Korea Vows to Stop Japanese Incursion Near Dokdo What Force Will Counter Japan's Designs on Dokdo? Japanese Provocations Over Dokdo Intensify Tensions Run High Over Japan’s Dokdo Research Trip Calls to Abandon Silent Treatment of Japan Grow Louder Two Koreas May Discuss Japan’s Dokdo Incursion Japanese Nomenclature Encroaches on Korean Waters Dokdo Bound Research Vessel Departs Tokyo Harbor Mystery Japanese Ships Strike Out Japan Calls Off Dogs in Dokdo Dispute Japanese Minister’s Visit Over Dokdo Crisis Inconclusive Ministry of Education Steps Up Dokdo Education Korea-Japan Compromise Ends Dokdo Standoff Korea ‘Will Push Ahead With Naming Dokdo Seafloor’ Korea to Explain Dokdo Problem to Int’l Community President Roh Draws Dokdo Map for Kofi Annan Korea Resumes Project to Name Seabed Near Dokdo Fine Words From the President -- Again Much Fighting Talks and a Disappointing Result

The sea regions Japan plans to survey are set with Dokdo as the point of reference. Underlying Japan's ostensible survey is a plan to damage our territorial rights over the islets. Of course we have to stop it.

But our fight cannot be confined to the seas; it is simultaneously being waged on the stage of the international community. A survey vessel is not classified as a civilian vessel like a fishing boat, but as a government ship. If it is seized by our maritime police, Japan would immediately refer us to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Should that happen, the Dokdo islets and nearby seas would become a conflict area in the eyes of the international community, and chances are that a court ruling would be favorable to Japan. That is the very scenario Japan has in mind. Maritime law experts advise our maritime police to keep the Japanese ship out of the waters in question but refrain from seizing it.

Japan has started translating words to the effect that the Korean islets are Japanese territory into action. The new Japanese leadership, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is armed with unilateral thinking that there is no need to consider their country’s Asian neighbors. Japan also believes that the United States, which in the past would have intervened before a Korea-Japan dispute got out of hand, values its relationship with Tokyo more.

The plan in Tokyo has long been to eventually take the Dokdo issue to the International Court of Justice. The tactic would use the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, where the conflict mechanism is simple, as a stepping stone. The planned hydrographic survey in seas near Dokdo is a small part of the big picture.

The government has neglected the matter for 27 long years, ever since the Japanese government in 1978 registered Japanese names for sea regions it now intends to re-survey with the International Hydrographical Organization. That Japan is ready to continue its provocation is not due to the "silent diplomacy" referred to by the president but to a totally "unprepared diplomacy" that has failed to anticipate the tactic.

If the government is so incompetent, the people must take over. Each citizen must make it clear that they are willing to safeguard the Dokdo islets and repel Japan's stealthy invasion.