Strategic dilemma of Japan in Northeast Asia

The tense situation on the Korean Peninsula last year has highlighted what appears to be Japan' s geo-strategic dilemma in Northeast Asia. Professor Dr Lee Poh Ping explores the topic with me in an exchange. As a matter of historical context , Japan colonized Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, defeated Russia in a naval war in 1904 -1905, marched into Russia' s Far East during the Russian Civil War in 1917 -1923 to back the anti-Bolshevik "Whites", occupied and ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, seized three Northeastern provinces in China and set up a puppet's regime called Manchukuo from 1932 to 1945 as well as attempted to occupy China's mainland in a war from 1937 to 1945.

Tension on Korean Peninsula appears to ease