Search Results for: dokdo

Here is the latest shot fired in the never-ending Dokdo debate:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday refuted Japan’s renewed claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo and warned of stern a response to the unsubstantiated claims.

“Dokdo is our inherent territory, historically, geographically and by international law,” the ministry said in a statement. “We want to make it clear that whatever attempt Japan makes cannot have an influence over our firm territorial sovereignty.”

Earlier in the day, the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) unveiled on its website aerial charts from the 1950s made by the United States Air Force in what it claimed to be evidence that South Korea was illegally occupying the islets.

The JIIA is a security think tank affiliated with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also collects and studies materials related to their history, territory and sovereignty.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Of all the things to criticize the WHO over this is by far the least important. How boring of a life you must have to troll websites to look for a reason to feign outrage over Dokdo:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has yet to add the easternmost islets of Dokdo to a map of Korea on its official website, despite repeated calls from civic activists and citizens here, according to the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) Tuesday. VANK is a civic diplomacy organization with more than 120,000 members.

In the ‘countries’ section of the website, the health organization provides brief information about each member state including a map. The map of South Korea is missing some of its territories including Dokdo and nearby Ulleung Island in the East Sea. 

However, the islands are included in the map of Japan, which some believe gives the impression that they are Japan’s territory. The country has been making repeated territorial claims on Dokdo, over which Korea claims sovereignty.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but no one who goes to the WHO website would think that Dokdo is owned by Japan based on these maps. Hardly anyone outside of Korea knows where or what Dokdo is. It is pretty clear whoever put the website together just zoomed in the map on South Korea because it is so small. Japan on the other hand is much larger and the map was zoomed out to picture it.

This would be the equivalent of an American being upset because the Farallón de Pájaros island was not included on a map of the United States.

This is an unfortunate accident:

 Rescue workers found three bodies believed to be among the seven missing people aboard a crashed chopper near the Dokdo islets in the East Sea on Saturday.

A helicopter belonging to the fire agency crashed Thursday night, a few minutes after it took off from Dokdo, with seven people on board, including an injured person from a fishing boat.

Rescue workers found three bodies and retrieved one of them as part of an underwater mission by a submarine rescue ship of South Korea’s Navy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I am surprised someone hadn’t thought of doing this sooner:

The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (NRICH) introduced LiDAR, a new technology which made a debut scrutinizing the Dokdo islets last week, in commemoration of Dokdo Day, which falls on Oct. 25. The day marks King Gojong’s official proclamation of Dokdo as territory attached to Ulleung Island in 1900.

LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a technology using lasers to illuminate and measure the reflected light to estimate the distance to a target. This uses s distant red light to 3D scan the terrain. 

The drone has become a popular means of cultural heritage management and preservation as it can reach places that people cannot to acquire photo and video data. A drone equipped with LiDAR can provide more meticulous information on the topography and ecology.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Bank of Korea is considering issuing Dokdo coins:

The chief of the nation’s central bank has pledged to consider issuing “Dokdo commemorative coins,” amid increasing public demand for the issuance of such coins in a pre-emptive move to increase awareness among the international community that the eastern islets are Korean territory.

Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju-yeol made the promise during a National Assembly audit of the bank, Tuesday, in response to Rep. Park Myung-jae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, who asked whether the issuance of Dokdo commemorative coins is still difficult for the central bank.

In a report given to Rep. Kim Du-kwan of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) ahead of the audit, the BOK also said: “If the government asks us to issue Dokdo commemorative coins, we will consider the issuance, after taking its appropriateness and ripple effects into account.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I would love to know what the context is in regards to these maps that were found on these government websites. This sounds like more stirring of the pot to get anti-Japanese issues back in the headlines:

This Japanese lawmaker is an outcast within Japanese politics because he has made past statements about going to war with Russia over the Kuril Islands which Russia has occupied since the end of World War II. However, stupid comments like this are a gift to the anti-Japan leftists in South Korea:

Japanese lawmaker Hodaka Maruyama caused a sensation on social media after he recommended Saturday to go to war to claim the Dokdo islets as Japan’s.

“Takeshima, the territory unique to Japan, is occupied by illegal occupants,” he wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday, using the Japanese name for the islets. “How do you get it back by means other than eliminating illegal occupiers by dispatching the Self-Defense Forces in various contingencies?” 

Maruyama wrote the post after a group of Korean lawmakers visited the islets on Saturday. Six lawmakers, including three from the ruling Democratic Party, visited Dokdo and criticized the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for marking the islets as Japanese territory on its website. 

Korea effectively controls Dokdo, an islet in the East Sea also referred to as Liancourt Rocks, and maintains that there is no territorial dispute as it is Korean territory, historically, geographically and under international law. Japan also claims Dokdo as its territory.

“Look to this lawmaker Maruyama,” wrote a Korean user on Twitter on Sunday. “He thinks that Japan can claim Dokdo by going to war. Remember what it was like back in 1592 – they said there will be no war between Korea and Japan, yet there was. We have to be prepared for war now.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I always find it amazing how the news media uses random Twitter messages as some kind of justification of what public sentiment is on issues.

#ROK governing party members visit #Dokdo 8/31 & declaim: "The Abe gov't has weaponized economics & declared war on us…We will prevail over Japan's economic provocation with the spirit of independence." #Patriotism #Propaganda #Agitationhttps://t.co/oIFVEyP0SO

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) August 31, 2019

But how else is the Moon administration going to draw attention away from their latest corruption scandal if they don’t play the Dokdo card?:

South Korea’s military drills on its easternmost islets of Dokdo were “not productive” in the country’s current row with Japan, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

The comment comes a day after South Korea concluded a two-day exercise on and around Dokdo, drawing protests from Japan, which lays claims to the islets.

In a statement, a department spokesperson said Washington does not take a position in the territorial dispute but regards the drills as unhelpful in light of the two countries’ ongoing dispute over trade and wartime forced labor.

“The question of the sovereignty of these islands is for the ROK and Japan to resolve peacefully,” the spokesperson said on condition of anonymity, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

“Given the recent disagreements between the ROK and Japan, the timing, messaging, and increased scale of military drills at Liancourt Rocks are not productive toward resolving ongoing issues,” the spokesperson continued, using the Franco-English name for the rocky outcroppings in the East Sea.

“We encourage the ROK and Japan to have committed, sincere discussions on resolving these disputes,” added the spokesperson.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.