{"id":23108,"date":"2026-01-30T09:27:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/japan-south-korea-defence-ministers-play-table-tennis-to-boost-ties\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:58","slug":"japan-south-korea-defence-ministers-play-table-tennis-to-boost-ties","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/japan-south-korea-defence-ministers-play-table-tennis-to-boost-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan, South Korea Defence Ministers play table tennis to boost ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">They also attended a welcome ceremony and held a bilateral meeting. In remarks following their meeting, Koizumi said that he and Ahn had agreed to strengthen cooperation (check) between their two countries, and with the United States, amidst an increasingly severe security environment, specifically citing North Korea.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">According to South Korea&#8217;s Defence Ministry, they also agreed to work together to incorporate artificial intelligence and unmanned weapon systems. The two Asian allies of the United States have in recent months drawn closer in political ties under new leaders, as they looked to put behind years of frosty relations rooted in Japan&#8217;s occupation of the Korean peninsula in the early 20th century.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23109,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-23108","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Japanese Defence Minister, Shinjiro Koizumi played table tennis with his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu-back on Friday at a naval base in the central port city of Yokosuka to boost ties","published_date":"2026-01-30 00:00:00","news_description":"Japanese Defence Minister,  Shinjiro Koizumi played table tennis with his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu-back on Friday at a naval base in the central port city of Yokosuka to boost ties","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26182,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23108\/revisions\/26182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}