North Korea states 'nuclear war is unavoidable' as it declares first target will be Japan

[Igel]

64. OR more playing to the base.

In the South, memories are still a bit raw from the Japanese occupation of Korea and the abuses meted out. Stories of young Korean women taken to Japan as sex workers were common not so long ago.

And that's the South, with fairly good relations with Japan. The North's leadership is vitriolically racist and xenophobic to an extreme--whether they actually believe it or just have this as their debate positions is meaningless. It's what they tell their own people. It's good for whipping up more nationalistic rally-round-the-flag jingoism and making the North Koreans the most important people with the most important country on Earth.

This kind of anti-Japanese rhetoric is common. We just don't pay attention and, as Americans, simply can't conceive of something happening that doesn't crucially make us the most important factor in that "something."