安倍晋三派特使赴韩会晤朴槿惠

Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is moving quickly to quell one of several disputes with nearby countries by reaching out to South Korea, calling it Japan's most important neighbor.

为平息日本与邻国间多起争端之中的一起，日本新任首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)迅速行动起来，主动向韩国示好，把它称为日本最重要的邻邦。

On Friday, Fukushiro Nukaga, a Japanese lawmaker with long ties to South Korea, will meet South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye in Seoul and deliver a letter from Mr. Abe. By sending the special envoy, Mr. Abe hopes to signal his desire to mend ties between the two neighbors -- strained in the past year by a territorial dispute and World War II legacy issues.

与韩国长期往来的日本议员额贺福志郎(Fukushiro Nukaga)将在首尔会晤韩国当选总统朴槿惠(Park Geun-hye)，并递交安倍晋三写给她的一份信函。通过派遣这位特使，安倍晋三希望表示出修补两国关系的愿望。在过去的一年，日韩关系因为领土纠纷和二战遗留问题而陷入紧张。

The visit comes just weeks after Mr. Abe's conservative Liberal Democratic Party returned to power with a landslide election victory, ending three years in opposition, and Ms. Park sealed control of the South Korean government for her conservative New Frontier Party with a victory in the country's presidential election.

在此次访问的几个星期前，安倍晋三所在的保守政党日本自民党(Liberal Democratic Party)以压倒性优势赢得选举，重新掌权，结束了为期三年的在野状态。同时朴槿惠赢得韩国总统选举，为她所在的保守政党新世界党(New Frontier Party)取得了执掌韩国政府的权力。

Though the two countries have strong economic ties and share political and security outlooks, several issues of territorial control and historic slights divide them. South Korea's current president, Lee Myung-bak, triggered the most recent flare-up last August by visiting the Liancourt Rocks, a set of islets controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan.

虽然两国经济往来密切，在政治与安全方面有相同的关切，但多个有关领土控制权和历史恩怨的问题使它们势不两立。韩国现任总统李明博(Lee Myung-bak)在2012年8月访问利扬库尔岩(Liancourt Rocks)，引发了两国矛盾的最近一次升级。利扬库尔岩是一片群岛，由韩国控制，但日本也声称是本国领土。

Friday's meeting is unlikely to produce immediate measures to put aside the disputes, analysts said -- for one thing, Ms. Park won't take office until late February.

分析人士说，周五的会晤不太可能马上产生搁置争议的措施，起码朴槿惠要等到2月下旬才会就任。

'Japan will show that South Korea is a strategically important country and that it would be best to improve the relationship,' said Park Cheol-hee, professor of international relations at Seoul National University. 'In order to have solid proposals, there would need to be decisions between Abe and Park, so I don't think they will mention any concrete ideas put forth.'

首尔国立大学(Seoul National University)国际关系学教授朴喆熙(Park Cheol-hee)说，日本将表明韩国是一个具有重要战略意义的国家，最好的选择是增进两国关系。他说，要推出切实可行的方案，安倍晋三和朴槿惠就必须要共同做出决定，所以我认为他们这次不会提到任何切实可行的想法。

Speaking to reporters after visiting Mr. Abe at his home on Wednesday, Mr. Nukaga, a former finance minister, said Mr. Abe asked him to tell Ms. Park, 'South Korea is Japan's most important neighbor.'

曾任财务大臣的额贺福志郎周三在国内会晤安倍晋三之后对媒体说，安倍晋三让他告诉朴槿惠，韩国是日本最重要的邻国。

Ms. Park's ability to respond is constrained by a sharp divide in South Korean public sentiment, reflected in the election's outcome. Having won 51% of the vote over a liberal candidate with more nationalist views, she'll face pressure from the other side not to show weakness in the disputes with Japan.

朴槿惠能不能回应，受限于韩国公众情绪的强烈对立。这种对立体现于选举结果之中。在朴槿惠以更加倾向于民族主义的观点获得51%的选票、战胜自由派候选人之后，保守派将要求她不在与日本的争端之中示弱。

For Mr. Abe, the conciliatory gesture toward Seoul contrasts with his confrontational rhetoric before and during Japan's election campaign. The LDP aimed to tap nationalistic sentiment swelled by the territorial spats with South Korea, Russia and China -- and by voter unease over their growing economic power.

在安倍晋三这边，他向韩国摆出的和解姿态跟他在日本选战期间及之前的对抗性言论形成了鲜明对比。自民党在选举中利用了日本民族主义情绪的膨胀。这种膨胀出于日本与韩国、俄罗斯及中国的领土争端，以及选民对这几个国家经济实力增强而产生的不安。

Still, the post-election change is no surprise. Policy watchers had predicted Mr. Abe, once in office, would pursue reasonable policies toward China and South Korea to keep the current tensions from flaring further. As prime minister in 2006, he visited China days after his appointment to mend bilateral relations that had cooled during his predecessor's term.

但选后变调并不奇怪。政策观察者已经预料到，安倍晋三一旦执政，就会推行合理的对华、对韩政策，防止当前的矛盾进一步激化。2006年当上首相之后没几天，他就访问了中国，以修补前一任首相任期内冷却下去的双边关系。

Katsuhiko Togo, a professor at Kyoto Sangyo University and former foreign-ministry official, called Mr. Abe's initial foreign-policy moves a 'promising start.' In an essay for the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu think tank, he wrote that Mr. Abe 'seems to have adopted policies based on pragmatic and creative realism, and not chauvinistic nationalism, as was feared by some before he took office.'

曾任职外务省的京都产业大学(Kyoto Sangyo University)教授东乡和彦(Katsuhiko Togo)将安倍晋三在对外政策方面的早期动作称为一个“有希望的开始。在为檀香山智库太平洋论坛(Pacific Forum CSIS)撰写的一篇文章里面，他说安倍晋三采取的政策似乎是基于求实创新的现实主义，而不是他上任之前一些人担心的盲目爱国主义。

Mr. Abe starts at a disadvantage with the public and media in South Korea, where he's remembered for suggesting in 2007 that there's no evidence that Japan's military forced Korean women into sexual servitude during the World War II era. Those remarks set off a world-wide uproar and led the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution calling on Japan to apologize.

在韩国公众和媒体面前，安倍晋三起步条件不佳。韩国没有忘记他曾在2007年提出，没有证据表明日本军队在二战期间强迫韩国女性充当性奴。这些言论在全世界引起一片哗然，为此美国国会还通过了一项要求日本道歉的决议。

The suffering of the Korean victims, euphemistically called 'comfort women' by the Japanese, is one of several old wounds South Koreans nurse from the decades when the Korean peninsula was a Japanese colony.

韩国受害者被日方婉称为“慰安妇。她们的苦难是日本殖民朝鲜半岛几十年期间给韩国人留下的诸多伤痛之一。