The Deal with Dokdo

The small island group of Tokto is a big sticking point for Korea and Japan nowadays. Known as Takeshima (Bamboo Island, though there's no bamboo there) to the Japanese, Tokto may seem like little more than a stray rock in the Sea of Japan (or East Sea, as Koreans call it), and few people would care about it except that there are a lot of gas hydrates in the surrounding seabed.

But Tokto is more than just an economic issue between the two countries. By reading this article, I realized that aspects of the Tokto issue lead into elements of Korea's colonial era, the Japanese occupation, the war victim compensation debate, and Korea's economic history. It reveals the hostility Koreans feel not just toward Japan, but also their own government.

The issue has been simmering for a while, but recently flared up because of three things: a new history textbook in Japan saying Tokto is among its "disputed" regions, Shimane Prefecture's declaration of a "Takeshima Day," and the 86th anniversary of the Korean March 1 Independence Movement. The textbook, written by nationalisits (just as all good U.S. history textbooks are), offends many Koreans because they feel the weight of historical evidence makes it so obviously clear that Japan has no business even disputing it. from the Korea Times

Though I really don't care which side of the fence Dokto falls on, I don't think it's worth cutting off a finger about. Part of the problem comes from a lack of knowledge on the part of Occupation authorities after WWII. U.S. diplomats argued for the Japanese claim based partly on false infomation that circulated before the 1951 peace treaty. The other parts seems to stem from the way South Korea has been (allegedly) ignoring later treaties establishing equal access for fishing fleets and establishing a de facto economic exclusion zone. If that's true, that's not nice....

If you're still reading at this point, I recommend checking out Flying Yangban's blog for a funner version of these events. This blog tracks the momentous events from the beginning of this year, and includes a bit of quality personal comment on other subjects.