That feeling of disappointment when you crack a much anticipated book about the Korean War and the map says Sea of Japan instead of East Sea. pic.twitter.com/ld45zDCPMK
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”.
Shown is a map made by British publisher Herman Moll in 1712 that depicts waters between Korea and Japan as the “Sea of Corea.” The map was given to the Independence Hall of Korea in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, by professor Kim Nam-hoon of Kongju National University, the hall said Aug. 7, 2017. (Yonhap)
Here is an update from the frontlines of the East Sea versus Sea of Japan conflict:
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), agreed Friday to form an unofficial consultation group to discuss South Korea’s proposal to use “East Sea” alongside “Sea of Japan” when referring to the waters between the two countries, Seoul officials said.
The decision was made on the last day of the global hydrography standard-setter’s five-day assembly in Monaco. It calls for the formation of the consultation group of concerned countries, namely South Korea, Japan and others, to carry out a three-year discussion on the revision of the IHO’s “Limits of Oceans and Seas”, also known as S-23, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The group is required to report the results to an IHO assembly in 2020.
The sea chart, used as the standard for world map production, currently uses the Japanese name for the sea between the two countries.
South Korea began diplomatic efforts to revise it in the early 2000s. The IHO had dropped the initial revision discussion in 2012 amid broiling tension between Seoul and Tokyo. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I continue to maintain it should just be called the “Nameless Sea”.
The Sea of Japan/East Sea issue has come back up again:
Shortly after North Korea’s ballistic missile launch on Wednesday, the U.S. military issued a statement that may add to the anger of Koreans over the naming of the waters between the peninsula and Japan.
In a five-paragraph document posted on its website, the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), headquartered in Hawaii, confirmed the North’s firing of a missile, saying it flew nine minutes before falling into the “Sea of Japan.”
Almost simultaneously, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) here uploaded a statement on its own homepage with mostly the same content.
The only differences were the time, as PACOM’s version is based on Hawaii time and the USFK’s notes Korean standard time, and the name of the waters, which Koreans call the East Sea.
The USFK’s statement said the missile landed in “waters East of the Korean Peninsula.”
Some South Korean journalists stationed at the defense ministry’s press room complained about PACOM’s use of the Sea of Japan alone in the official document directly involving Korea and read by many people in the key regional ally. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but USFK admitted they modified the naming in their statement which makes sense since their statement is directed more towards a Korean audience. PACOM on the other hand makes statements directed towards a regional audience that includes Japan, so of course they are going to use the internationally recognized naming convention for the body of water between the two countries which is the Sea of Japan.
Definitely not a good way to enter the Korean market by Tesla Motors, but it did give their website a lot of free publicity:
Tesla Motors launched its Korea website Friday and began preorder sales of its products online as well as reservations for test drives. But in less than a week the automaker has already drawn harsh public criticism for its web translations that contain misspellings and show its lack of understanding of the Korean market.
Tesla has been especially pounded by the Korean public for the map the electric-car manufacturer earlier used on its website that labeled the East Sea as the Sea of Japan and the controversial islet between Korea and Japan Dokdo as Takeshima, its Japanese name.
As of Tuesday, the American company had upgraded the Korean website, changing Sea of Japan to East Sea. However, the map on its U.S. website still has both the Sea of Japan and East Sea.
An online automobile community user said the level of Korean on the local website was equivalent to that of Google’s translator. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but pretty clearly the Tesla website for Korea is in a beta stage and I would think they would have people working on updating the website to meet Korean marketplace standards.
It sounds like that someone in marketing over at IKEA wasn’t doing their job very well by not looking to avoid controversy with hot button issues such as this before their grand opening in Korea:
Seen is IKEA’s decorative world map identifying the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the “Sea of Japan,” not the “East Sea.” The company said the map was made based on Google Maps. / Captured from IKEA’s homepage
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, which will open here for business next month, has already become a focus of controversy because of decorative world maps in its product range that identify the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the “Sea of Japan,” not the “East Sea.”
IKEA Korea said Tuesday that the maps, currently available at some of the company’s overseas outlets, won’t be shipped into Korea. The Korean unit of the international furniture retailer said the product was made based on Google Maps.
Korea and Japan have wrangled for decades over what to name the waters between the two countries.
“We are sorry for causing controversy,” IKEA Korea said in a statement. “We are fully aware of the seriousness of this case for the Korean people.”
The company said that the map in question had already been excluded from a list of products to be imported to Korea. But it didn’t suggest any solution such as replacing Sea of Japan with East Sea or including both names on the map. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I hope they scrubbed their website and promotional products to make sure that their is no reference to Takeshima as well.
When people think of provocations from North Korea most people today think that the deadliest incidents from the rogue regime have been targeted against South Korea. The largest loss of life from one provocation by North Korea was the sinking of the ROK Navy ship the Cheonan in 2010 that killed 46 personnel on the ship and wounded 56 more. What many people don’t realize is that the US military historically has been subject to many provocations from North Korea as well to include the 2nd deadliest attack, the shoot down of an EC-121 reconnaissance plane that killed all 31 men on board.
This deadly attack occurred on April 15, 1969 when the EC-121 which used the call sign “Deep Sea 129” was shot down in international waters 167 kilometers off the coast of North Korea. The EC-121 is an intelligence gathering platform that picks up radio transmissions in the area that it is conducting surveillance of. The mission of the Deep Sea 129 would not only be to pick up radio transmissions from North Korea, but from China and Russia as well. The military has conducted these flights on behalf of the National Security Agency (NSA) for many years.
The routine flight of the Deep Sea 129 began at 0700 local time when it took off from Atsugi, Japan. On board were 8 officers and 23 enlisted men under the command of LCDR James Overstreet. The plane first flew over Japan and then over the Sea of Japan. Once over the Sea of Japan the EC-121 flew in a clockwise ellipse as it collected signal intelligence from the region. LCDR Overstreet was given orders that his flight pattern would not go any further than 90 kilometers from North Korea. Radars at Osan Airbase in South Korea as well as back in Yokota Airbase in Japan tracked the missions progress as well as looking for any aircraft being dispatched from North Korea. At 12:34 local time radars at Osan Airbase detected that two MIG-17s had been launched by North Korea. At 13:00 Deep Sea 129 issued a routine report and everything seemed normal. At 13:22 the radars as Osan lost track of the two MIG-17s and reacquired them at 13:37. When the aircraft were reacquired it became obvious that the MIGs were dispatched to intercept the EC-121. At 13:44 Deep Sea 129 was alerted that they were being intercepted. At 13:47 the MIGs had reached the vicinity of Deep Sea 129 and then at 13:49 the EC-121 disappeared from the radar screen.
After the EC-121 disappeared from the radar screen the operators originally thought that it may have followed normal procedures and dropped to an altitude below radar coverage. This thought prevailed because the operators figured that if the MIGs were acting hostile to the EC-121 than LCDR Overstreet would have radioed something back to Japan. However, after 10 minutes had past and no radio transmission had been received from LCDR Overstreet, people began to fear the worst. Two US jets were dispatched from Japan to conduct a Combat Air Patrol of the area where the EC-121 had last been tracked. By 14:44 almost an hour after Deep Sea 129 was last tracked, the CAP planes could not find the EC-121 and the command in Japan decided to send an urgent message back to the Pentagon and the White House that they feared the EC-121 had been shot down.
The reactions from political leaders in Washington once the news was heard was initially very harsh. On Capitol Hill, Mendel Rivers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, proclaimed: ‘There can be only one answer for America-retaliation, retaliation, retaliation!’ Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. L Mendel Rivers, called for military retaliation against North Korea with “whatever is necessary. If nuclear weapons are required, let them have it. It’s time to give them what they ask for.”
As the political leadership back at the US reacted to the shoot down the military command back in Japan prepared a massive search and rescue effort to recover the plane and any survivors. The plane had life rafts the crew could have used if the plane crashed intact. The seas were not too rough and temperatures were in the 40s. So if the crew survived the crash they had a high chance of survival in the conditions if found quickly. The search was conducted by C-130s from Japan that were supported by a K-135 Stratotanker to provide fuel support. These search and rescue aircraft were further supported by CAP aircraft. In total 26 aircraft were used during the search and rescue operation. Besides the aircraft two American destroyers, the USS Dale and the USS Tucker reached the suspected crash site around 9PM. The Soviet Union would also dispatch two destroyers to search for survivors as well. The Soviets were probably eager to show the US they did not support the North Koreans actions by assisting with the search and rescue. The Soviet destroyer the Vdokhnovenie recovered pieces of the downed aircraft as well as the only two bodies found during the entire search effort. The bodies of LTJG Joseph R. Ribar and AT1 Richard E. Sweeney were turned over to the USS Tucker on April 17th. This ended the search and rescue operation and the bodies of the other 29 crew members were never recovered.
With the end of the search and rescue operation, US President Richard Nixon had to decide on what to do in response to North Korea’s deadly provocation. During this time period North Korea had even taken the rare step of bragging on their state radio station of shooting down the aircraft that they said was flying over their territorial waters. Despite calls for retaliation from various political figures Nixon decided to go with most other officials were recommending which was essentially to do nothing. With the war raging in Vietnam many US officials thought it was unwise to open up a possible second front war on the Korean peninsula. So he decided not to do anything provocative against the North Koreans such as bombing the airfield where the MIGs that shot down the EC-121 flew from. Instead he conducted a show of force by continuing the reconnaissance flights while backed with appropriate naval and Air Force support to protect them. This showed American resolve to the North Koreans while not creating a second war in Asia.
What I cannot understand is why the EC-121 was left without escort of some kind in the first place? The mission of the EC-121 was very similar to what the USS Pueblo ship was doing when it was fired upon and captured by the North Koreans in 1968. Considering that North Korea had shown previously an intent to target US reconnaissance efforts it seems surprising to me that the Pentagon was allowing the EC-121 flights off the coast of North Korea to continue with out a fighter escort or at least ships in the Sea of Japan that could provide better early warning of any potential North Korean fighters trying to intercept them.
Below is a list of all the lives that were lost by this act of North Korean aggression. Like all the other lives brought to an early end by the thugs and killers of the Kim regime in North Korea these men should not be forgotten:
Petty Officer 1st Class Eli Redstone rings the bell twice for each of the 31 U.S. troops killed on April 15, 1969, when North Korean fighters downed their EC-121 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Japan. Wednesday’s ceremony marked the 40th anniversary of the attack. Matthew M. Bradley/Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
