Tag: Dokdo

Japanese Lawmaker Advocates for Going to War with South Korea Over Dokdo

| September 3, 2019

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.

South Korea Begins Dokdo Defense Exercise Against Imaginary Invasion

| August 26, 2019

I would love just once to have someone in the media ask who the foreign infiltrators are that are threatening to invade Dokdo:

Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung speaks at a press briefing in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)

The South Korean armed forces launched a two-day military exercise to defend the easternmost islets of Dokdo on Sunday amid growing tensions over trade and their shared history, in a show of its staunch defense stance against Japan’s repeated claims to sovereignty over the cluster of rocks in the East Sea.

The Navy announced that the drill involves Navy, Air Force and Army forces, such as naval warships and aircraft, as well as Army and Marine Corp troops.

“Indeed, it’s an exercise to guard our sovereignty and territory,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said at a press briefing.

She added that it’s a regular training and asked media not to attach excessive “political” meaning to it.

The drills have been held twice a year, usually in June and December, to better fend off possible foreign infiltrations to the rocky outcroppings and the surrounding waters.

Yonhap

The closest thing to a “foreign infiltration” that has happened on Dokdo was back in 2006 the Japanese said they were going to have a ship full of scientists conduct an underwater survey of the ocean in the vicinity of Dokdo which they never ended up doing.

Meanwhile in recent months you have China claiming Korean territory and flying bombers over it and the Russians have actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo with their war planes and there was never a rush to conduct a military exercise in response.

South Korea May Execute Dokdo Defense Exercise Against Japanese Invasion that Will Never Happen

| August 5, 2019

As every Korean politician knows, you can’t exploit anti-Japanese sentiment without sensationalizing the Dokdo issue. Some needs to tell the Blue House this is 2019 and not 1941:

South Korean protesters chant during a rally to denounce Japan’s new trade restrictions on South Korea in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, Aug. 3. AP-Yonhap

In a move to protest Japan’s decision to remove it from a list of trusted trading partners, South Korea plans to hold a joint military exercise on a cluster of islets that sits in the sea between the neighboring countries, a government source said Sunday.

“The Ministry of Defense is considering conducting a joint defense drill on Dokdo this month,” the source said, Sunday. However, he was reluctant to provide specifics as the ministry has not confirmed the details of its plan. 

Military exercises were first conducted near the tiny land mass in 1986 and they were made a biannual practice since 2003 with naval ships, marines, military aircraft, maritime patrol boats and relevant combat personnel participating. A 3,200-ton of naval destroyer, maritime patrol vessels, P-3C anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft and F-15K fighters are typically mobilized during the drill, according to the ministry. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but you have China also claiming Korean territory and flying bombers over it and the Russians have actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo with their war planes and there was never a rush to conduct a military exercise in response.

The worse the Japanese have done with Dokdo is threaten to have a research vessel of scientists enter into Dokdo’s exclusive economic zone. This of course set off a full scale crisis in South Korea and threats of war and even talks of assistance from North Korea. Japan never did send the research vessel, but Russian and Chinese warplanes are flying over Dokdo and Ieodo with no military drill in response.

The hypocrisy of the Korean left comes into full display every time they are in power when it comes to their anti-Japan agenda.

ROK Air Force Fires Warning Shots At Russian Aircraft that Violated Air Space Around Dokdo, Twice

| July 23, 2019

What is ironic about this is that the Russians have done something more provocative than the Japanese have ever done with Dokdo. So are all the Dokdo crazies going to go protest in front of the Russian embassy now?:

South Korean warplanes fired hundreds of warning shots at a Russian military aircraft that entered South Korean airspace on Tuesday, defence officials said, while Russia denied violating any airspace and accused South Korean pilots of being reckless.

It was the first time a Russian military aircraft had violated South Korean airspace, an official at the South Korean Ministry of National Defence said in Seoul. 

The incident, which also involved China and Japan, could complicate relations and raise tension in a region that has for years been over-shadowed by hostility between the United States and North Korea. 

Two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers entered the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) together early on Tuesday, the South Korean defence ministry said. 

A separate Russian A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft later twice violated South Korean airspace over Dokdo – an island that is occupied by South Korea and also claimed by Japan, which calls it Takeshima – just after 9 a.m. (midnight GMT Monday), according to the South Korean military.

Reuters via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but this is the first time a foreign aircraft has violated ROK air space and warning shots were fired. Despite all the Japan bashing over the years on the Dokdo issue they have never done anything close to this. Don’t forget that the Chinese are involved in this as well. Will any of the so called patriotic Koreans show up and protest in front of the Chinese embassy?

In my opinion this appears to be a planned provocation by the Chinese and the Russians to stir the pot between the ROK and Japan since they both claim the Dokdo islets.

Magician’s Trick Leads to Dokdo Moment During Inter-Korean Summit

| September 22, 2018

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]

So if Dokdo is on the flag then where was Ieodo at?