not to send its warships to a naval review near the South Korean island of Jeju. The recent furor over the Rising Sun Flag has concluded with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) boycotting the event.

“Japan was in a position where it could neither ignore our request for it to refrain from flying the rising sun flag at the International Fleet Review at Jeju nor agree to not fly the flag. So we reviewed the option of Japan participating in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium and other events without sending naval vessels to the fleet review,” a South Korean government official said on Oct. 5. The official added that this decision “was reached through deliberation between officials from both sides.”

The International Fleet Review at Jeju is being held for the third time in South Korea, following previous events in 1998 and 2008. This is the first time that Japan will not be sending warships. Japan flew the Rising Sun Flag at the fleet review during the previous two events.

The South Korean navy had previously announced that 21 warships from 14 countries, including the US and Japan, would be taking part in the International Fleet Review, which is being held at the Jeju naval base from Oct. 10 to 14. But after news broke that JMSDF ships would be taking part in the event under the Rising Sun Flag – a symbol of Japan’s past militarism – strong opposition arose domestically.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded by using diplomatic channels to ask Japan to refrain from flying the flag on its warships, and the South Korean navy also sent an official message to the navies of the 14 participating countries at the end of August requesting that participating warships only fly their national flag and the flag of South Korea, as the host country, on their masts during the naval review, which was effectively a ban on the Rising Sun Flag, the ensign of the JMSDF.

Former Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera recently objected that “flying the [Rising Sun] Flag on JMSDF ships is mandated by [Japanese] domestic law.”

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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