A Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer flying the controversial Rising Sun flag entered a South Korean port Monday to attend a naval drill scheduled for later this week, amid recovering ties between the two neighbors.
South Korea's effective acceptance of the port call by the MSDF in Busan despite the ship bearing the flag, viewed by critics as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism, suggests that Seoul no longer considers it problematic.
Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula for 35 years from 1910. The flag was used by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy until the end of World War II in 1945.