Asia: A Treaty for Tomorrow

Of all members of its onetime Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, no nation hates Japan more bitterly than Korea—and the antipathy is mutual. Koreans, still smarting from 35 years of harsh colonial rule by imperial Japan, regard their former masters as a cruel, crafty race bent on reasserting economic domination of their country. To most Japanese, on the other hand, Koreans are senjin—subhumans—personified by the garlic-reeking Korean thugs who rule Tokyo's underworld. Such acid antagonisms are not easily neutralized in an Asia rent by revolution and rising nationalism. Last week, nonetheless, Japan and South Korea took a long step...