Japan, South Korea Use Soft Diplomacy to Boost Defense (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Why are these politicians playing ping-pong? This is Japan's defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi and South Korean defense chief Ahn Ki-bae. They met Friday to boost defense cooperation, then ditched the ties and jackets for a friendly game of table tennis, one of Ahn's favorite hobbies. But it's also another form of soft diplomacy between Japan and South Korea, neighbors with a complicated history after decades of tension, rooted in Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. But under new leadership and facing shared threats like North Korea, the two are deciding to do something different. In boosting defense cooperation, Japan and South Korea agreed to work on artificial intelligence and unmanned weapon systems, according to South Korea's defense ministry.