Last week, Shinzo Abe and Park Geun-hye, leaders of Japan and South Korea respectively, met in a trilateral meeting arranged by the US on the fringes of the nuclear security summit at The Hague. That this should have caused any surprise is shocking. How can the prime minister of Japan and president of neighbouring South Korea, both more than one year into office, not have met each other before? So poisonous has the atmosphere in northeast Asia become, laced as it is with historical acrimony and unresolved territorial disputes, that the leaders of Washington’s two most important allies in the region are barely on speaking terms.
上周，在美国的安排下，日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)和韩国总统朴槿惠(Park Geun-hye)，在海牙核安全峰会间隙的一场三方首脑会议上首次会晤。作为两国首脑首次会晤这一事件本身就让人十分吃惊。日本首相和韩国总统都已上任一年多，怎么之前还未举行过会晤？东北亚的政治氛围极为恶劣，再加上历史积怨和仍未解决的领土纠纷，以致两国领导人几乎互不讲话，而两国又是美国在该地区最重要的两个盟国。