On the eve of the International Olympic Committee's decision to award the 2020 Summer Games to Tokyo, Seoul's abrupt import ban on all fisheries products from Fukushima and seven other Japanese prefectures was clearly a response to public concerns about radiation spewing into the ocean.
Here, though, it looked like a blatant attempt to capsize Tokyo's bid after what has been a particularly ugly year in the ongoing feud between South Korea and Japan. The two sides have never managed to resolve historical grievances arising from Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and a smoldering territorial dispute over the Takeshima/Dokdo islands in the Sea of Japan/East Sea.
At the 2012 London Olympics, a Korean soccer player celebrated victory over Japan by holding aloft a banner proclaiming sovereignty over the Dokdo Islands only hours after President Lee Myung Bak became the first serving leader to land on the Korean-controlled islets.