Search Results for: dokdo

I hope no-one from Korea thinks Japan is developing these systems to take back Dokdo. These systems are clearly intended to defend against Chinese and North Korean attacks:

NHK has learned what defensive items will be funded under the Japanese Defense Ministry’s demand for budgetary appropriations for the next fiscal year.

The Defense Ministry has compiled the budget request to drastically enhance Japan’s defense capabilities over the next five years, without showing the total cost.

The ministry plans to start mass production of new long-range standoff missiles that can attack targets from outside enemy range and could be used for counterstrikes.

They include an improved version of the Ground Self-Defense Force’s ground-to-ship missile and high-speed glide bombs to defend remote islands.

The ministry also plans to develop unmanned aircraft that can be used not only for surveillance and information gathering but also to launch an attack.

NHK World

You can read more at the link.

The ADIZ incursions happened reportedly last month before North Korea’s ICBM test:

Russian and Chinese military aircraft entered South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) without prior notice last month ahead of North Korea’s long-range missile launch, a Seoul official said Tuesday.

Two Russian planes flew into the KADIZ on March 24, prompting South Korea’s military to scramble its fighters to prevent their approach to the country’s airspace, according to the official.

The incident came just hours before Pyongyang test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the East Sea — a launch that ended its yearslong moratorium on nuclear and ICBM testing.

The Russian warplanes flew in the KADIZ northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung Island in the East Sea at around 11 a.m. and moved out of it 30 minutes later.

A day earlier, a Chinese military plane also entered the KADIZ near Ieo Islet, a submerged rock south of South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju. The official said the area was where the air defense identification zones of South Korea and China overlapped.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but China has been claiming Ieodo as their territory and have been flying bombers over it in response for years. The Russians have often had Korean ADIZ incursions and even actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo before that led to warning shots from the ROK Air Force.

It seems inevitable with the constant nuclear threats from North Korea plus the growing militarism of the Chinese that the Korean public would want its own nukes to defend itself with:

There has long been a desire among South Koreans for domestic nuclear weapons capability, but a poll shows that in the face of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and an assertive China, that view has ballooned to more than 70 percent of the population — most of whom want to go nuclear even when the potential drawbacks are explained.

The poll, released Tuesday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, found robust support for nuclear weapons in South Korea: South Koreans want nuclear weapons even when they feel confident about the country’s alliance with the United States and about the strength of their own military. And those who support nuclear weapons now see a level of prestige associated with them.

Washington Post

You can read more at the link, but fortunately the poll showed that the Korean public did not view the Japanese as a military threat like they do the North Koreans and Chinese. You wouldn’t know that from past Korean media articles that make it sound like a Japanese invasion of Dokdo is ready to happen at any minute.

You don’t say something like this to any reporter much less JTBC even if you think it is off the record:

Japan’s deputy chief of mission in Korea reportedly described President Moon Jae-in’s efforts to hold a Korea-Japan summit during the Tokyo Olympics as masturbatory in a conversation with a JTBC reporter on Friday.  

According to JTBC, the reporter asked Hirohisa Soma his thoughts on the chance for a Korea-Japan summit taking place during the Tokyo Olympics, to which Soma reportedly responded in a combination of Korean and English, “President Moon is masturbating himself.”  

Soma added that Japan “does not have the time to care so muchabout the relationship between the two countries as Korea thinks.”  

“The conversation took place [in a casual meeting,] not a public press event, but we decided to run a report because we felt the remarks were not appropriate,” JTBC reported.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

South Korea announced that they will put their 2nd helicopter carrier into operation in October of this year:

South Korea’s new 14,500-ton amphibious assault ship will be deployed in October with improved combat capabilities developed with the country’s own technologies, the military said Monday.

Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Boo Suk-jong presided over a commissioning ceremony for the landing platform helicopter (LPH) ship Marado at the southern port of Jinhae ahead of the planned deployment, according to the military. 

Named after the country’s southernmost island, the Marado is South Korea’s second large-scale transport ship following the Dokdo, which was deployed in 2007.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but besides helicopters this carrier can also be used to land Ospreys and F-35’s with vertical launch capabilities.

I wonder if anyone on the Korean left is going to claim this is training to assault Dokdo:

French forces are training on Japanese soil for the first time during drills this week that will include beach raids alongside U.S. Marines and Japanese amphibious troops supported by an Australian frigate.

The Jeanne D’Arc 21 exercise began Tuesday at Camp Ainoura, home of Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade at Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture, III Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement Wednesday.

The brigade, modeled on U.S. Marines, has about 100 people in the exercise, including infantry, engineers and command and control troops, according to Marine Capt. Thomas Delaney, a firepower control team leader on Kyushu.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

For anyone that has been to Ulleung-do, they will know this will be a difficult construction project considering the topography and sea states that surround the island:

Construction has begun on an airport in Ulleung Island in North Gyeongsang Province, which will cut down travel time from Seoul from the current seven hours to just one.

A ground-breaking ceremony took place Friday attended by Ulleung Governor Kim Byeong-su and a hundred other local and central government officials.

Ulleong Island is located in the East Sea, some 120 kilometers from mainland South Korea. The Ulleong Country administrative area includes the Dokdo Islets.

Once finished, Ulleung Airport will mainly service small aircraft with fewer than 50 seats. Local authorities expect it will increase annual tourist numbers to the remote island to one million, likely boosting the number of people taking sightseeing tours to the Dokdo Islets as well.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but I am not a big fan of the airstrip because Ulleung-do is one of the few areas in Korea that is not over run with tourists due to the boat trip currently required to get there. It just seems the small coastal road that goes around the island is going to have a hard time supporting all the tourists coming in.

I think the Korean left actually enjoys the fact that Shimane prefecture has had an annual Takeshima Day since 2005 just so they have an excuse to vent their anti-Japanese sentiment:

South Korea lodged a strong protest Saturday against Japan’s renewed claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo.

Seoul’s foreign ministry called in Hirohisa Soma, a senior official at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, and expressed regret over Japan’s annual event meant to publicize its territorial claim to Dokdo.

“We again sternly urged Japan to immediately repeal” its event on Dokdo, the ministry said in a statement.

The protest came hours after the Japanese prefecture of Shimane held the Takeshima Day event and a senior Japanese government official attended the ceremony. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Koreans should just ignore this stupidity from a backwater Japanese prefecture, but it is too much red meat for the Korean left wing base to ignore especially before April’s parliamentary elections.

I do have to give the Korean left credit because they have at least toned down their annual response to Takeshima Day. I can remember the good old days of the Great Dokdo War.  I can still remember the hard days when those of us in Korea had to stock up on food and supplies to survive the initial declaration of war from President Roh Moo-hyun.  We made it through multiple cease fires, close calls, and even the failure of the Daemado campaign.  

Times had been so desperate there was even talk about recruiting North Korea to fight off the evil Japanese Imperialists.  Though the casualties on the Korean side have been heavy at times, through it all the brave defenders of Dokdo have continued thwart the massive Japanese armada descending on the islet.  

We were also treated back then to such Korean patriots like Flag Eater Man, Chung Dong-young, the Finger Chopping Lady, the Knife in the Gut Man, Weed Killer Man, the Dokdo Riders, and most importantly that great general of all things Dokdo, Bee-Man.  Sorry Korean Democratic Party, you have nothing on these great defenders of Dokdo.

Well at least this time the Russians did not violate South Korean airspace like they did earlier this past summer:

Six Russian military aircraft violated South Korea’s air defense identification zone on Tuesday, prompting the Air Force to scramble fighter jets to turn them back, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

An A-50 early-warning aircraft, three SU-27 fighter jets and two TU-95 bombers entered the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) four times between 9:23 a.m. and 2:44 p.m. without prior notice and stayed in the zone for about four hours in total before leaving at around 3:13 p.m., according to the JCS.

The warplanes breached the KADIZ over waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula, including the country’s easternmost islets of Dokdo and the island of Ulleung in the East Sea; above the southern city of Pohang and the island of Jeju and areas in the Yellow Sea.

But none of the aircraft violated South Korea’s territorial airspace, the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.