Meanwhile, Seoul’s new Defense White Paper removes reference to:#northkorea as “enemy” “THAAD” “Shared values of free democracy and market economy with Japan”
While it inserts: “Strong will to defend Dokdo and maintain defense preparedness”
It is ironic that South Korea is holding defense drills against a threat that will never happen from the Japanese while at the same time opening up the DMZ and not training against the North Korean threat that is an actual threat to attack the entire country, not just a pile of rocks in the ocean:
Despite bad weather, South Korean troops kicked off a regular exercise Thursday to hone their combined capabilities to defend Dokdo, a pair of rocky islets in the East Sea. The two-day maritime drills involve the 3,200-ton Gwanggaeto the Great destroyer and several other Navy and Coast Guard ships. The military canceled a plan to mobilize such aircraft as F-15K fighter, P-3C maritime surveillance plane and UH-60 helicopter on the day due to inclement weather, according to a Navy official. It has also postponed a Marine Corps landing exercise until Friday.
It figures that the Dokdo issue would some how come up during the recent Inter-Korean Summit:
Choi turned a set of cards into a large card that showed the Unification Flag. Korea Times file
Magician Choi Hyun-woo, who went to Pyongyang as part of the South Korean delegation for the three-day inter-Korean summit, presented a magic show to the leaders of the two Koreas Tuesday night at Mokran (Magnolia) House.
“I was nervous at the moment,” The Kyunghyang Shinmun quoted Choi as saying. He said he was bit worried as he heard North Korean leader Kim Jong-un likes magic and he did not want to let him down.
During dinner on Tuesday, Choi performed card tricks that engaged the leaders and their wives.
“The first theme was telepathy, that is, to communicate telepathically,” Choi said.
For example, if President Moon Jae-in chose a card in his mind, Kim had to guess what card that was.
“It went well with President Moon and Chairman Kim, as well as with the two first ladies who were telepathic with each other,” the magician said.
“At the end, I turned the cards into a large card with a Korean Peninsula flag on it to show a message of going together in harmony. I was surprised when the two leaders pointed out the same thing that Dokdo (the rocky islets in the East Sea) was displayed on the card.” [Korea Times]
South Korea urged Japan on Tuesday to retract its repeated territorial claim over Dokdo, a pair of rocky outcroppings in the East Sea, saying it will only impede efforts to move forward bilateral ties.
It was a reminder of longstanding diplomatic rifts between the neighboring countries despite a call for firm unity among regional powers to handle Pyongyang’s recent peace overtures.
In a statement, South Korea’s foreign ministry denounced the description of sovereignty over Dokdo in Japan’s yearly foreign policy document, known as the Diplomatic Bluebook, reported to the Cabinet earlier in the day. [Yonhap]
Maybe the ROK government should summon the Japanese ambassador and have Flag Eater Man, Finger Chopping Lady, Knife in the Gut Man, Weed Killer Man, the Dokdo Riders, and Bee Man all to waiting for him so they can demonstrate their Dokdo patriotism. Despite the hyperbole over this issue, I believe Korea clearly wins on the Dokdo debate, but why muddle this issue with the stupid East Sea issue?:
The ministry summoned Koichi Mizushima, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to lodge a formal protest. He refused to answer questions from reporters, entering the ministry building.
Kim Yong-kil, director general for the ministry’s Northeast Asian affairs, told the minister that Seoul can’t accept Tokyo’s unilateral naming of the body of waters between the two nations, officials said.
In the diplomatic paper, Japan said the waters shouldn’t be called the East Sea.
“In particular, (Kim) made clear that (the government) can’t accept Japan’s unjust claim regarding the East Sea name,” the ministry’s spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said at a press briefing. “(He) stressed that the East Sea is the correct name that has been used for more than 2,000 years in our country.”
f Koreans want to call the body of water East Sea I have no problem with that, but internationally the term Sea of Japan makes more sense. That is because East Sea is not East of Japan and thus makes no sense for an international observer not invested in the Dokdo/East Sea issue when they see it on a map. Korea would make a better case for renaming the body of water if they had a more generic description such as “Asian Sea”.
They could always go with my suggestion and just call it the “Nameless Sea”.
Here we go with another example of South Korean politicians scoring cheap political points during the upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un at the expense of Japan:
Japan has protested South Korea’s move to put dessert with a decoration featuring Dokdo on the table for the dinner planned for the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit, a local media reported Wednesday.
According to Japan’s broadcaster NHK, Kenji Kanasugi, the Japanese foreign ministry’s director-general of Asian and Oceania affairs, protested the Seoul government’s decision in his meeting with a senior South Korean Embassy official in Tokyo.
He is also reported to have expressed regrets and called on the Seoul government to drop the food from the dinner menu.
On Tuesday, the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae disclosed the details of the menu for the summit dinner that included the dessert capped with an edible map of a unified Korean Peninsula also showing the country’s eastern islets of Dokdo. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but notice the South Koreans did not put Ieodo on to the map which they have a territorial dispute with China over.
Also the fact the Japanese government is protesting this is just as juvenile.
South Korea has custom made furniture for Friday’s summit between President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un ― with chairs featuring Dokdo controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
One thing the rival Koreas share is a resentment of Japan, which imposed brutal colonial rule on the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and the gesture is likely to irritate Tokyo.
Japan and the South are both US allies but their relationship is strained by historical and territorial issues, including Dokdo, islands controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
The new walnut chairs to be used by the two leaders’ seven-strong delegations at Friday’s summit at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) each feature a map of the peninsula.
The tiny islands are clearly marked, pictures released by the Blue House showed Wednesday. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but hatred of Japan is one thing that politicians from both North and South Korea can agree on.
Allegedly an English teacher was behaving badly in Cheongju:
Amid the spreading #MeToo movement, a native English-speaking teacher at a girls’ high school was recently fired over allegations of sexually molesting students and calling the East Sea the “Japan Sea.” It was the victimized students who told the school of his misbehavior.
According to Yonhap News, the instructor, who worked at the school in Cheongju, was booked without physical detention on suspicion of sexually molesting students. The school also terminated his contract.
The former instructor is from Western Europe and worked at the school for seven years.
The school became aware of his misbehavior in May last year and asked police to investigate.
The school confronted him with its findings and he admitted making unwanted physical contact with the students, and racial and sexually offensive remarks. [Korea Times]
Here is his most shocking crime:
He also allegedly told the students that Korea and Japan should share Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo rather than fighting over them.
He should be exiled to live out his life on Dokdo after making a statement like that! 😉
I am surprised Lufthansa had Dokdo on the map in the first place considering it is such a tiny terrain feature:
German airline Lufthansa has come under criticism in Korea after deciding to remove Dokdo, Korea’s easternmost islets that Japan falsely claims as its own, from its in-flight maps.
“The software has been updated and will be installed on the aircraft at the end of this week at the latest. The name of the island will not be shown anymore,” Lufthansa told The Korea Times Tuesday.
The company also said it had no intention to insult any party and regretted any inconvenience the decision might cause.
The decision came after a Japanese passenger’s complaint about the description of Dokdo, which was written in English and Japanese, on a Tokyo-Munich flight in December. The passenger claimed the name should be “Takeshima.”
It is unclear whether Lufthansa will remove Dokdo from the aircraft for that route only or all of them, including planes that fly from Korea’s Incheon to Frankfurt and Munich. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but of course some Koreans are calling for a boycott of Lufthansa in order to get it to restore Dokdo to its inflight map.
