India, Aug. 16 -- Nation states, like four-year-olds, find it very hard to admit they are in the wrong and apologise. Adult intervention often helps, but all Japan and South Korea have is US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who tried and failed to mediate in Bangkok). So the trade war between the two grows and festers. There are obvious similarities with the trade war that US President Donald Trump is waging against China, with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe playing the Trump role: Blustering bully with no clear game plan. Like the Trump trade war, too, the Japan-South Korea confrontation threatens to destabilise both East Asian security arrangements and the global market.
Yet the confrontation between Tokyo and Seoul is not really about...