竹島問題の歴史

6.9.08

Korea Protests the Mention of "Dokdo" in Japan's Defense "White Paper"

MBC News reports HERE that the Korean government has protested the mention of "Dokdo" (Liancourt Rocks) as Japanese territory in Japan's 2008 "white paper" on national defense. The document described Liancourt Rocks as follows:
"The territorial disputes over the northern territories and Takeshima continue unresolved."
Takeshima is the Japanese name for Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo). The document also included a map that showed "Takeshima" (竹島) as Japanese territory.

The spokesperson for Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the following:
"We strongly protest and demand that corrective measures be taken immediately."
The Japanese ambassador to Korea responded as follows:

"We think this issue should be treated as a difference [of opinion] between our two countries, and that we should move forward developing cooperative and friendly ties."

The MBC News report said that in spite of the waves caused by Japan's military white paper, the Korean government has decided to deal with the issue in a calm manner to prevent Japan from making "Dokdo" into an area of international dispute.

In the meantime, the Korea Times has written the following article: "S. Korea Mulls Cutting Military Ties With Japan."

3 comments:

  1. Korean government took "foreign" journalists who happen to have Korean surnames to Dokdo/Takeshima and made them report that Korean are "fight to the death" to protect the island. And they even made official protest against the white paper of Japanese Defence Force, which actually had same expression with last few years.

    And yesterday, Japanese edition of Yonhap news reported that 金炯?, the chairman of the Korean Diet requested American Rep. Eni Faleomavaega of concern for the Dokdo issue when Rep. visited Korean Diet. (What Korean original article says?)

    "金国会議長、米下院議員に独島問題への関心を要請"

    All those Korean government's recent activities seems to me that they finally decided to advertize that the island is a disputed land to all over the world.

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  2. As Kaneganese pointed out, Japan's Defence white paper continuously wrote about Takeshima (Dokdo) and they continuously received protest from Korea as usual, nothing has been changed.

    Basically, the dispute began after Rhee Syngman took the island in 1950's. Japan objected soon after Rhee Syngman drew the line and she has been sending protest repeatedly every year after that.
    Both of the countries has same kind of description in the defence white papers, it is natural because the two countries has the dispute over the island.

    But South Korea has not officially announced that there is a dispute over the island, maybe because they knew if there was a dispute they should go to ICJ and they had a few chance to win in the ICJ.

    So I wonder why Korea changed its reaction to the white paper. Did they decide to announce officially that there is a dispute over the island? If they did, it would be a good decision - they have to go to ICJ in the end.

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  3. Any1 have detail about ex-President Roh had planned to airraid by crusing missile toward SDF facility in Shimane , which Washington post news dated on 21APR2006?

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