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It has been confirmed that the U.S. exerted strong pressure on Korea and Japan to establish diplomatic relations in 1965, and in particular, it tried to intercede by proposing a solution to the Dokdo Islets dispute to then President Park Chung-hee. This was revealed in U.S. State Department documents concerning the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan that were found by Yonhap News in the U.S. National Archives ahead of the 39th anniversary of Korea-Japan ties this Tuesday.
The U.S. strongly pressed Korea to accept Japan¡¯s demands that Korea's fishing zone be limited to 12-miles during Korea-Japan negotiations on fisheries, while exerting pressure on Japan to establish relations at an early date.
The U.S. State Department, however, pointed out that signs of U.S. intervention could be counterproductive, so it instructed its embassies in Korea and Japan not to give the impression that the U.S. was applying pressure.
When President Park visited Washington on June 22, 1965, not more than a month ahead of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korean and Japan, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk proposed to Park that Korea and Japan jointly build a lighthouse on Dokdo. Dean asked whether the joint maintenance of a lighthouse on the islets wouldn¡¯t help the disagreement over the islets disappear naturally without having to answer directly which nation owned them.
According to memos that were marked for a 12-year secrecy period, Park responded to Rusk¡¯s suggestion by saying that the plans to jointly build a lighthouse on Dokdo wouldn¡¯t work out well.
Ahead of this, Park told Rusk, ¡°Even if the Dokdo issue is a small one in the diplomatic relations negotiations, it¡¯s one that makes one angry... I wish I could bomb the islands out of existence just to solve the problem.¡±
It was revealed that the U.S. listened to the progress of the talks from both sides from the very beginning of negotiations between Korea and Japan and gathered an understanding of the situation while applying pressure on both sides to establish ties.
In particular, in August 9, 1963, in a directive sent to the U.S. Embassy in Korea, the U.S. State Department said it believed it would be timely for the embassy to put pressure on high-ranking Korean government figures, including possibly Park Chung-hee, to accept Japan¡¯s demands that Korea accept a 12-mile fishing zone. At that time, Korea was calling for a 40-mile exclusive fishing zone.
The directive said the U.S. Embassy was authorized, as a way to exercise pressure, to inform Korean officials that the U.S. would not hesitate to release to Koreans the U.S. position that the ¡°Syngman Rhee Line¡± was illegal, should the U.S. government find it necessary and desirable to do so.
Meanwhile, the Korean side said that after the establishment of diplomatic relations between it and Japan, it would like to hasten the use of soft loans from Japan, but the Japanese were nervous about this. The amount of soft loans agreed upon was US$200 million.
In a letter sent to Foggy Bottom on January 28, 1966, one year after Korean and Japan had established relations, an official from the U.S. Embassy in Japan said the Korean desire to hasten its use of soft loans was the single most worrying thing to the Japanese Foreign Ministry¡¯s Northeast Asia desk.
The letter said the Koreans wanted the money for a political reason, to build something ahead of the election the next year. The Japanese were scared that if it were revealed that a large sun of the loans Tokyo would provide had been used for corruption, it would have a very unfortunate influence on Korea-Japan relations.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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