News Analysis: S. Korea embattled by non-repentant Japan, less-informed U.S.

South Korea is facing a big challenge in diplomacy as the United States, the country's most important supporter in protection from possible nuclear and missile attacks from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( DPRK), is putting stronger pressures on Seoul to tolerate militaristic move by, and strengthen military cooperation with Japan, the past colonial ruler of the Korean Peninsula during World War II.

A total of 1,004 South Korean victims and bereaved families, who were forced to work for Japanese war munitions factories during the devastating war, filed the largest-ever class-action suit of its kind on Tuesday against about 60 Japanese firms, including Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The Asia Victims of the Pacific War Family of the Deceased Association of the Korea filed the damage claim suit, worth about 100 billion won (92 million U.S. dollars), with the Seoul Central District Court.

At least 700,000 young Koreans were lured into hard labor by the Japanese companies, which lied that they would be allowed to go to school in return for the work, during the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The Japanese companies have insisted that the compensation issue was resolved through the 1965 treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan.

The suit mirrored the deeply rooted psychology in Japan, including the "war criminal" enterprises and the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, toward wartime atrocities. Abe returned to power in December 2012, and just a year later, infuriated neighboring countries, especially South Korea and China, by paying tribute to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including 14 convicted Class-A war criminals from World War II.

The "non-repentant" psychology was reflected in comments by close aides to Abe, and even journalists. Chairman of Japan's national broadcaster NHK Katsuto Momii, who raised controversy during his inaugural press conference in January last year, recently discouraged his subordinates from reporting on the victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery, dubbed "comfort women."

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has refused, since her inauguration in February 2013, to sit down face-to-face with Abe as he failed to acknowledge that the sex slaves were forced by " the Japanese government" to serve the Japanese military brothels during World War II. Director-general-level diplomats from the two countries have held several rounds of talks, since April 2014, about the sex enslavement, but no detailed progress was made.

The Abe cabinet sought to pass its skewed view of history down to future generations. Earlier this month, Japan's Education Ministry approved 18 textbooks for middle school students, which laid territorial claims to Dokdo islets, called Takeshima in Japan. Tokyo claimed that it incorporated the pair of rocky islets into its Shimane prefecture in 1905, but Seoul said the islets were the first victim of Japan's imperialistic occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

The United States sow the seeds for the territorial disputes between its major allies. In July 1905, U.S. Secretary of War William Taft secretly met with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Katsura, coming to the conclusion called the Taft-Katsura Memorandum. The secret agreement allowed Japan to become the colonial ruler of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for Japan's acceptance of the U.S. control over the Philippines.

The 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, which formally ended the war between Japan and the Allies, failed to guarantee South Korean sovereignty to the Dokdo islets. Seoul said Dokdo was annexed by Japan in 1905, but Tokyo insisted that the islets were "not included in territory to be returned under the San Francisco Peace Treaty."

The U.S., which contributed to the dispute, seemed to lack understanding of historical sensitivities between Japan and South Korea as Washington pressured Seoul, one of the biggest victim states from the militarized Japan, into tolerating Japan's rearmament. The U.S. demilitarized Japan via "Peace Constitution," which states the latter forever renounces war as a sovereign right. But it is seeking to rearm Japan for the Obama administration's " rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" strategy.

Ahead of his first tour to the two major U.S. allies in Asia since he took office in February, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a written interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun that he "welcomes and supports" Japan's more proactive role in the region and "understands and respects" Japan's security legislation, including the exercising of the right to collective self-defense. The role indicated Japan's rearmament would support the U.S. military presence in Northeast Asia.

Carter said the U.S., Japan and South Korea "must look toward the future" while leaving behind history as the U.S. believes that "potential gains of (trilateral military) cooperation outweigh yesterday's tensions and today's politics." Though he recognized the historical sensitivities between Seoul and Tokyo, Carter stressed the need for enhanced security cooperation between the three allies as a key element of America's pivot to Asia strategy.

The U.S. strategy is ostensibly targeted at nuclear and missile threats from the DPRK, but realistically at the rise of China. Washington wants to use Japan's rearmament as the leverage, forcing South Korea to accept the militaristic move though the peninsula was one of the biggest victimized states. Such American stance was shown in recent comments by senior U.S. officials.

"Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it's not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy," U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Feb. 27, hinting at the political use by President Park of anti-Japan sentiment to lift her approval rating, which has stayed low since the disastrous ferry sinking disaster in April 2014.

When Abe told the Washington Post last month that the comfort women were victims of "human trafficking," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel described it as "positive message " though Abe's remarks dismissed the role of the Japanese government in recruiting the sex slaves. Endi