For a “foreign policy expert” Joe doesn’t know that Japan and Korea weren’t happily together and then split up after WWII. Japan actually took Korea by military force in 1910 and made it their colony. They destroyed Korean cultural sites, enslaved their people, took their land and gave it to Japanese citizens. Nobody in Korea, North or South, wants to get together with Japan ever again. JFC Joe!
I read it as him referring to the split in each country, north and south Korea vs okinawa and japan. Okinawa has been looking sketch for way too long now, why cant it just attach to japan once and for all like we all assume it already has?