Chinese language State Tabloid Criticises Protest Letter From South Korean Embassy

BEIJING (Reuters) – The World Instances, a hawkish Chinese language state media tabloid, on Monday criticised a letter of protest despatched to it by South Korea’s embassy in China, the newest public spat amid worsening ties between the Asian neighbours.

The South Korean embassy “expressed robust remorse over a collection of unreasonable slanderous articles” from the World Instances, in a letter of protest revealed Friday on its web site.

The articles “use sensational, provocative and inappropriate vocabulary to denigrate not solely our chief but additionally the Korean authorities’s international coverage,” the letter stated.

In its editorial, the World Instances slammed the embassy’s “brutal interference in (its) unbiased reporting”.

Coming a day after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a landmark go to to Seoul, the editorial warned South Korea’s latest diplomatic push in direction of Japan and the U.S. will “induce and worsen the … collapse of the scenario in Northeast Asia”.

It’s uncommon for international embassies stationed in China to publicly criticise the reporting of Chinese language state media shops.

South Korea’s embassy in China didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The World Instances, recognized for its nationalist rhetoric, has repeatedly attacked South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for “blindly following the U.S.” after his go to there late final month, and accused Seoul of bringing additional rigidity to the Korean Peninsula resulting from its rising safety ties with Japan and the U.S.

Sunday’s go to by Kishida, the primary by a Japanese chief to Seoul in 12 years, is an indication of warming relations between South Korea and Japan as each U.S. allies have sought to shut a chapter on the historic disputes which have dogged the connection for many years.

In an identical incident final December, China’s ambassador in South Korea criticised Korean media for stoking anti-China sentiment.

(Reporting by Laurie Chen in Beijing; Enhancing by)

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