![Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha hold a meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2019 (Yomiuri Shimbun photo via AP Images).](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/l_japan-south_korea-01282019-1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
Japan and South Korea are mired in a heated military spat over an encounter at sea last month between a South Korean warship and a Japanese maritime patrol plane. Tokyo claims that its aircraft was threatened by the South Korean ship’s targeting radar for surface-to-air weapons, a charge that Seoul flatly denies. Instead, it accuses the Japanese military of provocatively flying its planes at low altitudes. The escalating feud is further straining an already tense bilateral relationship, as the two sides struggle to resolve difficult historical issues over Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea that have resurfaced in recent months. The […]