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Every year since 1952, Japan has stated a claim to Korea¡¯s Dokdo islets by way of diplomatic documents. But it only started an attempt to turn Dokdo into a disputed area in the eyes of the international community in the late 1990s, when the country lurched to the Right.
After occupying Korea, Japan, emboldened by its victory in the 1904-05 war with Russia, unilaterally incorporated Dokdo through a declaration by Shimane Prefecture in 1905.
As soon as it was established in 1948, the South Korean government placed Dokdo under the jurisdiction of North Gyeongsang Province. Japan first disputed the islets after president Syngman Rhee issued the Korean Presidential Proclamation of Sovereignty over the Adjacent Sea, known as either the "Peace Line" or "Syngman Rhee Line," in 1952. Since then, Japan has kept attempting to drag the "dispute" before the International Court of Justice.
Bilateral disputes were quiet for a while as Korea maintained a principle of "quiet effective possession" of Dokdo from the start of the Park Chung-hee administration. Some South Koreans registered their residence at Dokdo, telephone lines were installed, and a radar base was built. During the 1980s, several Japanese foreign ministers claimed that Dokdo was Japanese territory, but they did so rather perfunctorily.
But amid a new rightwing climate that emerged in Japan in the 1990s and moves to turn the country into a ¡°normal¡± nation in the sense of shedding its stigma as an instigator and loser of World War II, Japan began to ratchet up the claims to Dokdo. When the Kim Young-sam administration built a pier on Dokdo, Japan¡¯s ruling Liberal Democratic Party added the claim to the islands to its general election pledges in 1996.
In 1998, Japan unilaterally scrapped the Korea-Japan Fisheries Agreement, poisoning bilateral relations. In 2000, during the Kim Dae-jung administration, the Japanese Foreign Ministry described Dokdo as Japanese territory in its Diplomatic Blue Book. When Kim visited Japan, Japanese rightwingers who laid claim to the islets attempted to intrude into his quarters.
Almost every year since then, Japan has been stirring disputes over the islets, especially after the Roh Moo-hyun administration came to power. When Korea issued Dokdo postage stamps in 2004, Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi said, "Takeshima,¡± as the Japanese call Dokdo, ¡°belongs to Japan." The Japanese Foreign Ministry also posted a document on its website to support the claim.
Some rightwing Japanese activists have attempted to land on the islets. On the centennial of the Shimane declaration in 2005, the prefecture designated a "Takeshima Day," causing diplomatic friction between the two countries. In 2006, a serious diplomatic row occurred when Japan attempted to conduct a hydrological survey in waters near Dokdo.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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