Series of carefully planned provocations hurting Korean people’s past wounds made during the World War II are letting Korean people suspect the fellow US-ally nation in the region. Japanese leaders seem to be unconcerned with the complication and the toxication created by themselves in the East Asian region. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the deeply controversial Yasukuni shrine, honoring not only Japanese veterans but also 14 “Class A” war criminals, Japanese officials’ frequent denial of the apparent war crimes like the Nanjing massacre, and repeated efforts to repaint the facts like the imperial army’s exploit women from various eastern Asian countries as their sex slaves, all of these ongoing and seemingly endless humiliations only make Korean people raise a question if Japan is really a responsible democratic modern neighbor country. There might be many factors that drive Japan into this ultranationalism such as China’s aggressive expansionism and recently asserted China’s air-defense identification zone including some disputed islands. However, normalizing their country out of the World War II country “by using” and even “by creating” conflicts with neighboring nations will fundamentally deteriorate the stability in the region. There are many “smart” alternatives to achieve their goal. Moreover, inflaming wounded sensitivities of neighboring nations never helps Japan achieve the goal. Japan’s normalization will be only accepted after they sincerely prove their responsibility as German did. All the Japan does now prompts conflicts in the region, as they planned. Japanese leader’s recent ultranationalistic actions may look less dangerous than China’s adventurism from the US perspective, but Japan’s implementation of the hate and disbelief will eventually erode the sustainable peace in the region, against US’s interest. Probably, there will be no war in the near future but there may be sizable conflicts triggered by the deterioration in the region.
  Korea needs to improve its fundamentals. As a university professor, I consider that one of most important fundamental aspects needed to be improved in Korea is a higher education system, which is even far behind the OECD standard. Universities, particularly national flagship universities, should be fully funded and supported to have their competitive edges over Japanese universities.