The following article is a column by Aidan Foster-Carter, an honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University in England.

According to some Western cultural stereotypes, Koreans tend to be direct and “in your face.” Japanese, by contrast, can be elaborately indirect and circumlocutory to avoid giving offense. It seems nobody told Hirohisa Soma about the second part.

On July 16, the deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul shot down the possibility of a South Korea-Japan summit during the then upcoming Tokyo Olympics in extraordinarily undiplomatic language.

“President Moon [Jae-in] is masturbating himself,”